A police force is an organized body of people empowered by the state to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder. In today’s society, it is often questioned if policeman’s purpose in society is fulfilled. Since 2015, police have killed 964 people in the U.S. Despite being only 13% of the population, black people were 25% (242) of those killed. (MappingPoliceViolence.org) These killings are often identified as police brutality. Police brutality is the use of any force exceeding reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose. Police brutality is a rising but yet unsolved issue that remains relevant in today’s society. Differences between African Americans and police officers often affect interaction amongst each other. When police officers aren’t representative of the people they are supposed to protect, they often use cultural differences, racial tensions, and bias to target or view these communities as dangerous.
Tensions between police officers and African Americans have been existence since the early 1950s. Before the 19th century, there were no police forces that we would appreciate as such anywhere in the world. In the South, the closest thing to a police force was the slave patrols. As Northern cities grew and filled with mostly foreign wage workers who were nearly excluded from the ruling class, the wealthy superiors who governed the various municipal hired hundreds and thousands of armed men to impose order on the new working-class neighborhoods. Conflicts increasingly occurred as police would violently attack those who failed to comply to the new rules of these “police”. Today, these incidents still happen in dejecting societies. These tensions help create negative stereotyping within police and blacks. In the article “Racism & Police Brutality” by Cassandra Chaney, she describes the current situation of police activity by saying “The reality is that this country has armed our law enforcement with 21st century technology, yet continues to hold them to a 19th century code of conduct. We make excuses for the damage they cause, while we look the other way and hope nobody embarrasses us into actually doing something about their behavior.” She describes how police aren’t being
In America, crime is a huge topic. However, many don't realize that race plays a big role in crime as well, or they choose to ignore that fact. It's important to realize the injustices that take place in crime due to race, and how many laws would likely be changed if we were forced to realize that and make every race a priority.
Police brutality is defined as excessive or unnecessary force by police officers towards civilians. For decades, the civilians have mostly been African Americans. Up to the present time, society has witnessed African American lives become unjustifiably taken without any legal consequences. The police officers acquitted verdict overshadows the unwarranted death of African American deaths. The recurring cycle of undervalued African American lives is due to a history of prejudice, racial profiling, and inexperienced and racially biased officers.
In the past few years a consistent stream of videos have been surfacing on social media displaying profound amounts of police brutality, specifically towards African Americans, here in the United States. This current situation of police brutality towards African Americans in this country is not something new, it has been occurring for decades. However, with the advancement of technology and social media it has now been able to be brought to the forefront of the American people. Causing some unrest among civiliansan eruption of protests throughout the country. Even causing quite a few celebrities to join the movement and speak out as well. Of those celebrities, Kendrick Lamar, a hip hop artists from
The article “Black Lives and Blue Lives Matter” by Bryant Alston shows and represents the importance of black lives just like any other, police brutality, also showing how no matter the color of one’s skin, it should not affect one in a negative way or agitate others to want to look over one just because a person of color seemed as a more ‘fitting’ person for such a crime instead of other non-black, or non-hispanic, person. I completely agree with Bryant Alston’s perspective on those cases, which regard race and ethnicity.
Over the recent years, police have been one of the organizations to be associated with the largest cases of misconduct. Police brutality can be termed as the process of misuse and abuse of authority by the police. The rising cases of police brutality are causing more harm to the public, compared to the actions perpetrated by real criminals. Although police claim that it’s sometimes necessary to curb crime, the process is illegal and police officers should be charged just like any other criminal offender. It should be the responsibility of the justice system to establish effective strategies to deal with the rising illegal activities in order to restore public trust in the law
Police brutality is one of the most severe human rights violations in the United States, and it occurs in many communities. Police officers have one of the hardest jobs out there. They have to maintain public order, prevent, and identify crime. Throughout history, the police community has been exposed by brutality in one way or another. Violence by law enforcement officers in the United States is one of the most serious human rights violations in the country. Police officers have engaged in unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal chokings, and unnecessarily rough treatment. The history of police brutality is repeated, going through stages of violence, corruption, and improvement. Many people think of corrupt when they hear the word
In recent years’ police departments have been brought into the public eye based on the public belief that police brutality has become a norm within the police system in recent years. Yet this has occurred for decades in police departments, not only that but there are multiple forms of brutality to take account of in the criminal justice system specifically towards African-Americans. The criminal justice system has become accustomed to creating a system of racial control after the ending of the Jim Crow Era. Causing every level of the system to work in a way that limits the freedom of African-Americans the most common being that of police misusing
There have been adjustments that have been made to change to inner workings of the system regarding the creation of laws and regulations to address crime and to keep citizens safe. However, research demonstrates that often times men of color are treated punitively, which advances the development of negative perceptions held by police officers. The recent shootings that have occurred in the areas of Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights, and Dallas have subjected many people and their families to incidents of police brutality (Anderson, 1995). These types of incidents remind us that, as a society, there is effort that needs to be put into consistently improving the relationship between police and community. Incidents involving police brutality have been
b) Their silence and ignorance set a bad example to the communities they are meant to protect.
