My topic is the militarization of police forces within the United States. I feel as if this is a very important topic within the Criminal Justice System that needs to be addressed.
Even without paying strict attention to the news media, a person will still find it difficult to avoid hearing stories about heavily armed SWAT teams, smashing in a door in the dead of night, just to search for drugs. It is a practice that is becoming more and more common. And as it becomes more common, so do the horror stories associated with it: mistaken identities and needlessly ravaged homes, unnecessary shootings of both people and pets, flashbang grenades being detonated near infants, etc. America’s neighborhoods are not a battleground, it’s citizens are not enemy combatants, and it’s police are not soldiers.
There are some very fundamental and very important differences between the military and the police. The armed forces exist in order to protect the country by engaging an enemy in combat, often on foreign ground. The goal of the military is to physically destroy this enemy; it’s soldiers are trained to kill. Take the eleventh line of the U.S. Army’s Soldier’s
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In many regards, the focus of “keeping the peace” has taken a backseat to a “warrior” mentality. This mindset emphasizes an “us-versus-them” attitude, where anyone is assumed a threat and officers are told to act aggressively and decisively. It is this change that leads to unnecessary confrontations like much of what has been seen in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri in recent weeks as well as injuries and deaths of many unarmed, nonviolent, and innocent civilians during police “no-knock”
In the film, Do Not Resist, Craig Atkinson illustrates the use of military weapons being issued to police; in addition, the differences of “Warrior” and “Guardian” mentalities in law enforcement. A warrior mentality, as described in Atkinson’s film, is referred to the mental tendencies of soldiers, focusing more on protection. Warrior mentality in officers is used to combat extreme situations, like terrorists attacks or hostage situations. On the other hand, guardian mentalities are focused more on serving the community more than protecting. Law enforcement officers have both the warrior and guardian concepts, some officers have more warrior than guardian while others have guardian more than warrior. It is important to understand the difference between the mentalities. To understand we see which communities have higher crime rates than others and see the kind of funds spent on weaponizing police. With those factors one can deduce what law enforcement stations have the ‘warrior’ persona. At what point do we say “enough is enough”, and take away big brother’s toys? As a nation, we’re only strong united. As the great JFK so powerfully said during the Civil War, “United we stand, divided we fall.” Our division of law enforcers, people of color, political affiliation, and other factors will be this society's inevitable downfall. Today’s society’s annihilation is inevitable because we do not have the proper leaders to guide this nation into prosperity.
The militarization of police is essentially the use of military equipment and tactics by law enforcement officers. This can include the use of such things as assault rifles, submachine guns, armored personnel carriers, flashbang grenades, grenade launchers, sniper rifles, and special weapons and tactics teams (SWAT). The militarization of police is a point of concern for both Democrats and Republicans in the United States and has a long history dating back to the late 19th century. History of Police Militarization in the United States: Late 19th Century
Police officers are individuals who enforce the law upon their community to ensure that their citizens remain safe. In the past couple of years, officers of the law have been involved in acts of brutality that seem to go beyond the proper measurements of protection for their citizens. Policemen are supposed to protect their citizens from danger and from harm, not impose a threat on them. The fact that officers have a history of abusing their power indicates that their trust amongst the community has been corrupted. Those who have been affected of police brutality feel as though they have been deceived. They no longer feel that police officers will protect them, but rather abuse them, and that is a problem. We have began to live in a community in which an individual feels frightened when seeing a cop, rather than feeling protected. Some individuals may argue that police brutality is not a problem due to the fact that it is not consistent enough to catch the attention of needing a solution. However, that idea means little when the level of brutality has led to the death of several innocent victims in some cases. We must not wait for there to be a pattern of death at the hands of police officials to consider this a problem. One death indicates that preventive measures must be taken to ensure that these officers are no longer put in the position to abuse their power to begin with.
Police Academy and policing are some of the most controversial things in today 's world. This particularly pertains to our society, in which it seems that there is a different incident involving the police every week. It is extremely controversial, the media uses its power of manipulation to “expose” the police often abusing their power. This is leading to a division of our nation. There is a large clash of who 's to blame in this situation, we can even see this in class based on the various opinions of my fellow students.Some of my classmates and many others blame things like police academy, methods of policing, and the cultural separation between police and the community. I interviewed somebody who lived through both. He was in the police force for 21 years and continued on to teach and direct police academy for 25 years.
