The Case Against Police Brutality

-By definition the term police brutality is “applied in the context of causing physical harm, it may also involve psychological harm through the use of intimidation tactics beyond the scope of officially sanctioned police procedure.” In today’s society we have police known as riot police, who are known throughout the world to use extreme force. Statistics show almost every time the riot police are involved in crowd control, there is at least one fatality and multiple injured. This is why I believe this is one of the most important issues in the World today. Police are there to protect us but from April 2009 to June 2010 in the United States there were 5986 reports of misconduct from police officers. Police brutality has today’s citizens doubting the police department, and how they go about their arrest. Police brutality is an everyday occurrence, especially in cities where there are large communities of Blacks, Latinos and Asians.

Police brutality and office involved shootings have sparked national debate and created a strain between police officers and citizens. Recently, there have been more home videos that display acts of aggression by police officers. These police officers often use excessive forces or a condescending tone towards people of color which is why there needs to be a better way to mend police and civilian relationship. People should be able to trust the police in their communities rather than fear them.

Within the article, “The Myth of Police Reform,” the author points out how police respond to a lot of problems in our society that should not require police intervention. This is clearly an explicit argument because the author states that, “Fear and compliance have their place, but it can’t be every place.” This editorial is meant for everyone because it brings up numerous examples of people being shot, chased, or arrested over issues that shouldn’t involve violence. It also gives examples including different ages, races, and gender. Most of these narrations end up with someone getting shot over a silly reason whether it is someone running around naked or some kid tripping on mushrooms. These examples help us infer that every problem cannot be handled by force. Some may disagree with this, but the police can make mistakes just like the rest of us. Honestly, this paper seems very one sided. As soon as he says something noble about the police, he has something just as bad to counter it.

As of September 1, 2015, in the United States police officers have killed 776 people and 161 of those people were unarmed at the time of their death (MintPress). There have been too many incidents where police officers have injured or killed someone that could have been prevented. Using maximum force with a suspect has become a routine in many confrontations. Officers have not been given the proper training to deal with individuals and how to handle them without using a weapon. If they were given more training on how to deal with situations resulting in using a weapon to stop an individual during certain scenarios police brutality situations would decrease, lives would be saved, and police would get their good reputation back. However, police departments would have to spend more money on re-training. Some people agree with police brutality and think that a civilian deserved their punishment, which is not right because no one deserves to be beaten or killed. Situations involving police brutality have been increasing throughout the years, which is a problem that must to be solved.

Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict defines police brutality as the use of excessive or unnecessary force by police against the public. Excessive force is explained to be any behavior or force beyond what is reasonably necessary in order to control a situation. It is a common misnomer that people believe some police use excessive force more often than not. What’s more concerning is most of the time people believe that this excessive force is usually focused upon the African American men, women, and children. This misnomer is typically found to be found in city settings where the population consists of mostly African Americans. The population make up causes the common belief to seem more true than it may otherwise appear.

The contemporary social problem I would like to conduct sociological research on is the use of excessive force used by members of the police department in recent unconscionable shootings of unarmed civilians. With all the recent attention that the people of Ferguson Missouri and New York City have been able to rise on this issue, making it a media sensation, it seemed like a good topic to discuss. Police brutality is an egregious, ongoing problem in our society that, until just recently, has been accepted as a sad fact of life by the people it affects and is largely ignored by the rest of society, including politicians and the mass media. Police brutality affects the people that society has come to stigmatize such as minorities, the mentally ill and impoverished people, more so than the well off or middle to upper class white people.

In recent years and in light of recent tragedies, police actions, specifically police brutality, has come into view of a large, public and rather critical eye. The power to take life rests in the final stage of the criminal justice system. However, the controversy lies where due process does not. While the use of deadly force is defined and limited by departmental policies, it remains an act guided chiefly by the judgment of individual officers in pressure situations. (Goldkamp 1976, 169). Many current studies have emphasized the racial disparities in minority deaths, primarily black Americans, killed by police through means of deadly force. The history of occurrences reveals the forlorn truth that police reforms only receive attention in wake of highly publicized episodes of police misconduct. The notorious 1992 Los Angeles riots brought the matter to mass public attention and prompted improved law enforcement policy. Significant local reforms resulted, for instance, ending the policy of lifetime terms for police chiefs. Additionally, on a broader platform, in 1994, Congress approved provisions to the Crime Control Act in effort to tackle police abuse in a more structured way.

