Police Brutality Paper

Police brutality has occurred all across the U.S. and is still a major problem amongst society. It is when the use of any force exceeds the reason necessary for a police officer to use it. There are two forms of brutality and they are physical brutality and non physical brutality. Physical brutality includes assaults, and non-physical brutality includes the use of verbal language. Police officers have been granted the privilege of using “non-negotiable force” (Getoor 1990) to control citizens’ behavior and ensure public order. Police Brutality refer to any unnecessary use of force by police. There are many different definitions to what police brutality is considered to be. “Police brutality is the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force …show more content…
Kposowa (2008, p.514) study of officer shootings had said that in many situations, young officers were more likely to shoot their guns then the older police officers. The average age of an officer involved in a use of excessive force incident was 37 with only 12 years of experience in the field (Geoffrey. 1994). Comparing female and male officers, it was found that male officers had a higher mindset to shoot suspects than females officers. Not only do gender and age play a part of excessive force, but according to McElvain and Kposowa (2008, p.514) officer education is also an important factor. Studies suggested that white officers were more likely to be involved in force incidents than minority officers. The reason this is, is because majority of minority officers are female and female officers are mostly never involved in excessive force. The decision of police officers to apply force, in a given incident is a choice that will face them everyday. As noted by Davis “(a police officer) may be said to exercise discretion whenever effective limits of his or her power leave the officer free to make choices among possible choices of action or inaction” (Hess and Wroblesk, …show more content…
Threat is one of the most common used conflict to explain police brutality. According to Blalock’s (1967) threat theory, whites use racial discrimination as a tactic to control nonwhites.
Terril and Mastrofski (2002) measured the impact that gender, race, experience, training, and educational level had on the use of excessive force. Although they found that gender, race, and training were not as important, inexperienced and young officers were most likely to be involved in use of force encounters. More educated police officers were less likely to be involved in use of force encounters. Minorities are seen as threats to their power and they use their tools to eliminate these threats. Based on this theory, situational factors reflect the characteristics of the suspect such as race, gender, and age. Police officers are and will be the main cause of excessive force towards African American but will never be charged for

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