Police brutality remains a common yet controversial topic around the world. Police brutality is “the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians” (thelawdictionary.org). It’s a topic that segregates communities and makes each other their enemy. Specifically, a white officer has been the enemy of the black community. Unfortunately, the tension between police and blacks grew over the past few decades. As a result, there is a drastic increase of violent outburst between both sides. For the last years, it was reported that 51.5 percent of black were killed by police officers (ibtimes.com). On the other hand, there have been 51,548 assaults against law enforcement and it resulted in 14,453 injuries in 2015 alone (nleomf.org). In the United States, recently, police brutality has been a popular subject all over the news and social media.
According to the article Racism and Police Brutality in America, “Whites believe that Blacks are disproportionately inclined to engage in criminal behavior and are the deserving on harsh treatment by the criminal justice system” (Chaney 484). The justice system has unfortunately followed this idea. The African American race has been a minority in the legal system in the past; however, it has been much worse as of 2015. Some individuals assume it is acceptable to refrain from acknowledging this fact. Racism is an issue in the midst of police brutality, and it should be resolved. An occurrence observed by the population of Los Angeles, California conveys the existence of racism and police brutality. According to The Polls-Trends: Racial Differences in Attitudes Toward the Police, “…three quarters of blacks, but only 38 percent of whites, continued to view police brutality as a common occurrence” (Tuch and Weitzer
Although we hope our Police force will use their powers for good, but sometimes police misconduct can occur. Often, the police are under great pressure to act as quick as possible, espcially in a murder case and if the murder victime is white, a child, police officer, or prominent. For example, In the 1990’s the case of Rodney King, that not only shows a racist issue within the criminal justice system, but also the issue with abuse from police officers, but changed the country’s views on the LA police force. Twenty- Seven years ago,Rodney King was brutally beaten by Los Angeles police officers. King was intoxicated while driving and the police had caught him speeding, and initally he tried running away from the police, only to be followed by multiple police and a helicopter. The officers then proceeded to drag King out of his car and brutally beat him.This brutality was the first caught on tape by a bystander, the video had shown the officers tazing, kicking, and hitting Rodney with thier batons a little over 53 times. Witnesses had claimed that King was cooperative and never resisted the officers. The video had gone viral of the abuse and after the case being aquitted by an all white jury, the outcome of these actions resulted in what we know as the L.A riots. Another example of police brutality involving an African American, was a case that happened recently on August
Cops around the United States have been accused of racially profiling black people. This topic has been brought up by everyone around the U.S. and is very controversial. Studies have shown that the majority of deaths by police officers have been people of opposite color in America. Police brutality in America is a growing epidemic that has shown no signs of slowing down. Innocent men, women, and even children have been killed by police officers for no reason.
From recent polls, it was gathered that eighty-eight percent of blacks agree they are treated unfair by law enforcement, and a fifty-nine percent of whites also agree blacks are treated unfairly (Dobson). This shows it is not only blacks who feel this way, but other races see it too. In a poll, the question asked was, “Have you been treated unfairly in dealing with police in the past thirty days because of your racial/ethnic background?” After viewing the results, it shows only three percent of whites said yes, while nineteen percent blacks said yes (Drash). From everything that people see from the results of all the polls, it is shown the relationship between police and minorities is
This article brought many points into light that many other articles were too sacred to bring up or simply did not want to bring up because the evidence went against their claim. This article talked about how racial profiling is often times misunderstood. To argue his point, he talks about how crime is never evenly distributed in cities and many times the places where there is the most crime is a part of town that lives in poverty. Often times this also means these parts of town are highly diverse. Policemen then, doing their job, watch these parts of town because of the high crime. The policemen then get hate because they are “racial profiling”. This should not be happening. Policemen should not be getting hate because they are doing their job. If that part of town has more crime but just happened to have more minority figures in it should it be considered racial profiling? No. The article states, “Such departments will be reluctant to use analytical tools, such as geographic mapping, to identify areas in need of more attention if this elicits adverse media publicity.” If policemen are scared to do their job because the public might rebel then something is wrong.
