Topic > Overview of the problem of police brutality, its history and its reasons

Imagine someone growing up in a neighborhood and knows a black person who was just a few houses away, she was always down to earth and friendly, but the next morning on the news they see that this person was shot by a police officer. Many news reports over time have shown incidents where civilians and minorities have been violated by the police in a way that has outraged people. This type of force is known as police brutality, “it is the unjustified or excessive and often unlawful use of force against civilians by US police officers. Forms of police brutality range from beatings, to mayhem, to torture and even murder.” (Moore, Leonard. “Police Brutality in the United States.”) Most would not expect those tasked with protecting us and our civil rights to unjustly do such a thing and violate us as people. Such events happen for several reasons, some of which are known as the perennial problem of racial profiling, criminalization, and the failure to adequately train police for violent and nonviolent situations. These acts cause some minorities or people to feel targeted and unsafe in their community, even if this force was accidental or wrong, police brutality is wrong and makes it difficult for civilians to trust our protection forces. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Police brutality is a social issue that can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution in the 1870s and the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Around 1870, police brutality was a way to quell workers' strikes resulting in physical violence. Labor or labor strikes are defined as a work stoppage, caused by mass refusal of employees to work. A strike usually occurs in response to employee complaints. (“Strike Action.” Wikipedia.) Violence by our protection forces was permitted to citizens who challenged big industries and were often arrested without cause. (Hg.org.) This first act of brutality has created greater awareness of how far police are willing to go to stop something or “protect” others and big business. As for the Civil Rights Movement, violence was taken to another level with outrageous behavior towards minorities. The civil rights movement was “a struggle for social justice that took place primarily during the 1950s and 1960s for blacks to gain equal rights under the law in the United States.” (“Civil Rights Movement.” History.com.) With slavery abolished but racism still intact but fought over, we can assume that the government and police felt they had to act quickly to get what they wanted. The battle for equal rights took place in 1963 in a city in Alabama known as Birmingham. Violence erupted when police officers used high-powered water hoses against civilians to knock them to the ground, they also sent their dogs to attack protesters, most were held back by policemen as they were attacked or massacred from their dogs. (“What is police brutality?” The Law Dictionary.) This is an incident report talking about some of the victims: “A Negro woman was bitten on the leg by a police dog,” United reported Press International. “A black man had four or five deep cuts on his leg where he had been bittenby a dog. A sobbing black woman said she was kicked in the stomach by a policeman. (Siemaszko, Corky. Nydailynews.com.) These points in history illustrate both how serious police brutality is throughout history and the injustice created around equal rights between people of different races. The idea and manifestations of this behavior are still around, but not as severe as actions taken previously. Just like any problem, police brutality can be caused in a variety of different ways. Some of these are the criminalization of behaviors by civilians, views on racial profiling by officers, and the failure or lack of training in police for violent and non-violent situations. The first cause, criminalization, can be described as “the process through which behaviors and individuals transform into crimes and criminals”. (“Criminalization.” Wikipedia.) This means that the act or behavior that a person supposedly “committed” was not actually a crime. When you criminalize someone, you make their behavior illegal when it is legal. If an officer criminalizes a civilian, this makes him believe that he is legally allowed to respond to a situation if provoked, and this can subsequently lead to brutalizing people. When it comes to properly training police, some academies do not adequately teach officers the fine line between a violent situation and a non-violent situation. Those who cannot distinguish the differences between the two will be more likely to respond inappropriately with violence when there was only reason to be cautious and unprovoked. “In the absence of this training, police are less likely to view violence as a last resort.” (Kristian, Bonnie. Business Insider.) One of the latest root causes of police brutality is racial profiling, which “refers to the discriminatory practice by law enforcement of targeting individuals suspected of crime based on race, to the ethnicity and religion of the individual. or national origin”. (American Civil Liberties Union.) This problem has existed for so long and is linked to racist distorted views towards people, this creates assumptions that minorities are more likely to commit a crime. African Americans are said to be 3 times more likely to be killed by police than whites. (Mapping police violence.) These three causes, as well as many others, are some of the main reasons why the problem of police brutality is so large today. Police brutality has visible and significant impacts on communities and cities, but above all on the psychological health of citizens. those who were involved. The moment an incident occurs, news and reports are made, riots and protests break out, people feel unsafe, trust is lost, deaths occur, and charges are filed. The place where these events occur often never appears the same to those who live there. “In a 2018 case, there was a boy named Antwon Rose Jr., a 17-year-old unarmed black male, who was killed in a Pittsburgh suburb while fleeing from a car that had been stopped by police. He was shot in the back by Officer Michael Rosfeld, who had been hired a month earlier and formally sworn in just hours before taking the teenager's life. (USA Today.) Shortly after his death, a series of riots and protests broke out with hundreds of people, many holding signs reading "Black Lives Matter," as did a study by Woodland Hills Intermediate School in Swissvale that released That " 4%.