Problem Statement
This issue being addressed and investigated is the police use of deadly force and the contents that lead up to the use of deadly force. Looking at police policies and the statistics of officer involved shootings of unarmed victims just simply doesn’t add up. The use of deadly force has continued to increase as decades past and determining the issues behind it is crucial for helping maintain a positive image from the public of police officers. Incidents such as Michael Brown and Ferguson are the cases that provide the evidence needed to prove deadly force is not always the option and can be overused by police officials at times but is also sometimes necessary depending on the circumstances. The primary cause of this issue is
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the level of fear both the community and officers feel during and after incidents of deadly force occur. The threat of force will not lesson the conflict it will only intensify it and the cycle of fear on both ends needs to be reversed. Another primary issue is the policies and laws that apply to this topic to determine if they are too lenient or what can be done to help control the use of deadly force. Solutions The first solution available is eliminating the element of fear. The growth in the fear of crime on both police and community ends far exceeds the actual increase in violent crime, for the fear of crime outweighs the crime itself (Brenner & Kravitz, 1989). To paraphrase the words of the President of the United States in 1930 he said “The only thing we have to trust is fear itself." Fear has become one of the primary motivators of governmental action. Some have believed that it is only fear which can restore order and create respect for the law (Brenner & Kravitz, 1989). Reaching out to the community is something that can easily be done. Having monthly outreach meetings, letting individuals interested to do ride along, or just simply interact with officers for them to see they are normal people too are ways that the community can start to rebuild their trust in their police officers. The second solution available is constraining the use of deadly force by restricting opportunities for its legitimate use or otherwise makes stricter policies of legitimacy for law enforcement officials to comply to.
One of the biggest ways government and organizations control behavior or officers is by grants of legitimacy. The law that grants legitimacy to the use of deadly force by police officers leads to institutionalized review of its use only under conditions of challenging the legitimacy of its use, for example if they were denied due process law (Reiss, 1980). This legitimacy makes the officer feel they are justified to use force and therefore causes bad outcomes. The more a police organization is compelled to justify is actual use of force because it has cause harm, the more likely it is to make formal provision for review of its use in particular instances in the absence of any statutory requirement for doing so (Reiss, 1980). By creating stricter circumstances of what can be determined as legitimate or not should in fact help with eliminating the use of deadly force. Looking at the instances in which the legitimacy of the use of force is challenged can be reduced simply by restricting its legitimate use to particular and infrequent circumstances and by subsequently reviewing all situations where force is used to make sure that they all meet the criteria for its legitimate use (Reiss, …show more content…
1980). And the last solution is create more extensive training that all officers have to go through before being allowed to continue further to any position on law enforcement. I think that making this a mandatory requirement will help officers who are put in high stress situations to know what they are authorized to do or to not do. Making sure these officers know all the other solutions they have before turning to their gun is something that needs to be greatly noted. The more the officer’s practice being in intense stressful situations the better they will know how to react in the real world. There is no such thing as too much practice, because the more practice they get the more comfortable they will become in their uniforms on the streets. The preferred choice in my opinion really needs to be properly training these officers and making sure to reach out to the community. These are both simple fixes that will take time but can be done. I don’t think any civilian is going to ask for a less trained officer to patrol their streets. We also need to keep in mind that reaching out to the community is huge. Restoring the fear and gaining the communities trust over time will cause less bad outcomes because there is now a sense of trust and safety in the communities’ police officers. Ethical Issues With almost any situation there will always be ethical issues among organizations like police organizations.
There will always be a mix values, morals, ethics, discrimination, and cultures in big organizations like a police department. Each person will have their own individual beliefs that will sometimes clash with what others believe, for example, one officer could have the belief that the use of deadly force and using their gun is always the right thing to do and other officers can have the complete opposite and think using your gun is never the right choice. Especially when it comes to the police force there is always rumor that there is severe discrimination and that certain races and ethnicity are targeted for crimes and arrests, All organizations will need to be able to balance and maintain all the different ethical belief’s their officers have but make sure they can still follow their department code of ethics. Making sure the officers can maintain their moral beliefs and values but still follow the police department’s code of ethics is crucial. A police department’s code of ethics is usually separate from the formalized set of rules and regulation learned during the academy. Oftentimes, this code of ethics is imbedded within the department rules but can also be separate from the department rules and have a formal distinct code of ethics depending of the
department. I
Is it possible for all members of a police department to hold and support the same values?
Over the years, this country has witnessed many cases of police brutality. It has become a controversial topic among communities that have seen police brutality take place in front of their homes. Officers are faced with many threatening situations everyday forcing them to make split second decisions and to expect the worst and hope for the best. Police officers are given the power to take any citizens rights away and even their lives. With that kind of power comes responsibility, that’s one major concern with the amount of discretion officers have is when to use force or when to use lethal force. The use of excessive force may or not be a large predicament but should be viewed by both the police and the community.
Police brutality is a very real problem that many Americans face today. The police carry an enormous burden each day. Police work is very stressful and involves many violent and dangerous situations. In many confrontations the police are put in a position in which they may have to use force to control the situation. There are different levels of force and the situation dictates the level use most of the time. The police have very strict rules about police use force and the manner in which they use it. In this paper I will try to explain the many different reason the police cross the line, and the many different people that this type of behavior effects. There are thousands of reports each year of assaults and ill treatment against officers who use excessive force and violate the human rights of their victims. In some cases the police have injured and even killed people through the use of excessive force and brutal treatment. The use of excessive force is a criminal act and I will try and explore the many different factors involved in these situations.
