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the concept of power
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The police play a vital role in today’s justice system; they are the heroes that catch armed banked robbers, stop kidnappings, and catch murderers that terrorize communities: or at least that is how they are portrayed. While police activities are much more mundane than the public may think, police are given total authority over the public to keep the streets safe. In Steven Lukes’ article, power, he gives a general definition of power as “the capacity to bring about outcomes” (Lukes 59), but that in actuality, a single definition for “power” is very controversial. Lukes gives synonyms such as “authority, influence, coercion, force, violence, manipulation, and strength” (Lukes 59), but chooses his words carefully to reveal the many contradicting synonyms to reveal the confusion about power. While it is a common misconception that officers are putting an end to things like “violence” and “manipulation”, in reality, police often cause conflict, and misuse their [vaguely defined] power because of the environment that police departments provide for their officers.
One of the best examples of power misuse is that of the Milgram experiment, conducted in the 1960′s. The study examined people’s willingness to submit to authority, even if it meant inflicting on pain on other participants. Milgram found that 65% of participants “were willing to give apparently harmful electric shocks up to 450 volts to a pitifully protesting victim, simply because a scientific, lab coated authority commanded them to, and despite the fact that the victim did nothing to deserve such punishment” (Persaud 356). In fact, the study “demonstrated with brutal clarity that ordinary individuals could be induced to act destructively, even in the absence of physi...
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...his skewed thinking is caused by how the academies approach their teaching of power conduct and sense of immunity that police officers are “given”. To prevent police brutality, it is necessary to change the thinking and environment that exists within the police academies and departments.
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Works Cited
Anderson, Benedict.Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 4-7. Web.
Lester, David.Police Violence: Understanding and Controlling Police Abuse of Force. Yale University Press, 1996. 186. eBook.
Lukes, Steven.power. 6. American Sociological Association, 2007. 59-61. Web.
Persaud, Raj.The Man Who Shocked the World. 331. BMJ Publishing Group, 2005. 356. eBook. .
“The Rodney King Incident.”West Valley College. (2005): 12-15. Print. .
Stetser, Merle (2001). The Use of Force in Police Control of Violence: Incidents Resulting in Assaults on Officers. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing L.L.C.
Power can be defined as the ability to influence or outright control the behavior of people. A variety of different things can drive power, including both knowledge and experience. Power in most cases is needed to establish authority. In today’s country, the United States government has a lot of power. It has so much power that even American citizens are beginning to complain about it. Having all this power and authority has allowed the government to make decisions quicker. However, by making decisions faster, some mistakes can be made and innocent people can be convicted. This point is directly exemplified when using two New Yorker articles, “Surviving Solitary” and ‘A Shot to The Heart.” Both articles consist of results produced quite
Carter, D. L. (1985). "Police Brutality: A Model for Definition, Perspective, and Control," in A.S. Blumberg & E. Neiderhoffer (Eds.), The Ambivalent Force. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Firstly, even after government advancement, the integration of a democratic society, and a greatly improved justice system, individuals still feel threatened by police officers. When police training was created, and guidelines/ penalties were and laid out, they were expected to have a large impact on minimizing incidences of excessive police force. Yet, this is not the case. It is often said that prevention is better than cure, this statement can be applied to police brutality by preventing it befor...
Cheh, M. "Are lawsuits an answer to police brutality." Police violence: Understanding and controlling police abuse of force (1996): 247-72.
Freddie Grey, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Eric Gardner, Jordan Baker.These are just some of the many, many African American people that were killed by the police, all unarmed, all mistreated by the police, all shot and killed, without a crime.. Every twenty-eight hours a life is lost. There are hundreds of innocent lives that are being taken away from their families. Police officers, who are meant to protect and serve, are instead killing and abusing civilians. These outrageous crimes would be avoided through accountability of the police, use of body cameras at all times, and the use of social media.
For many individuals, police brutality is a non-existent matter because it does not directly affect them or the community in which they live. Yet for others, this is an everyday occurrence and few limitations have been set as to what is unjust and malicious behavior of an officer towards the public, therefore, several officers are rarel...
Police brutality is a very real problem that many Americans face today. The police carry an enormous burden each day. Police work is very stressful and involves many violent and dangerous situations. In many confrontations the police are put in a position in which they may have to use force to control the situation. There are different levels of force and the situation dictates the level use most of the time. The police have very strict rules about police use force and the manner in which they use it. In this paper I will try to explain the many different reason the police cross the line, and the many different people that this type of behavior effects. There are thousands of reports each year of assaults and ill treatment against officers who use excessive force and violate the human rights of their victims. In some cases the police have injured and even killed people through the use of excessive force and brutal treatment. The use of excessive force is a criminal act and I will try and explore the many different factors involved in these situations.
10. Walker, Samuel (1999). The Police in America: An Introduction (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Police brutality remains one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States. The excessive use of force by police officers persists because of overwhelming barriers to accountability. This fact makes it possible for officers who commit human rights violations to escape due punishment and often to repeat their offenses. Police or public officials greet each new report of brutality with denials or explain that the act was an aberration, while the administrative and criminal systems that should deter these abuses by holding officers accountable instead virtually guarantee them impunity (Williams 45).
Attention Getter: Are all the officers who are intended to "Protect and Serve" really following through with that?
As taught in the lectures, it is impossible for police officers to win the war against crime without bending the rules, however when the rules are bent so much that it starts to violate t...
Walker, S., & Katz, C. (2012). Police in America: An Introduction (8th Edition ed.). New York:
Gul, Zakir, Hakan Hekim, and Ramazan Terkesil. “Controlling Police (Excessive) Force: The American Case.” International Journal of Human Sciences 10.2 (2013): 285-303. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
Even though, police brutality is a big problem, it is only proving the police wrong when it is