The Problem Of Police Brutality

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.

-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 is defined as “excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians,” and this has become more prominent within the United States throughout the years (Danilina). There has many cases where police brutality has been seen via news channels, and it has dismantled the unity of trust between the civilians of the United States and the law enforcement who are supposed to protect the everyday people from harm. The issue is if the law enforcement is actually right within their means of protection, or have they gone too far with using excessive force in any situation that may or may not be harmful to them. There is, also, the question of whether racial profiling is the biggest contributor to police brutality.

Police brutality is the deliberate use by police of more than necessary force, used to accomplish legitimate police missions of subduing violent people, catch criminals and suspects or protecting life and public order.

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)

First, it is crucial to note that police brutality is not synonymous to racism against a particular group. However, there is a stigma that police often racially profile a specific African Americans. In February 2015, two cases of police brutality did not involve African Americans; instead the two victims were a Hispanic shot and killed in Washington State and an Indian-American severely paralyzed in Alabama. Even with this considered, of late, a majority of police brutality cases have involved minorities and specifically African American males. Cases such as Michael Brown and Freddie Gray have sparked a cultural uprising. These trigger event inspired the protests and riots against police brutality demonstrating collective action and physical violence, but the idea of police brutality is much larger than these individual cases, since it is a reoccurring cycle.

“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” These were the last words of Eric Garner, a middle-aged African American man. Garner died at the hands of multiple police officers who were trying to restrain him for selling cigarettes. These sorts of images are showcased on television way too often. To the point that some people feel helpless, they know that they alone do not have the power to overthrow the superiority of an officer. So they have really no choice but watch the tragedy unfold. Also fear that if they interfere, that they may be the next victim. “I am most struck by the behavior of the EMTs, who stood along with the police and did nothing as they watched Eric Garner die” (Williams 10). Although some people deny that police brutality is a problem, recent studies and events (such as the one listed above) prove that ultra-aggressive police officers, militarization of police agencies, and the effects of racism have increased police brutality.

Police brutality can be defined as a cruel or inhuman treatment by a police officer. Police brutality situations can happen in different ways, for example a person can be stopped by the police for what appears to be a routine traffic stop, for not using a turn signal and the situation can get out of control. The driver can become defensive to the police officer and does not understand why they

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 brutality is abuse of power in the form of excessive force committed by the police. Examples of this range from physical assault to psychological intimidation. Contrary to popular belief, many forms of police brutality include emotional and psychological aspects on top of physical. It can also take the form of false arrests, verbal abuse, and racial profiling. In countless accumulating cases across the country, police brutality has proved lethal (Danalina 1).

What is police brutality? Police brutality is an act of misconduct done by a member law enforcement through the use of an extreme amount of force to physically, mentally, or emotionally attack a member of society. Many law enforcement officers, those sworn to protect and serve, have abused their rights and authority to ferociously assault and manipulate citizens, even if they were innocent. Citizens who have been attacked have been left with physical and emotional scars that can never go away; in some cases, it has even caused death. In a report by David Packman, prepared for the Cato Institute in 2011, states that 247 deaths were linked to police misconduct cases.(Packman 2011)

Justice has become nothing more than a word in American society. Badges allow militarized police officers to brutalize and kill unarmed citizens. Police brutality is not a new issue, it first appeared in 1872 when the Chicago Tribune reported the beating of a civilian by a police officer. Although police brutality has been present for decades, the severity has tremendously increased in the past twenty years. It is critical for citizens to become aware of the growing statistics and casualties of the epidemic. By educating Americans on the problem, it may lead to preventing further incidents.

Police brutality is a factual thing and people have been observing ever since, to see if it’s a real problem for society, which it is. There have been lots of shooting happening lately, where the police shoot an unarmed person, for no reason. What if that happened to your loved ones? We haven’t heard the real background as to, why it happens? But as we can see from the research that people have done over the year, that the police targets most of the minority people. For example, when a police over at Florida, decided to shoot an unarmed black teenage man because he was walking at the night with his hoody on. Another similar case, where another black teenage man at Ferguson was shot by the police because he was a black person, walking down the