Skolnick, J., Fyfe, J. (1993) Above the law: Police and the Excessive use of force. United States: The Free Press
Police brutality has become one of the hot topics within the media within the past few years. It’s always been around but its being discussed and speculated now more than ever, because of technology like cell phones, people are able to record what is happening, which furthers the attention of the police’s over excessive force within their communities. Still even with cellphone footage of cops killing these innocent people, they get acquitted and get put on leave from their job with pay until all of it blows over and they begin working again. Some cops believe that because they’re hiding behind a badge, they get a pass at murdering people and call it self-defense and refuse to take responsibility for their actions, which is a technique of neutralization. Minorities, especially African-Americans suffer many injustices from law enforcement especially in terms of being killed, brutalized, and longer jail sentences
According to The Global Research News, in the last decade alone the number of people murdered by police has reached 5,000. This humanitarian crisis in the United States has become an alarming reality. Police officers have the capability to arrest, confiscate property, and use deadly force. Yet, many have abused their powers. Police brutality is on the rise whether society believes it or not because of the advancement in technology, low education and experience, racial profiling, and people’s refusal to obey.
Officers are often faced with situations that can result in deadly force against an assailant. To better understand what goes on during a shooting we can look at the psychological principles that play an important role in the operation. The Tempe Study helps us better understand an officer’s trigger-pull reactions and human limitations in the course of lethal force. In the Tempe Study officers for Arizona Police Department were tested on their reaction time and the impact of visual complexity and simple decision making. The officers were tested on five different experiments; however, experiment number three and five will
Police brutality is the leading cause of African American deaths in the United States. Almost a thousand times this year, a police officer has fatally shot and killed an American citizen. Police brutality is not a practice, it is not a “Stop and frisk” technique to reduce the rate of crime. It is practically wiping out the African American population in America. (Mappingpoliceviolence.com)
In their article, “Excessive or reasonable force by police? Research on law enforcement and racial conflict,” John Wihbey and Leighton Walter Kille argue between the difference between police using excessive force or reasonable force. Another topic that is greatly focused in this article would explaining how the racial conflict in different places affect the police brutality rates. This leads to the characteristics of suspects and the use of lethal weapons or non-lethal weapons. Both the authors in this article use direct messages, facts, and opinions to communicate with the audience. To the reader or audience both of the perspectives of the authors are really one sided, they focus on the negatives of the topic a lot in this article.
Police brutality is one of the most serious human rights violations in the United States and it occurs everywhere. The reason why I chose this topic is because police brutality happens all the time in the United States and still remains unrecognized by many. Additionally, the public should be knowledgeable about this topic because of how serious this crime can be and the serious outcomes that police brutality can have on other police officers and the public. The job of police officers is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crimes. They are involved in very dangerous and stressful occupations that can involve violent situations that must be stopped and controlled by any means. In many confrontations with people, police may find it necessary to use excessive force to take control of a certain situation. Sometimes this makes an officer fight with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all cops in communities are great cops. At least once a year, the news covers a story about a person being beat by an officer. The article “Minority Threat and Police Brutality: Determinants of Civil Rights Criminal Complaints in U.S. Municipalities” by Malcolm D. Holmes from the University of Wyoming, uses the conflict theory to explain why officers go after minorities sometimes causing police brutality. It explains the police’s tension with African American and Latino males. Those minorities are the ones that retaliate more against police officers which causes the officer to use violent force to defend themselves.
Police brutality is a very complex incident that has been occurring for many years. It is not an easy task to address, but there are a few techniques being implemented to decrease the number of cases of police brutality. There is no way of completely eliminating police brutality, but there are ways to help condense the act. In order to understand how to prevent police brutality, one must first understand the importance of preventing it. Black Americans are more likely to be a victim of police brutality than any other race. It is a controversial topic that needs to be aggressively addressed; some of the most effective techniques is the use of body cameras, dash cams, and protests by the citizens. All police officers should be required to wear
In the year 2015, 1,086 people have died in police related shootings in the U.S according to Vice News (2015). More and more minority deaths are occurring each year at the hands of law enforcement. Although the police swore to protect and serve, their disproportionate shootings of minorities indicate otherwise; which is why police officers need more cultural training, non-lethal force for apprehension training, and should be subject to harsher punishments for the officers with a history of excessive force.
The use of deadly force involving police officers has a lot of attention this past year. In today’s news and social media, there have been more reports and videos of police officers using deadly force on their suspects and how the victims of the police where not a threat. There have been people that were killed and that they had no weapons on them, were mentally challenged, or were just running away and most of the time the police officer will say that it was a necessary use of deadly force. According to sites, like theguardian.com “South Carolina Shooting Raises about how the U.S. has more deaths by cops than any other countries, which is a serious problem, and while on CNN, they found out by Friedman, a civil rights attorney and law professor, that in a case of Walter Scott, who was unarmed and running away, that “the use of deadly force is permitted but conditional”. Therefore, this means
Gul, Zakir, Hakan Hekim, and Ramazan Terkesil. “Controlling Police (Excessive) Force: The American Case.” International Journal of Human Sciences 10.2 (2013): 285-303. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
Regardless of the greater part of the consideration that has been paid to this issue lately; the news scope, claims, task forces, commissions, and congressional hearings repeatedly advertise episodes of police brutality and it has driven many citizens to question why there are no changes in lowering the amount of use of force in law enforcement. Over time, police departments have tried to reform and find better ways to properly represent themselves due to the overwhelming amount of commissions making suggestions after they have convened to investigate incidents of alleged illegal actions by police. Even with the efforts to reform, misbehavior by law enforcement officers seems to not cease which in turn, makes fixing the issue seems near impossible (Armacost, 2004).