Police is a system of public services and institutions aimed at maintaining public order as well as protecting civilians. However, they automatically fail to do so when the legally-given right to use force in certain exceptional circumstances is abused. This paper looks at previous cases of police violence used against citizens of the United States and analyzes different theories that explain the causes of this misconduct. In addition, it discusses whether ethnic and racial minorities are more likely to be subjected to the police brutality. Besides the race and ethnicity, it talks about other personal characteristics that place a regular citizen in the role of a potential victim of the police aggression. Lastly, the paper examines the reaction
…show more content…
However, application of excessive or sometimes even deadly force by police officers against unarmed citizens is not a rare phenomenon. This paper will present two articles that give detailed analysis of several cases from the United States where African American males were shot to death by officers of the law. It should not be ignored that different social, organizational and personal factors could provoke such a tragic resolution of the events. Afterwards, various professional consequences the police officers face after employing unreasonable, excessive force should be discussed in order to understand how the police departments react and penalize the malfeasance. At the same time, it is important to take into account the theory that rejects the idea of racial and ethnic minorities being systematically targeted to brutality by the police. This theory explores other aspects of the identity such as gender and the economic status that play a more significant role in determining the victims of the excessive force. Eventually, one study has closely looked at how the society perceives police departments and their actions toward citizens. By analyzing the roots of this contemporary issue and applying the conflict theory, it helps to better understand how to prevent such incidents and improve the work of the agencies whose objective is to protect and prevent or …show more content…
To begin with, Chevigny (2008, p.1615) argues that the systematic targeting of minorities by the police is reality and varies from culture to culture. A research conducted by Brunson and Miller (2006) has found that police brutality is most often directed toward minority groups and occurs in disadvantaged neighborhoods of the city (as cited in Holmes & Smith, 2012, p.345). In addition, Holmes and Smith propose various theories of social and psychological patterns that can explain this misconduct by the police force. For example, they claim that one of the main factors could be the lack of intercommunication between police officers and citizens, mostly of disadvantaged neighborhoods (p.348). Thus, these two groups do not associate or empathize with each other which results in a complete opposition and creation of conflicts. Besides the communicational factor, the emotional setup of a police officer can be a determining factor of the use of violence against minorities (p.347). Police officers that are exposed to the daily work in disadvantaged urban areas have to sometimes deal with aggressive troublemakers. Ultimately, every individual living in these poor conditioned areas will be perceived as a threat to the police officer’s safeness. Hence, the social condition of
However, application of excessive or sometimes even deadly force by police officers against unarmed citizens is not a rare phenomenon. This paper will present two articles that give detailed analysis of several cases from the United States where African American males were shot to death by officers of the law. It should not be ignored that different social, organizational and personal factors could provoke such a tragic resolution of the events. Afterwards, various professional consequences the police officers face after employing unreasonable, excessive force should be discussed in order to understand how the police departments react and penalize the malfeasance. At the same time, it is important to take into account the theory that rejects the idea of racial and ethnic minorities being systematically targeted to brutality by the police. This theory explores other aspects of the identity such as gender and the economic status that play a more significant role in determining the victims of the excessive force. Eventually, one study has closely looked at how the society perceives police departments and their actions toward citizens. By analyzing the roots of this contemporary issue and applying the conflict theory, it helps to better understand how to prevent such incidents and improve the work of the agencies whose objective is to protect and prevent or …show more content…
To begin with, Chevigny (2008, p.1615) argues that the systematic targeting of minorities by the police is reality and varies from culture to culture. A research conducted by Brunson and Miller (2006) has found that police brutality is most often directed toward minority groups and occurs in disadvantaged neighborhoods of the city (as cited in Holmes & Smith, 2012, p.345). In addition, Holmes and Smith propose various theories of social and psychological patterns that can explain this misconduct by the police force. For example, they claim that one of the main factors could be the lack of intercommunication between police officers and citizens, mostly of disadvantaged neighborhoods (p.348). Thus, these two groups do not associate or empathize with each other which results in a complete opposition and creation of conflicts. Besides the communicational factor, the emotional setup of a police officer can be a determining factor of the use of violence against minorities (p.347). Police officers that are exposed to the daily work in disadvantaged urban areas have to sometimes deal with aggressive troublemakers. Ultimately, every individual living in these poor conditioned areas will be perceived as a threat to the police officer’s safeness. Hence, the social condition of