Research Essay
For many years police brutality has been a reoccurring issue and has only gotten worse within the past few years. Living within the United States people are given the sense of security that they are provided and given safety under those in blue uniform. What sense of safety are those people given in a society where any individual can be prone to police brutality. This begs the question what are the potential motives that lead to this build up. It has been proved statistically and factually through articles and News reports that minority groups are the ones who have been affected the most by this issue.
Police Brutality has been an issue for many years. They are there to “serve and protect,” right? Well throughout those years this field has gotten more and more corrupt with officers abusing their power and more importantly towards minority groups. There have been multiple events where a life has been taken due to misjudgment done by officers. For example, George Floyd, although some may argue to a point that he was not an innocent man he most certainly did not deserve to die. Constantly telling the officer “I can’t breath,” with the officer showing a lack of care eventually leading to his death.
In the article, “Mechanisms Connecting Police Brutality, Intersectionality, and Women’s Health Over the Life Course.” PhD Authors Sirry Alang, Rachel Hardeman, and Je Judson imply that police brutality is connected between racism and sexism. The article explains how in the past, law enforcement would use enslavement, emprisonment, whipping, and lynching of Black people in order to facilitate punishment. Their purpose in writing this article is to highlight the biases and the racial discrimination still present within modern-day police brutality through a historical lens. Alang, Hardeman, and Judson use archival records to illustrate the ways in which law enforcement has a history of disproportionate discrimination and punishment on the basis of race in America that can still be seen today.
Writer Kathryn Roberts’ book “Policing in America ” examines racism within police brutality. Roberts explains how police officers are there to protect and serve, but overtime start targeting people of color and use unnecessary brutality against them. Her purpose with this book is to let people know about this issue and how important it is while also helping with the understanding of the different viewpoints behind this. Her intended audience for this book was towards people belonging to minority groups who have to unfortunately struggle with this issue.
There is also this article that was composed by the following authors Graham, Amanda Haner, Murat Sloan, Melissa M. Cullen, Francis T. Kulig, Teresa C. Jonson and Cheryl Lero. They explain the continued relationship with the use of lethal and excessive force between the police and African Americans. They use statistical data in the form of a national survey in order to help support their claims. Their purpose for writing this article is to show the diversity at which police brutality occurs amongst people belonging to different ethnic groups. This was written with the intention to shed light to those who are silenced by the law and taken advantage by it.
Writer Hannah LF Cooper adds to this with her article “War on Drugs Policing and Police Brutality.” Within this article she talks about not only the timeline of Police Brutality over the years but also the involvement of drugs within this issue. She gets into how the dealing of drugs has correlation with Police targeting the Black community (racially profiling them by these issues) It is shown through research that the War on Drugs caused an effect of an increase on the occurrence of police brutality. This article provides a different perspective on why there may be an increase in Police Brutality and why it seems to be targeted towards people belonging to minority groups. It shows the side which people (especially people of the black community) have to go through within their daily lives.
In a letter that was composed by Human Biology at Wayne State University press titled “An Open Letter to Our Community in Response to Police Brutality Against African-Americans and a Call to Anti Racist Action.” Within this letter it talked about the idea that Police Brutality was associated with racism against minority groups specifically the African-American Community. This letter goes over those who have been affected by Police Brutality such as George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and many more. It mentions that people should provide their work to bring justice to this corruption. This letter was made to highlight the importance of working together as a community to try and resolve this ongoing problem.
Writers Brad W. Smith of Wayne State University and Malcolm D. Holmes of University of Wyoming developed an article called “Police Use of Excessive Force in Minority Communities: A Test of the Minority Threat, Place, and Community Accountability Hypotheses.” Within this article they talk about how there are different perspectives when it comes to police brutality, which includes those who deal with the issue of having violators of the law and then the people who have to deal with the racial profiling done by other officers.This article holds significance to this issue for the reason that the authors of this article not only provide facts but also provide their own hypothesized opinion on the matter. This helps spread awareness among academic groups such as universities and students who read articles.
There is a group of scholarly writers Campney, Brent M.S, Cunningham, David; Ward, Geoff; Lee, Hedwig who developed an article “Police Brutality and Mexican American Families in Texas, 1945-1980. This article shows a different view on the Police Brutality in the way that it shows Mexican families rather than African-American groups. With the date provided within this article it also shows us how far Police brutality dates back to and shows that its been an ongoing issue around the US. The example used is the murder of Federico Gutierrez in 1952, a Mexican resident who lived in Texas. They continue to talk about how the murder of Federico along with other people like him aren’t the only ones who suffer these causes but also their families. The families of those affected by Police Brutality now have to deal with the loss of their loved one which is emotionally draining resulting in creating a poor mental state (along with trauma) to develop overtime.
People belonging to Minority groups have to deal with the constant worry that they will be subjected to Police Brutality. They are taught that those in blue provide service for our protection, instead that idea has been compromised and those in blue invoke fear among these groups. Some may argue the reason why this may be but the answer still remains the same, minorities shouldn’t have to be racially profiled because of another’s mistake. They are here for the opportunities that await them, not to feel like they are put in a prison and watched.