Police Misconduct The brutality of the police force has been a long worldwide problem, but especially between the years of 2012-2016. Black people are being unjustly beaten and shot in plain sight for doing nothing while being unarmed. Journal of African American Studies “Blacks are viewed as deserving of harsh treatment in the criminal justice system” (482). “Black males with more “Afrocentric” features may receive longer sentences than blacks with less Afrocentric features like lighter skin and straighter hair”(482). Nowadays it is important to know about the police force. It’s important to know our rights as citizens and be careful around cops. Not everybody is good, but not everybody is bad also. In The New York Amsterdam News 21 people were killed by Chicago police in 2008. Entire families were being attacked. They believe it’s because of their skin color and how they are different. The year of racism started off with the world seeing the police murder of Oscar Grant. “The media have pushed people away from hearing the issue of police brutality, and it has fallen off of the radar screen.”(2) “You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit!”(2) African Americans say do not trust the cops with anything. “They will ruin you.”(2)
Police brutality is not a new subject. It has been around for numerous years, and like most issues, has resurfaced to the public’s eyes. The recent events brought up the question: Does there need to be a reform in the system in the police system? In this year alone, there have been countless cases of individuals being harmed or even killed by police officers for reasons that continuously are not explained. What has people more attentive to this injustice are statistics showing that most victims in these police attacks happen to be African Americans and other minorities.
There is a major issue with police brutality within the confinements of the United States of America, within society in general. The problem of police brutality is not just a problem with African American, it is spread throughout all the races. “Mr. Castellani who is 20 years old, yelling and pointing at officers, who are posted down the street, after his ejection from an Atlantic City casino for being underage. Four officers rush him, take him down and begin beating him -- a fifth officer soon joins in.”(The Baltimore,Leonard Pitts Jr.). It just so happened that this man was black and had been brutally attacked by police because he said something they didn't like it. It isn't always African Americans that are attacked thought, in 2014 Donovan Duran, a Colorado MMA fighter, was beat and dragged to the hospital by police men claiming Duran was intoxicated and hallucinating. He was brutally attacked because of what he believed in, it didn't have anything to do with his skin color, as he was attacked by white police man and Duran turned out to be a Caucasian man with a family and a job. All of that was taken away from him the moment the cops dragged him into the hospital claiming he wasn't right in the head and the cops found him like that. In 2014 Donovan Duran, a Colorado MMA fighter, was beat and dragged to the
Police brutality is becoming a trend in America. Tensions among the public and especially the African American community are rising due to the latest cases of police brutality. Many people believe that we have come far in this society but to be honest Racism is still a factor. The use of brutal and lethal force by some police officers leading to unnecessary deaths have African American parents on edge to send their children outside for anything. Law enforcement and people whom we trust with our lives are the very same to take it. Some people may want to argue that these cases such as the shooting of Michael brown and choking of Eric Garner are isolated incidents. Others would argue that the work of a police officer is too difficult and that sometimes an officer needs to use such force in order to enforce the law and protect him/herself while on duty. Law enforcement proclaims to feel threatened however what about the civilians who feel threatened of becoming the next target or victim of prey. The society is well aware that not all police commit these crimes and that we do still have law abiding officers. However, with the effort from everyone we can eradicate the bad apples and create a safer road for the officers and civilians.
Racism and police brutality in America” by Cassandra Chaney and Ray V. Robertson touch upon racism and brutality in America. Their article talks about respecting the cops but they also mention police brutality through stories from people that experienced this. Although Satzewich and Shaffir reached out to people to cops to write about their personal experiences and thoughts about racial profiling, Chaney and Robertson’s article is a stronger source because they used several sources and focus on both sides of the situation.
