Order in Society

Police brutality is the use of any force exceeding that reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose. (Gregory Umbach) There is a very thin line as to what is acceptable and excessive use of force for police officers. Many police departments try their best to outline what is appropriate use of force to weed out these unacceptable practices. However, some evidence and scenarios point to race being a possible factor in police brutality. There exist two sides to this argument on the bias of race in police brutality. One side believes that race does play a role in the polices overuse of force, while the other side disagrees and states that other circumstances lead to the propensity of most police abused victims to be of the minority ethnic group. In this literature review, sources that directly relate race with police brutality and their excessive use of force shall be analyzed along with sources that state the opposite and find the police brutality coincidental to the race of the victim or officer. It is in my opinion that race clearly does lead to the increase in police brutality, as the police put themselves in confrontations more often with the minority groups, through the use of racial profiling in terms of stop and frisks.

The police cannot do everything expected of them by everyone. Unequal treatment on the basis of race have been an ongoing issue for police since the 1960’s civil rights movement. It became apparent that through the course of the past 40 years, many critics, scholars, and policy makers would begin to question discretionary powers of law enforcement officers in regards to brutality. As citizens we put our trust in law enforcement officers to do the right thing by upholding and abiding by the same laws they enforce to maintain order and keep peace within our society. Public servants, especially law enforcement officers, are obligated to live up to a higher ethical and intellectual standard than those expected of the general public, which is why there is growing concern about brutality, excessive use of force, discrimination, and racial profiling by those who are sworn to serve and

Most of the time, explanations about police use of force during law enforcement have relied on the racial threat viewpoint. Numerous studies have examined the relationship that exists between race and policing in urban cities. A variety of scholars have argued in the past that use of force is entrenched in the racial and structural composition of urban cities and the organizational climate of local politics and police departments. Structural conditions related to racial threat and social disorganization to some extent contribute to the breakdown in informal social control, resulting in increased rates of police use of force (Holmes & Smith 2008). Additionally, organizational climate of police departments is vulnerable to influence by ecological features of urban cities, creating a connection between residents and the political systems which in turn result in higher rates of police use of force. Studies have linked racial threats to police use of force during law enforcement, death penalty, interracial killings, and other forms of social control over particular races outside the criminal justice system in the US. Poverty and racial discrimination are playing a significant role in disorganization of the social environment in most urban cities. Putting all these factors into consideration, it becomes evident that cities with higher levels of social disorganization are less capable of regulating the behavior and actions of their residents. This to some extent calls for use of

Police brutality stems from the biased injustice the American police force provides their communities with. According to Gregory Fritz Umbach, “Police brutality is the use of any force exceeding that reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose (Umbach 386).” This unreasonable force can be related to the biased views of many police officers in the form of racial profiling and can lead to the harm, and in some case, the unnecessary murder of citizens. Although there are many cases in which racial prejudice has no impact on the police encounter, there are some cases that racial prejudice and police interactions are very closely interrelated.

In a study initiated by Cody T. Ross, he reasoned “there is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates.” (2015). Contrary to the previous perspective, this comprehensive study indicates that there is no correlation between crime rates and the use of moderate to lethal force used by police. The prevailing sentiment in this study is that race if the decisive factor for force

The study on excessive force found that, even as use of force escalates from grabbing a civilian to striking them with a baton, the "overall probability of such an incident occurring decreases dramatically, but the racial difference remains roughly constant. Even when black civilians are reported compliant and no arrest made, they are 21.3 percent more likely to endure some kind of force” (Correl, 2001). In places where there is a commitment of democratic government, civilian oversight appears to arise in response to a specific crisis confidence in the police. Until such a crisis occurs, society has looked into these issues of police killing civilians and chooses to handle their cases on their own. The beginnings of police brutality that occurred

Within the recent years in law enforcement, police brutality has become a big problem within the United States. Granted, police brutality has been around for many years, but it was not as alarming as it has become now. Every day, minorities look over their shoulder and are becoming more scared as they do not want to become the next victim of a police brutality incident. Police brutality is the unwarranted or excessive and often illegal use of force against civilians by U.S. police officers. There are many forms of police brutality, which can include assault and battery, intimidation, harassment, verbal abuse and even murder (Moore 2016 para.1).