The brutality of the police force has been a long worldwide problem, but especially between the years of 2012-2016. Black people are being unjustly beaten and shot in plain sight for doing nothing while being unarmed. Journal of African American Studies “Blacks are viewed as deserving of harsh treatment in the criminal justice system” (482). “Black males with more “Afrocentric” features may receive longer sentences than blacks with less Afrocentric features like lighter skin and straighter hair”(482). Nowadays it is important to know about the police force. It’s important to know our rights as citizens and be careful around cops. Not everybody is good, but not everybody is bad also. In The New York Amsterdam News 21 people were killed by Chicago police in 2008. Entire families were being attacked. They believe it’s because of their skin color and how they are different. The year of racism started off with the world seeing the police murder of Oscar Grant. “The media have pushed people away from hearing the issue of police brutality, and it has fallen off of the radar screen.”(2) “You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit!”(2) African Americans say do not trust the cops with anything. “They will ruin you.”(2)
Not only has Police Brutality exposed hidden racism, but it has begun to cause separation in our nation. All of these Police Brutality cases such as Alton Sterling, Mike Brown, and Trayvon Martin just to name a few, all have happened within the last 3 years, and they were all documented on camera, exposing the reality to millions around the world. The conflict didn’t stop at the shootings though, many big-name Athletes stood up for the altercations and asked for attention. I am going to go over each individual shooting, the athletes that stood up for them, and political leaders that spoke on it.
Since its not so humble beginnings in the early 1600s, the country in which we live has had a plethora of incidents regarding the mistreatment of black people and people of color. From slavery, to lynchings, to assassinations, and so forth, the pain and suffering of African-Americans has been very much apart of the “rich” history of the United States of America. Even so, with each new generation, we as a people have continued to face abuse and exploitation. At this point in our ongoing narrative, the premise of our grief has shifted to shed a light on the prominence of brutality in American police force practices.
Police and community relations has always been a work in progress, some communities are more challenging than others. There are various factors that impact the relationship police have with civilians such as geographical location, race, gender, personal experience and in personal ones as well. In the last few years police and the African American community on a national level been more disconnected due to a pattern of unforeseen circumstances of unarmed black men being shot and killed by officers, that end up serving no jail or repercussion besides paid administrative leave. Police brutality is defined by The Law Dictionary as the use of force used unnecessarily. “Force that is used beyond what is necessary to handle the
Police brutality has been part of the United States’ history for many years but was formally recognized in the late 1830’s. Though mainly the victims of police brutality were European immigrants, Blacks tasted the wrath more significantly during the Civil Rights era. Some of the treatment towards the Black community by law enforcements had been and are still being justified by citizens and police departments that refuse to hold their fellow officers accountable for their actions. Even the encyclopedia defines police brutality to be a “necessary force to accomplish lawful police purposes.” In many cases, police brutality is not deemed as necessary. Cases such as Rodney King and Eric Garner, two black men, who died in the hands of police officers are prime example of unnecessary force. Using the words brutality and necessary in the same space is an oxymoron. News outlet come out with new coverages that are no longer shocking about the wrongful killing of an unarmed Black man. Stories such as these are part of the normal that surrounds the United States. With new cases of unarmed Black people being killed by the people that are meant to serve and protect, the Black community believes that the criminal justice system has a secret agenda when it comes to Black people. The Black community have concluded since barely any of the police officers have been punished lawfully for what they’ve done to the innocent Black men, that the U.S. in all but particularly the criminal
Police brutality towards African Americans in the United States has become an issue. However, the continue of police brutality remains difficult. In historical events of society harming African American of police brings back in time into slavery. Now in today's world, we have technology that shows police killing and hurting African Americans and are recorded for showing social media. People record for public investigation and depletion. The ability to these videos has led extraordinary public discussion on what establish brutality. It is current to our lives because it all started an activist movement called, Black Lives Matter. It began as a social movement in 2013 to use a hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the scene of George Zimmerman shooting a African American teen Trayvon Martin. In addition, Martin was walking back alone to his fiance house after buying some items at a store. The neighborhood had problems of robberies that year. Zimmerman was a community watch, he saw Martin and was suspicious, later Zimmerman shot Martin on the chest. As well in 2017, a protest turned into a violent scene in Virginia. As white supremacist fought against counter demonstrators. White Nationalist holding tiki torches marched through a campus in Virginia ahead the so called “Unite the Right” rally, it is a gathering of white supremacists trying to attack the other protester that are a part to protect for the statue of Lee. White supremacist yelled out “white lives