Police Brutality is defined as being the abuse of power by the unwarrant finliction of excesscive usse of force, by an indivual that is involved in law enforcement, while in the emidst of performing their official duties. The term "excessive use of force" means a force that is well beyond what would be considered as being necessary in order to handle a situation.The term can also be abblied to abuses that havee been perpretrated by corrections professilas in state, federal, millitary and muncipal prisons. The word brutality has several different meanings. However, in the context of police brutality, it means savage or cruelty. While the term is typicall used to describe physical harm that, it can be applied to phssycholical harm such as the utilzaiton of intimidation tactics that go beyond the scope of official police proceedure. As far as physcological force goes, officers can utilzie, batons, pepper spray, guns and nerve gas to physicall traumatize or intentionally hurt vitivluans.
Do police brutality comes from racism? Police brutality is a serious issue that needs to be solved immediately. Police brutality is the use of any force exceeding and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians. This became a serious issue when African Americans lives are being killed by police officers. This topic is important to me because I have a 21 year old African American brother and I fear that his life will be taken away from my family because of a senseless racial crime. I wanted to write about this topic because I experience racial injustice. For example, at my high school I got called in to the resource officer office because they wanted to question me about a stolen cell phone that I had nothing to do with. It
The Hive has collected 18 such findings below. This list is not exhaustive, and does not purport to comment on the work of all police officers. It is, rather, merely a digest of the information available at present. Sometimes, studies and investigations reveal evidence of intentional bias; other studies point to broader societal and institutional factors that lead to implicit bias. Taken together, the research paints a picture of a nation where a citizen’s race may well affect their experience with police—whether an encounter ends with a traffic stop, the use of police force, or a fatal
Over the years, racism and police brutality incidents have become a controversial topic among the society. The main reason for this is because both topics go hand and hand with each other. Even though officers are faced with many life-threatening situations every day, forcing them to make split second decisions, racism and racial profiling are the main cause for police brutality rates and the government should start doing things to stop it because many innocent people are getting hurt and killed. Is it ok for a police officer to pull over a black driver for a simple traffic offense and use excessive force while searching them? But, doesn't do the same to a white person? Black Americans are overwhelmed with corruption, violence, and profiling
Names like Dontre Hamilton, Michael Brown Jr., Tamir Rice and Walter Scott are plastered on headlines and passionately spoken about on every major news station around the country. They are the names that paved way for the national discussion of police brutality against African Americans. And while these victims of horrific actions deserved much better outcomes than they got, the violence demonstrated by police officers is clearly a product of the social environment in which they parole and the racial stereotypes and discrimination that are deeply embedded in our culture.
Black people consist of around 13% of America’s population, yet commit around 51% of homicides in America. The police, when they go into these types of areas, have to be on high alert and evaluate every situation individually. Despite all the pressure of these situations, police are still less likely to shoot a black person than a white one. For example, there was a study by Washington State University that police officers were 20 percent less likely to shoot a black man rather than a white one. It also concluded that it took a longer time for a police officer to shoot an armed black man than a white one.
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. This means that even the criminals, who are a part of the public, have certain rights, particularly, civil rights. Police brutality causes a major concern in today’s society in America and a resolution is imminent. These racial prejudices are rooted in America’s deep psyche to grasp its power, we must move American original sin, slavery, and its corollary the terrible fear transmitted from generation to generation of a revolt.
Police brutality and racial profiling has always been a conflicting, and a long debated problem. The number of African-American males being killed or the number of African-American males facing excessive force by the law enforcement because of their skin color is rapidly growing throughout the years. Especially after the recent events that took many lives of young African-American people in the last couple of years in the United States, approximately 920 in 2015 alone, this became a very popular issue again, and caused unrest throughout the entire world. The chance of a black unarmed male getting killed is more than twice compared to a white individual. There had been many attempts to answer this problem, however it is still not solved. This issue, as well as trying to be explained and examined with many other sciences and studies, could be explained with psychology, sociology and social psychology.
It’s hard to feel safe when the ones who are suppose to be protecting you are killing you. Police were trained to guard, prevent crime, and enforce laws, not to kill and destroy the citizens. Lately, within the past two years police brutality has been a major issue in our society. This worldwide phenomenon has once again divided the races of black and white even further apart.