Racial Disparities in Policing Racial profiling, stereotyping, and different styles of policing has led to the disproportionate targeting of minorities by law enforcement agencies. Warren et al. (2006) notes that law enforcement often use two forms of racial profiling. One is defined by Warren et al. (2006) as out of
Police brutality in America is not new! Records trace back all the way to 1838 on wrongful doings of police officers on innocent African-Americans. African- Americans aren’t the only race that has to the deal with police brutality in their community. According to Vittania, 84% of police officers have stated in a recent survey that they have directly witnessed a fellow officer using more force than was necessary. Turning a blind eye allowed many cases police officers that have used excessive force on unarmed individuals to get away with
As I was conducting research about police brutality I came up with three questions I wanted to find out. I wanted to know what race group is affected by police brutality the most, why they were affected by this the most and what to do to stop police brutality involving shooting civilian. This Paper talk about how police brutality is a major issue in America right now. There’s many different types of police brutality but police officers killing civilians is something that is issue in our nation currently. After doing reaching this topic I was able to find out that African Americans have been affected by this the most out of any race. African Americans are affected by this the most because in some cases African Americans are usually stereotyped and this causes them to be treated different by police. Ways we can help this issue is by supporting these organizations that are against police brutality and encouraging police officers around the nation to always have a body camera on them at all times.
The Criminal Justice System: African-Americans Throughout History in The United States Introduction: In recent years’ police departments have been brought into the public eye based on the public belief that police brutality has become a norm within the police system in recent years. Yet this has occurred for decades in police departments, not only that but there are multiple forms of brutality to take account of in the criminal justice system specifically towards African-Americans. The criminal justice system has become accustomed to creating a system of racial control after the ending of the Jim Crow Era. Causing every level of the system to work in a way that limits the freedom of African-Americans the most common being that of police misusing
A national problem that is affecting me personally is the issue of police brutality. I am an African American female living in a society where there is an overlooked where between my community and the police task force. Before I delve into this topic, I need the reader to understand that I know all policeman are not bad and that all African Americans are not innocent. The problem I am addressing is the apparent discrepancy of police officers assuming that just because someone has a darker complexion that means that they are doing something illegal.
In The United States of America much of mainstream media picks up on police violences that includes shootings and beatings that get dished out to anybody caught on camera. One of the earlier and most controversial events in the media was that of Detroit in 1967 between police and African American protesters. This event started when a group of African American partygoers were arrested for having a party at an illegal bar and the Detroit Police Department aggressively arrested the partygoers, sparking a conflict with citizens. When police make a lawful arrest there is never a reason to resist or fight back, but when police starting throwing and pushing citizens around during an arrest there is understanding among protests to be started. The protests
The use of racially bias policing isn’t a new phenomenon, however, there is very little data on its use and practice. A lot of that accounts for the fact that determining that a law enforcement officer used racial bias as a method to stop, question and frisk a person is substantially hard. Furthermore, racially bias policing has been an issue facing police since the creation of the first police agencies in the country and since the civil rights movement; however, the public has now become more aware of the phenomenon because of various accounts portrayed in the media; such as the death of Amadou Diallo in 1999.
Police brutality has been the most prominent form of racism captured by the media and since the 1992 Los Angeles Riots protesting the death of Rodney King, it still dominates headlines. After more than two decades later, the number of innocent, and unarmed black American deaths have only increased along with the acquisition of the police accountable. According to “More Than 250 Black People Were Killed By Police In 2016,” Julia Craven states that “34 percent of the unarmed people killed in 2016 were black males.” This is unreasonable because according to the same article, “black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.” The numbers are disproportionate enough to show that there is a clear target against blacks. This statistic of black males compared to their white counterparts also show a significant disparity as statistics John Wihbey and Leighton Walter Kille provide in “Excessive or reasonable force by police? Research on law enforcement and racial conflict,” clearly state that unarmed blacks were killed at twice the rate of whites with “31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males.” There is clear cut evidence of racial profiling in policing as blacks who make up a only a small amount of the U.S. population are killed at a much higher rate than whites who make up a majority of the population. This is obvious discriminatory intent by the hands of the police,
Police brutality is a problem in our society mainly because there are police officers that are getting away with not only physically hurting innocent people, but murder as well. In the past year, there have been between 865-939 cases of people being shot and/or killed by cops (Calacal 1). Racial profiling is one of the main factors in this problem. African Americans and Latinos are the people we see being abused by police on the daily. So far this year, 215 African-Americans and 94 Latinos have been killed by police. Data shows that a black person is 3 times more likely to be killed by a police than a white person. Several officers
Over the past five centuries, black people have endured violence in many different ways. Today, police officers use deadly, excessive force that leads to inexcusable assaults, beatings and shootings.