In the black community, there have been many questionable incidents between police officers and black citizens. An officer might approach an African American who broke the law differentially than a White American based on their own discretion. Whereby an officer would hesitate to immediately arrest a white person for breaking the same law, they would handle the arrest of a black person differently. This is problematic: Police discretion impacts the way the society views the criminal justice system by having too much range on enforcing the law. Time and time again we see this being the case in relation to black America.
These men and women are responsible for the safety and wellbeing of the community they protect and serve. Police officers are meant to enforce the law, but why in some cases, does the law not adhere to them? With that being said, police officers need to be held accountable for such intolerable acts and need to be shown some sort of punishment because too many innocent men, women, and even kids are paying the price for the officers’ mistakes. As a way to try to prevent police brutalities and misconduct, body-worn cameras have been issued to document the behavior of police officers. This might have sounded like a good idea to stop police brutality, but in reality it had little effect and simply publicized the fact that police are abusing their power.
Not only is it was hard work, but it also keeps them outside on cold, rainy nights, and reduces their chances for making a good arrest. Some people within different departments view foot patrol as being a form of punishment. Academic experts on policing had their doubts that foot patrol would have any impact on crime rates (Wilson & Kelling, n.d). Since the state was paying for it, the local authorities were willing to play along to see what would happen. People who lived in the areas where the foot-patrol took place, seemed to feel safer and more secure than the residents that lived in other areas without the foot-patrol.
Some may say that all police are corrupt, and are only there for power and/or to benefit themselves, and we should not trust them. Due to some violent interactions with police some are afraid,“Specific traumatic encounters with police can provoke mental-health problem, so can the mere awareness that the cops aren’t necessarily on your side”(Source B). If the cops are too aggressive, it can have lasting effects on the person affected causing multiple physical and mental problems. While this is true, the police are here to protect and serve the community. Most of these interactions are not one sided,“Of the 1,308 respondents who said that in their contact with the police only 14 said that they were injured in the encounter and 10 of those 14 said their own actions probably provoked the police to do so.”(Source A).
Minorities in the community have been subjected to violence by law enforcement in the United States for some time. This violence is called police brutality and it is unacceptable. The job of a police officer is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crime. They are a part of a dangerous and stressful career that can involve risky situations that must be controlled. Sometimes police are put in situations that excessive force is needed.
Police Brutality is referring to the use of unnecessary or inordinate use of force from a Police officer towards a civilian. The abuse of power has resulted in chaos not only for each individual police department but the civilians fearing their lives. Employees engaging in misconduct happens daily but, in the law enforcement industry, misconduct ends in severe consequences for the general public. That reason alone makes the job of an Police officer so much more influential. Officers should be taking into consideration the magnitude of their duty and how reliant the people of America really
The researchers collected data from the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and for the Police Services Study (PSS) which came from 24 jurisdictions in New York, Missouri, and Florida. Findings indicated moderately strong evidence for the threat hypothesis. The presence of minorities considered as threats to safety and peace predicted higher police brutality complaints (Smith & Holmes, 2003). This research supports the findings of Carbado (2016) that in communities where minorities are both considered as threats and which have numerous interactions with the police, aggression by the police force is higher too. Police officers who see
This paper explores the importance of a better policing and crime prevention by reducing minor social disorders. This topic is important because, it is obvious and apparent that the process of reducing crime and disorder shouldn’t only focus on the big crimes, but instead, it should first tackle all issues that impact the neighborhoods, things like graffiti, trash, social behaviors that might be deemed threatening (public intoxication, drug use), street lightning, the conditions of buildings, things that affect the quality of life. There’s something about tolerating minor infractions, which can be the reason for the increasing of more serious violent crimes, allowing low level crimes shows a lack of control and order in a community. On average
Abuse of power consists not only of exercising power unlawfully but unjustly and it is in these two respects that conflicts with human rights arise . A propensity to abuse power is characteristic when police share power with others who have power and there are differing reasons specific to functions they perform, why those with power abuse power, for example, police have a difficult and dangerous job to do they see the effect of crime on vulnerable victims and they experience the frustrations of being unable to bring perpetrators of very serious crime to justice. These factors mean that some police officers feel not only entitled to violate human rights, but
Additionally, many citizens believe law enforcement officers handle cases differently based on an individual’s age, gender, race, or et cetera. Due to some police officers using their power to unconstitutionally punish a citizen, these situations result in harmful incidents due to it being mishandled. In result of officers mishandling a simple situation violently, these incidents raised awareness in today’s culture and community. Law enforcement officers' duty is to protect citizens, not harm them; and officers should not be putting any citizens' lives in harm's way. Police brutality causes fear in many citizens of today’s