Is Law Enforcement Misconduct a Serious Problem in the United States Is Police Brutality a serious problem by law enforcement? How can we control police brutality? What is police brutality? Police brutality is defined as “Police brutality is a civil rights violation that occurs when a police officer acts with excessive force by using an amount of force with regards to a civilian that is more than necessary, and is generally beyond the force a reasonable and prudent law enforcement officer would use under the circumstances”. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://definitions.uslegal.com/p/police-brutality/) Police brutality has been an issue in the past and it continues today.
Controlling Police Brutality The police have served an integral part in society as out protectors. Throughout the years, however, scholars as well as we citizens have begun to question the use of force, racism and internal corruption as well as other forms of misconduct by our officers of the law. The excessive use of force by police officers persists because of overwhelming barriers to their accountability. For instance, when police do get in trouble, it is normally a slap on the wrist, a lecture or loss of a vacation day as it stated in the article “Good Cop Bad Cop.” This fact makes it possible for officers who commit these violations to escape punishment and then often repeat their offenses. Every report of abuse is often met with denial or explanation of why the abuse was necessary instead of taking any real action like a suspension or removal of their badge in most cases.
Police brutality is a growing problem in policing. There are laws that are strict on crime, and many times depending on the situation the officers need to react a certain way. Police brutality is excessive force to a major extent, and is not treated kindly. Police brutality can occur when an arresting officer feels threatened, by the arrestee, the arresting officer will defend him/her self but if something in their head snaps it becomes a beating. Police brutality is the intentional use of excessive force, usually physical, but potentially also in the form of verbal attacks and psychological intimidation, by a police officer.
Philip Eure Excessive force is a term used when the amount of force exceeds what’s necessary or justifiable in a given situation, (Philip Eure Attorney Exectuvie director of Office of Police Complaints, American University, Seminar on 9/13/12.). When is use of force justified As highlighted by almost all of the speakers, use of force is legitimate and justified if there is a reasonable belief that there has been committed a crime or that a crime will occur. Whether there is a reasonable belief must be determined on the basis of the evidence and the facts, but also in light of the person experiencing the situation. This was for example pointed out by Mr. Namon Jones of the DEA when referring to the incident where they discovered the drug-money; On the basis on the persons behavior and other evidence the DEA had reasons to believe the suspect had drugs in the bags in his house. In this situation it was justified to threatened the person that they would use force – in this case trespassing on his property – if he did not let them in his house and showed them the content of the bags if they got a warrant and he still refused (Namon Jones, DEA Special Agent, DEA Seminar on
But the use of force can be questioned in many ways. The 4th Amendment forbids “unreasonable search and seizures”, with a “seizure” being the use of unreasonable force. Then with the offender often being arrested and incarcerated they have the 8th amendment that protects them from cruel and unusual punishment. But should someone be accustomed to being assaulted by a police officer just because? No.
Hence, there are many differences between these two models with regard to their aims and their operation and have been the subject of debate for a long time among scholars and students of jurisprudence. The two models of criminal process were first identified by Herbert L. Packer, an American professor of law. In order to understand how they operate in the administration of criminal justice, we need to examine the values underlying the two models as defined by him. The crime control model basically proposes that curbing of criminal conduct should be the ultimate objective of the criminal process. If crime goes unchecked, it will eventually lead to the breakdown of public order, and therefore, will undermine human freedom.
Essentially, the police will base their use of assets in a manner to reduce crime by building ties within the community and having a presence in neighborhoods. This can be an effective method because many argue that seeing the police in an area a majority of the time deters criminals from acting in those areas. A downfall of the COP theory is that political influence can force a department to pool resources in an area where crime is not as prevalent in order to keep good relations with a major tax base. Often times the poorer neighborhoods do not feel as though they are receiving enough of a police presence. The contingency theory is based on the approach to achieve specific goals, such as crime control.
They are rare and hard to get access to, having very strict licensing laws. The pro-arming argument is that the Police would be a deterrent and would protect the officers. People who say that arming the Police would be a deterrent use other armed countries as an example of why we should have it; I don't believe this is an accurate view of the matter. Worldwide 2011 crime statistics show that in the USA there were 12, 664 murders, and 8,583 were caused by firearms. Compared to the UK where 648 murders where only 58 were caused by firearms.
Recently, conservative theorists have rallied toward “get tough” laws because the consensus is that “criminals are beyond reform and must be incapacitated behind thick walls” (Lilly, et. al, 2011). This law was
The fact that officers know that illegally obtained (but true) evidence will quite possibly be thrown out, and therefore dangerous criminals will be freed, will encourage them to follow the proper procedures. (Woodfin, 2009) In addition, there are already several exceptions to requiring a warrant, such as “stop-and-frisk”, airport and school searches, voluntary searches, and emergency situations (Scheb, 2008) While these arguments supported the continued use of the exclusionary rule, there are also many argue against its value to our criminal justice system. One of the most