“Frequent exposure to media reports of police abuse or corruption is a strong predictor of perceptions of misconduct and supports the belief that is common.” (France-Respers 1). But unfortunately, it also brings me disheartened feelings. Recently, I was on twitter and I stumbled across a video of a young white male who was roughly about twenty to twenty-five years of age who was being handled so aggressively by about six officers while he was NOT resisting.
When facing this issue, some people are to believe that cops have more important things to do, whether it be a larger, full-scale crime, or them just not caring. It is apparently believed that those working to fix issues regarding crime, have no taste for the smaller, “irrelevant” ones that face society frequently. Whereas the distrust in our safety system stems from is without reach of comprehension, but the fact of the matter still stands behind the fallacies. Cops, although given a bad reputation through movies and society, have a job to prevent and fix any crimes that come their way, large-scale or small-scale. The small misbehaviors that
When talking about the ongoing controversy and public debate on the outlook of police and community relationship a message or headline or even a video that is posted online involving an officer and an individual is going to be overflowed with every opinionated, negativity there is to say about how unprofessional the officer
Nowadays some police officers continue to abuse their authority which makes the community disappointed and confuse whether or not to trust a police officer. Everyone as a community expects for a law enforcement career employee to keep us safe and away from harm. Police officers should not be wasting their time with innocent citizens, if they have to use force on the criminal they must do it in a proper way, and lastly there must be a fair case. On August 9, 2014, and incident was reported in Ferguson, Missouri.
Starting on the path of positive development, increased visibility of police officer’s conduct allows for them to not only be held accountable for any misconduct, but realize that potential is there and thus, change their actions accordingly. The prevalence of camera phones allows the public to become “citizen journalists” and record events happening around them, while uploading these recordings on social media, allows a vaster public eye to discuss (and form opinions on) the situation from a secondary view (Brown, 2016, p.293). These online discussions which then form movements, petitions and hashtags do not go unnoticed by officers. Instead, they have a significant impact on how they conduct themselves during risky situations with offenders. In, The Blue Line on Thin Ice: Police Use of Force Modifications in the Era of Cameraphones and YouTube, Brown goes into an account of a Canadian “street cop” responding to a call about a problematic drunken man who had
In Law Enforcement and enforcing the law there is six areas in which police departments have been found to be defective or deficient. This is a very difficult topic for me to agree with because police officers are put in to very stressful and unknown circumstances on a daily bases. In many cases these scenarios require a decision to be made in a split second or it could be life or death. This split second decision has months and months to be twisted and picked apart by lawyers, jury, and mostly the media. Another reason police receive such attention is because it is their job to be in the view of the public at all times and today’s technology is making it even more difficult for them to effectively and efficiently do their jobs.
Police Brutality in the United States of America Police brutality has been a problem in the United States of America for a long time. The regulations that cops should abide by hasn’t changed, but the actions of officers have. Police officers have a different view of the rules that they should follow. The power that police have has gone to their heads, and they take advantage of the power. Police are needed in America because of how society is, but there are things that the police do that shows a complete misuse of their power.
Police brutality has became one of the most serious issues in the United States and citizens believe that the police forces have become corrupt. Approximately 32,340 people have incidents with the police that involve force. Which if you do the math that is only 1% of the population. When a police officer shoots and kills somebody they always have the same excuse. “He was running towards me reaching for my gun” or “He was posing as an immediate threat”.
Throughout history the role of power, specifically in the police institution has been a controversial topic. Police work started as an institution purely based on personal and community judgment, often leading to wrongful verdicts. Specifically policing in the 1970’s through the 1990’s experienced a significant amount of change. In order to diminish or reduce corruption the Knapp commission, and Blue Ribbon Panels were put into place. However, throughout time police policies, and state laws evolved into a new institution devoted to “ service and professionalism, and responsibility for public safety and ethical conduct”(Dodge, Rennison, 120).
According to the FBI, 49,851 officers were assaulted in the line of duty, with an injury rate of 29.2 percent and twenty- seven were murdered in 2012. This makes police officials go into a panic mode and I believe it affects their judgment when it comes to using certain forces on suspects. For example, there was a case where a man wasn’t cooperating with police officials, so the police officials used a taser gun on him. Still, the man refused to go down and three other police officers jumped in to help out. The four officers decided to use excessive force by beating the man with a police stick and tasered him multiple times.
There are other reasons why polices officers used excessive force and lethal force rather than just their own decisions. As it was anteriority mentioned, the community is not trusting any more in police officers. Surveys in recent years with minority groups – Latinos and African American- suggest that the confidence in police is low. In 2014 this perspective was expanded to all American races across the country. Community gave “low marks to the police departments around the country… for misconduct, using appropriated amount of force, and treating racial and ethnics groups equally” (Wehbey, 2015).
Race can become a legitimate tool for law enforcement when investigators or police officers have information on a subject or a particular suspect or if the suspect described is of a particular race or ethnic origin. Furthermore, the illegitimate way of using race and ethnicity would be when an officer stops a citizen based solely on their race and ethnicity or any other demographic feature. The officer must base his stop, “whether in a vehicle or on foot, on reasonable suspicion or probable cause that a violation of the law has been or is about to be committed based on facts and information that they can articulate”
In some perspective, the job of a police officer is very dangerous and it requires a lot of work and compared to other jobs it is very difficult and sometimes the police officer when handling some situations, they would take it too far when using extreme measures when dealing with unarmed black men, and this issue as a whole have to really be
Police Brutality is an ongoing problem and existent concern in the United States and should be resolved immediately. Law enforcement must function as an element that consists of organized and civilized officers. The presence of police brutality is becoming more of an issue as society grows. The problem posed by the illegal exercise of police power is an ongoing reality for individuals of a disfavored race, class, or sexual orientation. Police brutality must be stopped so that police do not forget who they are serving – not themselves, but the public.
In Lopez’s article he cites facts such as “US homicide rate throughout the 2000s was more than three times the rate of Canada, four times that of the UK, and more than 10 times that of Germany. And “Investigations by the media and the US Department of Justice have uncovered patterns of abuse and excessive use of force”. These quotes help to highlight how American police officers, more than any other type of police