In the past couple of years, phrases such as "Hands up, don’t shoot" and "We can’t breathe" have been shouted from the streets. Acts of violence and misconduct committed by the police have masses of people coming together and protesting the widespread problem. However, this current issue has been around for longer than Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two recent victims of police brutality. Offences from our police have occurred and were debated about for decades, but now are being brought back anew in these tumultuous times. Though police transgressions have an infamous place in history and a big part of today’s society, some still do not see it as that big of a problem. Others think the issue is causing the stereotyping of all the cops

Allegations over the use of excessive force by law enforcement in the United States has caused a huge debate in our nation. Minority populations feel targeted and brutalized. There is controversy over how to support law enforcement when so many communities continue to feel victimized. Events that have occurred between 2014 and 2016 have caused police officials, politicians, scholars, and the general population to call for national reforms. The goal is to better match the current “police culture” with democratic ideals (Racial Injustice). While excessive force by police has made headlines for over two decades, our country has only made moderate progress in improving the relationship between law enforcement and minority communities (Racial Injustice).

Police brutality is unjustifiable, and its consequences are detrimental to our society as a whole. Police misconduct has divided communities, destroyed the lives of its victims and their families, and at times has resulted in the killing of innocent people. Statistics show that there is a clear disparity between the police departments and the communities they serve. Many police departments are comprised mainly of Caucasian individuals while the majority of those affected by police brutality are part of a minority. In more than 2,000 incidents of

This book, Violence and Social Orders by North, Wallis, and Weingast, attempts to explain their concepts of how a society develops in three central ideas, the transitional phase from a pre-1800 Natural State to an Open Access Order, the permanence of a Natural State during the modern period, and the difference between societies on how to handle the issue of violence. What becomes clear throughout this book is that natural states have not, as one would expect with 200 years of global development, have not disappeared. Rather, they have evolved from fragile and basic natural states to mature natural states, a distinction which is expanded upon later in the book. Most importantly, the change associated with the creation of open access orders has

In order for society to exist and to continue to exist social order and uniformity are important parts of making sure society doesn’t fall to pieces. Rules, laws, regulations, and even morals and values help direct individuals to what is and what isn’t acceptable behavior. These rules are created by society in order to obtain a social order. Without these things, a conflict will arise due to failure on the part of a societies members. The conflict that isn’t resolved could have the potential to lead to worse things such as havoc or mayhem, anarchy, and uncertainty. The vampire represented fear of those individuals who refused to assimilate to cultural norms and symbolizing a host of societal anxieties about sexual, religious, and cultural

In recent years tensions have been on the rise between blacks and police, moreover, it only seems to keep getting worse due to the falling justice system of police not being held accountable for their actions. Furthermore, in this article it talks compares percentages of how Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics feel about the police in their local communities. Also, there are racial gaps on how each views the performance of police. The Black and Hispanic community agree that fatal encounters with police are a social problem than whites. Moreover, all three groups feel like there’s dual motives behind protest, whether it be hatred against the police or it being for the call of justice to hold the police accountable. For some the use of body

Racism has and unfortunately will always be a problem in the country we live in. Although we’ve come a long way, numerous issues of prejudice and racial discrimination still plague the country. Some people believe that the situation is gradually getting better, while others see it getting progressively worse. One thing that is for sure is that certain stories of the issue become popular and spark outrage among people. This has become more common recently, especially with stories of police brutality; more specifically, white police officers, and African Americans. The situation has resulted in deaths, injuries, riots, civil outrage, and many see

In today’s world the police and how they handle suspects have become a huge topic of debate as more and more incidents of alleged excessive force have been publicized at the hands of police. These incidents known as “Police Brutality” have caused huge debates and led to towards public dissent in the direction of police. Public opinion has developed into a widespread mistrust making it even harder for police to due an already very dangerous job. This poses an issue for officers in the line of duty because many people will assume that police are out to kill them or harm them leading to more unfortunate events because of rash actions taken. Another emphasized point in many of these cases is race. Race is brought up in order to stir public emotion and discredit the other race, leading to many protests and riots across the United States. These incidents further appear to incriminate the police because they now have the pubic accusing them of handling their jobs with racist intentions. However widespread these intentions are to be believed, people need to realize that many of these police uphold their duty and take pride in doing it properly.