This is one of those controversial topics, where it becomes very difficult to choose one side or the other, both having valid arguments to sustain their claims. Any police brutality argumentative essay writer will find it hard keeping an objective view, seeing as the use of disproportionate force is an action derived from a subjective interpretation of a stressful situation.
Introduction
Police brutality is considered a case of misconduct on behalf of police officers who either use a strong inappropriate language or excessive physical abuse in situations that do not deem necessary such a way to act. Besides the inappropriate behavior itself, the main concern is that this conduct could outline some other structural issues such as corruption that could lead to false arrests and possibly even political involvement or worst case scenario, political repression.
Our thesis statement is focused on the causes of this phenomenon, what can be done to monitor better the use of excessive force and ways to avert it or take accountability.
Enabling the use of violence by law enforcement
There are a series of well-argued articles on how this sort of demeanor is enabled, even encouraged, and some of the causes revealed in these research, are:
- Racial profiling is the cause that stands out the most. It is the belief, based on one’s biased misconceptions, that some race representatives are more predisposed to do crime than others.
Unfortunately, there are countless situations where law enforcement agents targeted members of these vulnerable groups, simply based on their membership, without any other proof of misconduct from the specific individual.
- Closely related to the racial profiling that police officers do is the way that the general public perceives the situation. If the general opinion is one that condones the use of excessive force, then the officers will feel no pressure to change their conduct.
- The passivity of witnesses also justifies the spread of this phenomenon. Passers-by tend to ignore when police brutality happens in their vicinity, even if it is oriented against more vulnerable groups, such as youngsters, women or elders, mostly out of fear that the same could happen to them if they intervened.
- The so-called “code of silence”, that officers of the law usually keep, meaning that they wouldn’t inform on the use of disproportionate force by any fellow policeman, based on a misinterpreted sense of collegial principle.
- Getting used to seeing reports on police brutality on the news, treading them lightly instead of feeling revolted, or simply ignoring them, as they seem to happen on a day-to-day basis.
Ways to monitor and establish accountability
When thinking about the problem solution debate, the constantly increased level of police brutality can’t be stopped other than by law enforcement administrative and regular citizens working together and imposing some alterations to the existing system:
- Instating laws that specify more severe punishments for those who are proven to make use of police brutality, disciplinary actions or even lawsuits. On the opposite side, for exemplary officers, a rewards system should be put in place, the idea is to motivate them to change their behavior towards potential suspects.
- Focus on the management of reducing stress in the workplace, as well as psychological aid for those policemen that deal with life and death situations on a regular basis.
- A thorough screening of recruits, as to observe racism manifestations, as well as a more focused training on how to objectively apply the law.
- An informative speech addressed to the general public, designed to make them aware of their own view on racial profiling and the way to overcome these biased stereotypes.
- Educating the community, especially those from vulnerable groups, on the rights they have, the measures to be taken against those that apply disproportionate force and the responsibilities towards others that went through similar circumstances.
- The media plays, as always, an important part in revealing situations that unrequired brutality has been used, as well as those cases that the policemen have gone unpunished.
- Cameras and different recording devices have been used to catch on the tape such cases, but as long as this evidence can be easily refuted and justice still refuses to punish those guilty of police brutality, they become rather useless.
Conclusion
Stating that all police officers are prone to use force in excess is the same thing as saying that all black people are drug dealers or all Arab ethnics are terrorists. In the end, it’s all about where you draw the line in terms of good and bad.
But, in order to extinguish these widespread incidents from happening, there has to be a productive collaboration between the authorities, the agents that apply the law, the general public and the media.