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.

Every person should have equal rights and opportunities not based on their ethnicity, race, or culture. There are countrywide issues that have lead to racial injustice. In recent discussions on racial injustice, one major issue has been the many cases of police brutality and hate crimes against minorities. Many falsely accused people are being incarcerated simply based on the color of their skin or how they look. Racism has been a huge part of Americas past and will continue to be a part of our history as time progresses. It is our history itself that keeps racism in America regrettably alive. It is what has shaped our society today. The actions of unlawful police officers have been presented through media. By revealing the problems with our law enforcement this has allowed the public to see the roots of this issue. There are many factors that contribute to the issue of police brutality, they are all derived from the roots of the tree of our history. It is time that people take a stand against hate crimes such as police brutality.

Police officers are often viewed as oppressors and unjust by the community, when in reality they are just doing their jobs. The job of a police officer is to apprehend criminals and detect crime, and the maintenance of public order and to the extend and complication of this duty police officers often need to make split second decision that is not often view by the public as what we call “self-defense” which is a right we all have as human beings and stated in the Universal Declaration of

Whether it be the college kids who was ruffed up by the cops, or an unarmed teenager being shot in cold blood by the same men and women who have sworn to protect and serve. In recent years the accounts of police brutality has increased exponentially. Police are using excessive force, abusing their power, and even forcing themselves on civilians. People have started living in constant fear of the police. In an article on CNN called “Victims describe assaults by convicted ex-Oklahoma City cop Daniel Holtzclaw,” the authors detail the court proceedings against Officer Daniel Holtzclaw and testimonies of women he assaulted. “For about six months, Holtzclaw preyed on women . . . figuring their drug or prostitution records would undermine any claims they might make against him” (Martinez & Mullen, Par 12, 2015). There is a vicious cycle that goes along with police brutality. A police officer will kill a suspect in self defense, and the media will get ahold of the story before most real facts are known. The officers involved, and officers in general are demonized. Then people are scared of cops and then may have a negative run in with the cops, and the cycle starts all over

Growing up as a young black male there are daily struggles that you go through as anyone else would, and then there are the struggles that you face being black in our day and age. As America’s history has proven to us, the day in the life of African Americans have been far from easy. From the various stereotypes to racism on a daily it is an issue that quite honestly is hard to understand if you are not an African American. As time has passed we have been through slavery, the Jim Crow Era, the Civil Rights Era, and our present day issue Police Brutality. Although Police Brutality has always been an issue faced in the African American Community the last few years has proven that it is becoming a bigger issue in the community and one that needs

When it comes to police and how they provide justice to people is trying to catch a criminal that committed a crime. They provide justice by showing people that they are there to help but also bring the criminal in so he can go through the system properly and be fairly charged. Also like what I said in my first paper is that “they patrol the area assigned to them try to help with keeping it safe and preventing crime from happening. Like when the police force get information about a crime happening or being planned, they step in and try to resolve the issue they best they can.” The police are really there to help maintain a level of fairness for all, treat people with respect, and equally. Just because two different races of people commit the crime doesn’t mean they deserve different types of punishments. Since taking this class my perspective and philosophy of how the police maintain justice stay the same even though as I saw through the course that is not what is

“These controversial deaths have also contributed to the American public having the lowest confidence in their police force in twenty-two years according to a 2015 Gallup Poll,” (John Murillo). Police are meant to be the protectors of innocent civilians and to lower crime rates. People who don’t trust their police force take justice into their own hands in the form of protesters and cop killers. Rachel talks about how in St. Louis a peaceful protest turned violent against police officers. A police officer, Schellman, of St. Louis for 12 years talking about the most violent night in St. Louis said “I haven't seen anything remotely close," (Rachel).

This topic isn’t anything new and has going on for a long period of time; social injustice, racism, violating citizens’ rights, unfair discrimination, but most of all taking innocent people's’ lives. Ever since Ferguson, more and more people are scared of the police. All the protestors are trying to do is relay the message and trying to fix the problem, but according to the police they just “make things worse”. During the days the town was protesting, they weren’t doing anything violent, on the contrary they had posters to show truce and just wanted to get answers. The police told them to return to their homes and to stop the marches, but the citizens refused causing the flame to grow, so the police started to physically remove protestors from the streets injuring some and threatening those who didn’t do as they were told.