Introduction
The institution of police is necessary for the particle form of societal structure that is prevalent in all parts of the world today. The importance of a police force lies in the fact that police officers ensure that law and order is maintained and followed by the citizens. Their basic job is to make sure that all the citizens abide by the rules and regulations so that they do not encroach upon the rights of others. Their job is to file reports of those who break the laws so that their cases can be heard in the courts where they can be punished according to the levels of their crime. However, often times police officers use their authority in a very negative way for their own advantages. This happens when they are corrupt. This paper focuses on the issue of this problem and seeks to explain the dangers associated with it.
Police Brutality
As it always happens with positions of power and authority, they are often times misused by those who hold them. The same is the case with police officers. Every now and then cases of police violence against certain community members are reported. Even though these cases are fortunately rare when they do occur they are brutal. When a case of police brutality against the citizens occurs, it takes over the news and becomes a big deal, and rightfully so. The fact that these cases do occur can be confirmed from the testimony of a man who himself worked as a police officer. He admitted that such cases in fact do happen in which police officers use their power against the citizens, often times for their own advantages (Rodgers, 2016).
Police brutality is a lot more than excessive use of power against a particular person. It could include physical violence, harassment, threats as well as bullying. Many citizens have been victimized by these unjustified actions of police officers. More often than not, these actions are targeted toward a particular group of people. In the United States, for instance, such kinds of incidents primarily happen with black people in particular or the religious or ethnic minorities (Yan, 2017). Numerous cases have been reported whereby police officers have revered beating up of people belonging to these minority groups. These could be very humiliating for the victims since they are mostly done publicly in places where everyone can see them.
Cases of police brutality are not only wrong and demeaning, they are humiliating. What is particularly wrong with this problem is the fact that since police officers are civil servants, and that too really important ones, their unlawful actions are hardly ever taken into account by the state. Every single time a case of police brutality is brought up, the explanation forwarded by the perpetrators is that the actions that were undertaken were necessary. It has been clearly stated in the law that police officers can revert to violence if and only if their own lives are threatened or in danger. However, in most of the reported cases, police brutality is only conducted among those people who are innocent and helpless. This is not only wrong but also discriminatory. Apart from having a racist and ethnic dimension, it has a classist dimension as well. This further reinforces the binary between the upper and the lower classes as the people belonging to the lower classes are viewed with contempt by the police.
Police brutality can take extremely violent forms and cases in which people have lost their lives at the hands of this particular problem are not uncommon. In 2005, for example, a 22-year-old young man was tasered nineteen times by the police before he was sprayed with pepper and eventually beaten to death. The explanation that was provided for these actions of the police officers was that “he was acting strange.” Not only is this explanation vague and insufficient, it by no means justified this act of extreme brutality (30 Cases of Extreme Police Brutality and Blatant Misconduct). Newspapers are filled with such cases. What is surprising and disappointing is the fact that these kinds of cruel discriminatory actions are not only limited to adults. They are often found among young children as well.
In a high school in Tennessee, for example, the police tasered an eleven-year-old boy. The boy was having a physical fight with another boy which got pretty messy so the police were called in to intervene. However, the police officers who took action against this eleven-year-old black boy had no proof that it was he who was at fault. For all they knew, it could have been the other boy’s fault instead. But they took action against him just because he was black and they failed to provide a reasonable explanation for the measures that they undertook (30 Cases of Extreme Police Brutality and Blatant Misconduct). Many other similar incidents occur on a daily basis in various parts of America. The fact that nothing is ever done about them and the police officers are not questioned needs to be highlighted because that perpetuates and normalizes the problem.
Resolving the Issue
Solving this particular problem is important because it marginalizes particular segments of American society. America is very large and has people from various kinds of backgrounds. It is home to different categories of people. If this problem is not resolved, they would never be able to feel at home and would never develop the kind of love and attachment that the indigenous American people have. Moreover, crimes against these subgroups only make them violent. Because of these things, they develop hatred against the privileged groups of society even if they support them. This also perpetuates stereotypes about various categories of people which are always negative. It is important to realize that these people are equal in the eyes of the state just like other people are, thus they need to feel secure and protected (Ryan, 2018). The police must ensure their safety and protection instead of criminalizing them for no reason. People need to feel secure around the police, not threatened. Therefore, going into the depths of police brutality cases is necessary. It is important to punish those officers who are violent towards these groups of people because only then would these cases be stopped from happening. Police brutality cases need to be taken more seriously and the police officers need to be told that they would have to face serious consequences if they engage in violence against the citizens.
Conclusion
Police brutality is an issue that has not received the attention that it should. The effects and consequences of police brutality are highly underestimated primarily because it always seems to work against those groups of the society that do not have much representation. Their voices and concerns are not taken seriously. However, this needs to be changed and police officers need to be held accountable for their unlawful and extreme actions. Their job is to make sure that the citizens abide to the laws of the state, but they cannot themselves break those same laws while doing so. This must be looked into and those officers who take advantage of their authoritative actions need to be punished in order to handle this problem.
Works cited
Rodgers, Garry. “What’s Considered Police Brutality?” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 Dec. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.com/garry-rodgers/whats-considered-police-b_b_8865792.html.
Yan, Holly. “’Black Lives Matter’ Cases: What Ended up Happening after Police Killings.” CNN, Cable News Network, 27 June 2017, edition.cnn.com/2017/06/26/us/black-lives-matter-deaths-outcomes/index.html.
“30 Cases of Extreme Police Brutality and Blatant Misconduct.” Brainz, 30 June 2017, www.brainz.org/30-cases-extreme-police-brutality-and-blatant-misconduct/.
Ryan, Tom. “Police Brutality: The Impact on the Victims.” Legal Beagle, 22 Feb. 2018, legalbeagle.com/6647581-police-brutality-impact-victims.html.
