Police Abuse Is a Form of Terror, Research Paper Example

Police abuse or police brutality can easily be viewed by many as a form of domestic terror. This is most likely due to the unfortunate events that have taken place in the past several years. It surrounds all of the stories about law enforcement abusing their position of power. They use it against people they feel are guilty of crimes they may have not committed. This is highly influenced by race, particularly, the African American culture. A report from the New York Times suggests that Police Abuse is a form of Terror based on gathered evidence of police abuse against African Americans. The report builds a strong case for this claim and it is unfortunate that such an issue exists in our country. Based on my own research, I would have to concur with this argument as far as feeling that “police abuse and brutality can serve as a form of terror for many African Americans.” (Blow Web)

Police brutality is a phrase used when referring to the over-use of physical force, assault, verbal attacks and threats by police and other forces of public order. The term can also be applied to the same behavior of prison officers. Such a negative concept would easily constitute as terror to those being victimized. This is prevalent in many countries. Brutality is one of the forms of police misconduct that includes “false arrests, intimidation, political repression, racism, abuse of surveillance, sexual abuse and police corruption.” (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 234)

An extensive report of the Department of Justice of the United States on the use of the police force launched in 2001 indicates that in 1999, “it is estimated per 422 000 persons of 16 years or more” (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 171) have had encounters with the police where gathered both attacks as threats”.  Another report of the Department of Justice published in 2006 shows that, of the 26 556 complaints that the citizens were made in 2002 on the excessive use of police force between the major agencies of the United States (which represents 5% of the agencies and the 59% of the staff), around 2000 if it is argued. (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 181)

However, other studies have shown that in most cases the police brutality is not complaint. In 1982, the federal government funded a study of Police Services, in which more than 12 000 randomly selected citizens were interviewed in three metropolitan areas. The study found that “13% of respondents had been victims of police brutality the previous year, but only 30 per cent of those who recognized such brutality” filed formal complaints. (Taylor 202)

Police brutality is often associated with the race racial, religious, political and socioeconomic differences. When these discriminations against differences are considered, it would appear that this is in line with terror on a domestic level. Police and citizens can contribute to the creation of a relationship in which some police officers can “see the population or a part of it as a group which to punish.” These portions of the population are seen by the police as an oppressive group. In addition, there is the perception that the victims of the brutality of the police often belong to relatively powerless groups such as minorities, young people and the poor. Simplified, a specific race, African Americans, are in constant terror as they are often the targeted victims of police brutality. (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 57)

The truth is that the African American population is still maintained in an apartheid socio-economic brutal in spite of the nominal equality and are victims of systematic repression (of which the killings and other abuses by the police are not more than the tip of the iceberg). Even forms of enslavement, to a large extent through private prisons that are nothing but “modern plantations”, that continually demand more labor-intensive. This results in higher rates of incarceration on all of black men. Many times they are going to jail for minor offenses such as possession of marijuana (the rate of consumption is similar between blacks and whites but many more blacks are jailed for this “crime”, as well as any other). (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 193)

Going to the concrete, there are recent events very worrying around the Ferguson. In full peanuts from anniversary, just when the chief of police had just explain in a press conference the tolerant, patient and trying to be to avoid incidents. “There was a shooting still far from clear, who was critically injured a close friend of Michael Brown “- by the police, of course. This gives the impression of an incident provoked. (Blow Web)

Recent reports of NGOS and Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International confirms that “the brutality of the prison officials is especially abundant in the United States.” A report of Humans Rights Watch published in 2006 entitled “Cruel and degrading treatment: the use of dogs for the transfer of prisoners in the prisons in the United States“, revealed that five state prisons contemplated the use of aggressive dogs and, un-muzzled to terrify and even attack the prisoners as part of the procedures of relocation of prisons. (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 183)

The Amnesty International report 2007 on human rights abuses also documented widespread police in many other countries. In this last entry is included Freddie Gray, a young “man of 25 years of Baltimore whose death sparked strong protests and riots, and reopened the debate on racism and police brutality in the country.” (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 297)

In the United States, the investigation of cases involving police brutality have been usually assigned to the departments of internal affairs and/or the district attorney. The departments of internal affairs have been criticized for the lack of accountability and for the agents that are partial, they often declare that the agent did not act according to the rules of the department or according to your training. For example, a study focused on the Police Department of Chicago, which was conducted in April 2007 found that “between 2002 and 2004 more than 10 000 complaints of police abuse, only 19 of them had to do with real disciplinary actions.” (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 175)

