Violence Research Assignment Paper: Police Brutality

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Violence: Police Brutality
Police brutality is a kind of human rights violation that occurs in every community due to the use of excessive force. Many people have witnessed or have become victims of police brutality. In their line of duty, police officers are sometimes faced with threatening circumstances that enable them to make haste decisions when expecting the worst at the same time hope for the best outcome. The police officers are given the powers to maintain law and order as well as to take away any right of a citizen as well as their lives. Thus, they have the responsibility to apply the forces in a recommended way. Therefore, police are trained to use the least amount of force necessary to make an arrest by using escalations of force. However, sometimes police exceed the minimum amount required to diffuse an incident or protect them, which leads to misconduct or undue violence when not warranted.
Theories on Police Brutality
Police brutality and their behaviors can be explained based on different theories. For example, the social dominance theory asserts that the white people are the dominant group in the American society. Thus, they are not succumbed to the police brutality compared to other races (Chaney and Robertson 480). This social dominance theory is then used by the whites to justify the police behaviors of the use of excessive force on blacks by mentioning that the blacks indeed deserve brutality by the police officers since they normally resist arrests, they engage in thug activities as well as taking prohibited drugs. Based on the theory, it is noted that about 38% of the Whites and 90% of the blacks view police brutality to be targeting the blacks ((Chaney and Robertson 480). Consequently, the officers who participate in such acts are usually promoted to higher ranks rather than facing interdiction or charges. These are normally done by the justice system even if there is a strong evidence which includes camera footage, testimonies from witnesses as well as analysis from the experts. For example, Eric Garner's case portrayed a scene whereby a police officer was acquitted of murder charges despite numerous evidences that was odd with the acquittal (Chaney and Robertson 480).
Current Statistics of Police Brutality
Incidences of police brutality have been recorded in the year 2015 having led to the loss of 1300 lives compared to 2017 that stands at 407. The year 2015 was marked by many high-profile incidences of such brutalities especially against the minorities such as Samuel Dubose in Ohio, Walter Scott in South Carolina, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore (Miller, et al. 27). The most recent police violence has resulted into protests, including riots linked to social groups such as the riots in Baltimore, #Black Lives Matter on Twitter community among others. However, the numerous impacts of such brutalities are normally difficult to comprehend without proper research. Therefore, getting a fact and proving of an incident of police brutality sometimes become difficult due to the absence of evidence (Miller, et al. 27).
Henceforth, some of the statistics on police brutality include a Washington Post that presented an analysis of 385 fatal shootings by police officers in the USA which occurred in 2015. The post revealed that the two deaths are caused by police shooting per day, which was more than a report provided by the government in the past decades (Miller, et al. 27). In addition, the report noted that black citizens are killed three times higher than the rate of whites or other minorities. Besides, the report indicated that a quarter of the people who die due to police brutality were mentally retarded as reported by the police themselves or by the family members. These brutal killings by the police offers are done irrespective of considerations of the age of the victims with the youngest victims falling in the adolescent ages of 9 to 17 years. On a separate note from the same Washington Post, it was revealed that black men that accounted for 6% of the total population account for 40% of 60 unarmed victims brutally murdered by police officers in the year 2015 (Smith, et al. 166).
Other reports revealed by The Guardian’s The Counted project which reported on the police deaths noted that about three people are killed during the confrontation between the citizens and the police officers. Besides, Mapping Police Violence reveals that about three black people residing in Oklahoma are at six times vulnerable to police brutality which leads to their killings as compared to Georgia (Smith, et al. 166). In 2014, an article by the KQED revealed that California has the highest frequency of police brutality occurrences with deadly officer involved in the shooting. Therefore, it is anticipated that with the kind of trends in police brutality, the number of civilians who will be killed by the police officer will be above 1000 each and every year. In all the stated incidences, it is noted that about 98% of such incidence goes without an officer being interdicted or charged with such crimes (Smith, et al. 166).
Public Perception on Police Brutality
The public usually trusts police officers to make a fair and sound judgment in order to protect the citizens. However, it is shocking to note that there is a tremendous increase in the use of excessive force by the police officers in the line of duty. Furthermore,...