I am researching about the brutality of police and police militarization. Recently with shootings involving police officers have led to protests and controversy with people not standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. This has led to outrage by many citizens, as well as Donald Trump stating that the NFL should take action against this. This issue has had people agree and disagree on the actions of the football players and this separation has increased following the shooting in Las Vegas, which took the lives of almost 60 people and wounded over 500 more. Police brutality has been a huge deal, especially with the LA Riots resulting from the beating of Rodney King, and recently with Ferguson and San Diego last year. The issue with Police Militarization
This topic police brutality is so important to our because Police is brutality is so big right now and we cant people have innocent people in the streets getting shot for doing what they're supposed to be doing. Why we are talking about this is because we have to make a change and stop what is going on. Police have been targeting black lives and there a holding them at gunpoint and shooting them before they even get a trail or can go to court. We as in all of us shouldn't be scared to walk outside or they shouldn't be scared to see a police. Police are here to protect us and it feels like we are at war with them right now but there are supposed to protect us.
My topic is going to be on police brutality. I chose this topic because police brutality is becoming worse and more documented with the use of cell phones. There are several ways to define police brutality. One way is regarding excessive force or displays of power that are stronger than is necessary to keep a situation safe and in control. I wanted to do more investigating on this topic, since more cases of police brutality which have been recorded have been surfacing on new outlets, to enlighten myself on it. I believe this was the best choice of topics for me to choose. Police brutality has had a long history in the U.S. In the early days of policing, acts of mass brutality were usually attributed to the weak labor workers. While the
My topic will be about police brutality and how it effects everyone but especially the African American community. First I would like to get into how in America we have been having some problems for decades regarding police brutality, for example lately over last 3 to 5 years we have been seeing people with camera catching police shooting unarmed African Americans, yet when the officer gets to court they never get convicted rarely do you ever see police officers ever get convicted when they shoot at unarmed citizens. Another thing I feel that the problem is from how African Americans where treated as slaves in the 1800s those evil acts that happened to me is the cause of the problems that we are having, I believe some police see blacks
The socialization aspects of policing are a huge factor to think about before entering the profession. Each police officer has a different mind and sometimes a different mindset. Not everyone is able to carry on a positive look on their work the whole time, while being in this profession. It also can have ample effects on an individual and cause some very big personal issues in a police officer’s life. The sociological theory of policing states “attitudes are shaped by the demands of the profession” ().
The militarization of the police is becoming more and more prevalent issue in our society. There are positives and negatives to this issue, but in my opinion it is a negative occurrence. Excessive use of force further divides police and community, which eventually may lead to severe consequences that may be irreparable.
There is no question that police brutality, when it occurs, is one of the most egregious violations of public trust that a public servant can commit. Police officers, those individuals taxed with protecting the public from danger, should never be in a situation where they pose a threat to the public. Furthermore, there is no question that police brutality occurs. Moreover, generally when there are allegations of police brutality, there has been some type of underlying violent incident. In addition, while issues of brutality may seem clear-cut to a disinterested observer, it is critical to keep in mind that law enforcement officers are not presented with textbook examples of the appropriate or inappropriate use of force, but real-life scenarios involving quick decisions. There are many arrest and non-arrest scenarios where officers need to use force to protect self or others; and the degree of force required may be greater than what a disinterested observer would assume. Another recurrent issue in debates about police brutality is that racial bias appears to be a motive behind police brutality. When one considers that minorities are disproportionately likely to be arrested and convicted of crimes, one would expect to find a disproportionate number of minorities among those alleging police brutality. Therefore, while acknowledging that police brutality, when it occurs, is a serious problem, the reality is that most
The role of police officers is very significant to American history. Police work toward protecting citizens’ rights and helping America become the land of the free. The United States of America is built from the U.S. Constitution Bill of Rights and police play a major role in making sure American rights are met. Evolution has changed many of American history for the better; policing is part of those changes. As new issues in society arise, police must change and adapt to protect and serve the public.
Since a very young age we have been taught to put our trust into police officers. If we are in distress, they are always there to help since it is their job to protect and serve the common citizen. So what happens when the individuals we are supposed to trust to bring justice are the ones causing the injustice we see in the news? Recently, several police officers have been under fire for their excessive use of force. The number of casualties caused by police officers in the recent years have citizens demanding a reform in the system that officers work under.
My social advocacy group’s position regarding the militarization of police is that it is necessary for every local police agency to be armed and trained to neutralize any threat it may face to protect the citizens within their district. There have been 142 shootings around schools in the years following the December 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut (Fantz, Knight, & Wang, 2014). From 2004-2008, there were an average of 564 work related shootings for every year (U.S. Department of Labor, 2010). In 2014 there were a total of 3,961 bank robberies. Of those 1,881 involved some type of a gun, 93 were an explosive device, and 31 had another type of weapon. These resulted in 13 deaths, 63 injured, and 31 hostages (FBI, 2015). This
Many people know of the police officers of today’s world and that it is their job to enforce the laws set by their government, but not many people know the history of your typical everyday United States police officer or how they came about. The idea for neither your everyday police officer nor his or her department they work for or how a police department operates, originated in the United States. Over the years though America has made changes and adapted its system over the years to make it more suitable for its countries beliefs and practices.