The study shows that the body of the police department in monitoring allows officials with “criminal tendencies that use impunity”, and argues that the Police Department of Chicago should not allow this policy. (Taylor 203)

The capacity of the district public prosecutors to investigate police brutality has also been questioned, since they depend on help from the police department to bring cases to trial. It was not until the nineties that the efforts began to be serious at the time to transcend the difficulties of dealing with the patterns of misconduct systemically in the police departments. (Chaney 498)

Beyond the police departments and district attorneys, other monitoring mechanisms of the government have evolved in a kind of political terror. The case of Rodney King led to the creation of the Independent Commission on the Los Angeles police, known as the “Christopher Commission” in 1991. The Commission, which is responsible for investigating the practices of the Los Angeles Police Department has uncovered disturbing patterns of misconduct and abuse, but the reforms recommended by the effect were put on hold. Meanwhile, media reports revealed a frustration in the treatment of systematic abuse in other jurisdictions, as well as in New York and Pittsburgh. Selwyn Raab of the New York Times wrote about how the blue Code of Silence among the agents of the police helped to hide the more egregious examples of misconduct. (Chaney 491)

It was in this climate that the section of the police misconduct that the act of Congress of the United States Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement (1994) was created by authorizing the attorney general of the United States to “submit demands or search warrants for the reform of the police departments that have a pattern or practice by which may “violate the federal rights of citizens.” (Chaney 501)

The movement organization “The life of the black matter” (Black lives matter), created on the protests by the murder of Michael Brown at the hands of the police in Ferguson, (USA), together with other organizations, has released a report in which it is proved that every 28 hours the police killed a black person. In the document were embodied social claims among which are:

– ending police brutality

– The end of the “line” that leads from the school to prison.

– Freedom to the imprisoned.

– End of the prison-industrial complex.

– AND: Release of all political prisoners in the US.

The web KilledbyPolice.net (killed by the police) gives a figure of 748 killed in the last 8 months of 2013, and 1,100 in 2014, and this only on the basis of what reported in the media. But of the “1,800 police agencies of the US, only report 800, what makes you think that the figure of 748 a few months of 2013, or the 1,100 killed in 2014,”. These are much lower than the actual figures. But a last-minute information offered by Gum Violence Archive said that from January to June of this year 2015 the police has killed 600 people. (Blow 2015)

The statistical data do not provide doubt of racism on the part of the government and their arms in the US: 3 out of every 4 killed by the police are black people. The reason that such statistics point in the direction of terror is because a singled out race is vulnerable to becoming a part of these statistics. Although this form of terror is different from foreign terror caused by Al-Qaeda or I.S.I.S., it is still a form of terror that a significant part of the police force is unknowingly causing on African Americans. This is why it is referred to as “domestic terror”.

A more concrete example of such a war against African Americans and Latinos is the fact that in Chicago there is an average of 50 murdered blacks a year 50.  What are the causes and the reasons for such terror against a single race? How do we explain the case of  “police killing a black child that was playing in a park with a toy gun.” (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 122)

To a large extent this police action is given by the character of the State established by the ruling class and the laws that emits. This class is the creator of the police, and he did so on the basis of the racist groups who chased the black when ran away from the fields of slaves. On the other hand, the privatization of prisons and the laws that all presidents are adopting on the causes for arrest and detention, and there is presented the business jailer. The laws that every president has been added on the subject give each time more opportunities to make black prisoners to those who are dedicated to bring prisoners to private prisons: “80% of the prisoners in the US are African American.” (Barak, Gregg, Leighton, & Cotton 124)

In conclusion, based on the research conducted and existing evidence, domestic terror is an on-going problem in the United States. This form of domestic terror targets African Americans and it must be addressed. For too long, this form of terror on African Americans has been viewed as random casualties, but the statistics show otherwise. The process of putting an end to domestic terror must first start with addressing the issue and making people aware of it. Police abuse needs to be controlled as there should not exist any form of terror by fellow Americans.

Bibliography

Barak, Gregg, Paul Leighton, and Allison Cotton. Class, race, gender, and crime: The social realities of justice in America. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Blow, Charles. “Police Abuse Is a Form of Terror.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 15 Aug. 2015. Web.

Chaney, Cassandra, and Ray V. Robertson. “Racism and police brutality in America.” Journal of African American Studies 17.4 (2013): 480-505.

Taylor, Clarence. “Introduction: African Americans, police brutality, And the us criminal justice system.” Journal of African American History 98.2 (2013): 200-204. 2013