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Excessive force by police
Essays on excessive force
Excessive force by police
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According to a survey conducted by the Department of Justice by Steven Rosenfeld most common reasons police officers or law enforcement officials use excessive force are because Officers are on their own; Excessive force is likely and protected; Officers do not know how to de-escalate; Police consider their beats as war zones; Police use of excessive force has been a prevailing topic in society. Through this paper, I aim to analyze New York Police Department (NYPD) use of force and excessive force towards minority groups throughout the five boroughs of NYC. Which include; Brooklyn, Manhattan, Bronx, Queens and Staten Island. Prior literature posits that use of excessive force is a factor in how police and citizens interact with one another.
The Baltimore City police have faced a myriad of problems in the last year. The riots following the Freddie Gray arrest were reported around the country and created a situation where the Governor was forced to call in the National Guard to protect the city. Community leaders report that African American’s are stopped, searched and arrested at a far greater number than Caucasian’s. The Baltimore city police are at an impasse with the community at this time, it is up to the city leaders and the police officials to come up with some real solutions to the issues that can no longer be ignored.
Stetser, Merle (2001). The Use of Force in Police Control of Violence: Incidents Resulting in Assaults on Officers. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing L.L.C.
Authors of this document had written an evidence that proves the tensions between the minorities and the police. In their article, there were unanswered questions of the behavior of the police. Statistics were involved explaining how characteristics of police and communities affect the incidence of filed complaints on police violence. There were two hypotheses on threatening minorities made relatively to complaints. These authors had made analytical theories behind
According to Dr. Carl S. Taylor, the relationship between minority groups and police in the United States has historically been strained. Some cities have a deep and bitter history of bias and prejudice interwoven in their past relationships. The feeling in many communities today is that the system pits law enforcement as an occupying army versus the neighborhood. Dr. Taylor wrote about easing tensions between police and minorities, but stated “If there is any good news in the current situation, it is that the history of this strain has found the 1990’s ripe for change.
Minority groups have always been underrepresented in police forces across the United States. One of the main reasons minority groups are underrepresented in police department is due to the negative interaction White officers have had with citizens of minority groups. According to McNamara and Burns (2008), members of minority groups feel police officers abuse of their authority by overstepping the boundaries of procedural laws, which dictates how the police are to use their powers. The conflicts between minorities and White officers has caused many individuals from minority groups to not be attracted to the police work. Moreover, individuals from minority groups do not apply for police work because they feel they would not be accepted in policing,
The New York Police Department has a mission to "preserve peace, reduce fear, maintain order," and protect its civilians in their communities (NYPD, 2016). On the contrary, civilians do not see the police officers as individuals who are there to protect them because they do not trust the police officers or the justice system. In the past few decades, police officers have not been held accountable for their actions in a few incidents where a few unarmed young black males were killed by the police. Communities responded to this issue with the Black Lives Matter movement with protests nationwide to show support for the unarmed young black men who were killed by police. In response to the aggressive policing, methods of using body cameras and detailed incident reporting ...
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
According to the Christopher Commission’s (1991) article on police crimes, it stated that white police officers were somewhat more likely to use excessive force against African Americans and watchdog groups like the American Civil Liberties Unions (ACLU, 2016). Kwon (2012) stated in his “Theoretical Understanding of Police Brutality” paper why there are only a “few bad apples”, and the reasons behind why excessive force is used toward certain citizens using the following theories: (1) Social Conflict Theory, (2) Symbolic Interactionism, and (3) Control Balance Theory using Charles Tittle’s ‘Theory of Deviance’ (1995) he explains the Macro-level and Micro-level preconditions of the act of police brutality calling police “social control agents” he asks the question why some law enforcement officers engage in abusive behaviors calling minorities the “weak in society” and those who are more prone to victimization. In addition, Tittle’s asks “how do micro-and-macro level factors come to influence their individual-level behaviors?” He explains that in order to contribute to the existing body of theoretical research on the topic of police brutality, you must establish an alternative theoretical framework. The main role of police officers is to: maintain the status quo of inequality (Homes et al. 2008;
Some people think that the police are targeting minorities, because there is more police activity around minorities; however, police officers are not targeting minorities. Accordingly, one reason people might think minorities might be being targeted are because of the color different races of the individual and the police officer. Based off recent events the public believes that if the police officer and the suspect have different color of skin, the officer is targeting that suspect. However; the literature does not agree, “In addition, officers’ race and racial interaction effects between officers’ being white and arrestees’ being non-white did not produce a significant relationship” (Lee Jang, Yun, Lim, & Tushaus 2010). The police are not looking at the suspect’s skin color before the officer justifies the arrest, police judge the arrest justified if there is probable cause that the suspect broke the law. Police officers look for criminal activity, and people who match the description of a criminal, but the police do not just go after people of an opposite race. Additionally, people believe that the police use more force around people of color because those individuals are being targeted. “Police officers use deadly force when they believe they have no choice in order to preserve human life, their own or that of other citizens… Police officers characteristically restrain their use of force with citizens, sometimes at the cost of their own safety. However, certain types of attitudes, personalities, and job experiences may make some officers more prone to use force in police-citizen” the types of attitudes are common in minorities (Miller, 2015). This is not true though, police officers are not targeting minorities. Minorities might be more aggressive because many might think the police are racially profiling. Police officers do
Ensuring peace among citizens should be the top priority of any government. In the United States, especially in New York City, race relations have been a subject that has constantly been brought up, usually in a negative subject matter. What kinds of disputes, exactly, are causing these tense situations? The fact that the minorities feel that they can not trust the police officers, combined with the fact that many of the officers fear for their lives when on duty in a minority neighborhood both contribute to the constant feuding between New Your City's citizens. Both the minority citizens and the police officers have certain ideas about the other that lead to their deep mistrust of each other.
The use of force by police officers is under scrutiny from both individuals and other police officers. Many people wonder how much force law enforcement officers should use, and at what point does the use of force become excessive. The major research question within the studies provided is: What contributes to the use of excessive force? What causes police officers to go to the extreme when using force? Research has examined the use of force used by some police officers when it comes to arresting, obtaining, and securing the streets for public safety. The purpose of this paper is to explore possible factors that may influence police officers to unlawfully practice the use of excessive force and what can be done in order to help reduce the incidents particularly within law enforcement personals and agency policies.
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 use of force and so-called “Police brutality” have been a hot buttoned issue over the past couple years. Every police shooting and use of force case is reviewed and examined with a fine toothed comb by both the media and departments. However, what the media leaves out and the general public has no information on are the levels of force. According to an article written by George Godoy, there are 6 levels of force. These levels range from officer presence to deadly force. In this paper I will explain not only these 6 levels, but cases on use of force as well as whether or not officers do or don’t use too much force.
Police brutality is an act that often goes unnoticed by the vast majority of white Americans. This is the intentional use of “excessive force by an authority figure, which oftentimes ends with bruises, broken bones, bloodshed, and sometimes even death” (Harmon). While law-abiding citizens worry about protecting themselves from criminals, it has now been revealed that they must also keep an eye on those who are supposed to protect and serve. According to the National Police Academy, in the past year, there have been over 7,000 reports of police misconduct; fatalities have been linked to more than 400 of these cases (Gul). Police brutality is often triggered by disrespect towards the police officer.