Police Brutality - Research Paper Example

1 Police Brutality A Research Proposal 2 Table of Contents 1.0 Title Page……………………………………………………………………..1 2.0 Table of Contents…………………………………………………………….2 3.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………..3 4.0 Literature Review…………………………………………………………….4-7 5.0 Proposed Theoretical Model…………………………………………………8 6.0 Methodology………………………………………………………………8-12 7.0 Expected Outcomes…………………………………………………………..12 8.0 References……………………………………………………………………12-13 9.0 Timeline—Schedule………………………………………………………….14 10.0 Budget……………………………………………………………………14 11.0 Data Analysis……………………………………………………………...14-15 12.0 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………15 13.0 Abstract……………………………………………………………………15-16 3 3.0 Introduction Police brutality is an interesting topic under the study of criminal justice. This is so because the spate of police brutality on ordinary Americans in recent years has quadrupled with dismally high figures. It has become the commonest news on TV and radio these days. So, why this disturbing trend? Why should police threaten, terrorize and bash defenseless people they had been trained to protect? What are the factors responsible for the continuation of this disgraceful act of wickedness? It is reportedly believed that systemic police brutality occurs on a daily basis in America; and some of the victims of these attacks often ended up being shot and killed, even if innocent of the crime they were accused of (Lendman, 2010). Therefore, the following issues are begging for clearer explanations: (i) what motivates an average police officer to pull a trigger on an ordinary, innocent citizen like himself or herself? Could such an action be racially motivated? Or have long-held prejudices played a significant role in this kind of deadly act? And what could be done to prevent this shameful act from continuing? What are the appropriate mechanisms that should be implemented in granting justice to the victims or/and their families? 4 4.0 Literature Review Although it is not an overstatement that community policing in a free world like the United States is similar to cutting through a mountain with bare teeth! It is indeed a difficult task that requires arduous concentration, serious planning and cutting-edge management (U.S Department of Justice, 1998). The presence of multi-cultural communities in many cities and towns across the country even makes this task appears more complicated. Each member of the communities aspires for equal treatment under the law when it comes to the issue of policing (Walter, 2000). But could such demanding circumstance put a strain on the police officers’ performance and turned them into violent or aggressive officer exterminating the defenseless citizens they are paid to protect? Even though they have their own prejudice, police officers are required by laws and ethics to justly handle each case. In order words, they should see their job as servants to the entire population, not just to satisfy the ideology of their own race or religious affiliations once they are in the uniforms (Mastrofski, 1999). However, instances of overtly use of force and weapons peppered by racial prejudice have often come up between the civilians and the police officers (Milton et al, 1977). And in these situations, the affected civilians who might have felt cheated and embarrassed could also often resort to self-defense. In the course of the melee, either the police officer or the civilian may have an upper hand in the scuffle, and one of them might mistakenly take the life of the other! In order to have a better grasp of this issue, it is important to consider several points of views 5 on the matter. Why do police officers did kill ordinary people? And what do the communities think when such a thing happened? Well, there are divergent points of view whenever issue like this is being discussed. (i) The criminal’s point of view: Police officers often claim that they perceive suspects as deadly criminals, hence making efforts to justify their extra-judicial killings. Do the police officer who took the suspects’ lives often acted rightly when they cite self-defense as the major reason for shooting them? This question is yet to be answered comprehensively: one sure fact is that the police may have acted based on other factors rather than self-defense. (ii) Police’s point of view: As an agent of law enforcement, is it always correct to believe that a police could exert any amount of force to subdue a protesting civilian suspect? Almost every time a suspect got killed, the Police often absolve its officers of any untoward behavior: the final assertion has always been in support of the police officer’s action as necessary for the protection of law and order. Is this assumption always correct? (iii) Community’s point of view: How does a community in which such a killing takes place react to the incident? Well, it depends on the demographic of the community. If it contains more people of the same racial orientation as the police officer, there might be a mild reaction 6 to the murder of the police officer. But, if a victim is killed in his/her demography; there is every possibility that a racial struggle may be ignited. However, recent studies on the theme of police brutality pinpoint that there are some disturbing factors why police in American communities go on killing spree. Some of the factors include but not restricted to those highlighted below: (a) Excessive use of force: Milton et al (1977) explained how deadly an excessive use of force could be: Some police officers perceive themselves as more superior once they were in uniform. And in some cases, they threatened the public by their unethical behavior (Milton et al, 1977). Such an attitude does not respect the tenets or laws of the United States, which grant every member of American communities his or her statutory rights. (b) On-the-job laxity: this is common among young officers who act improperly even when they are on duty. Sometimes, a police officer may let racial exasperation and prejudice take over his/her sense of duty to the community and the people and acted stupidly by creating chaos through lax attitude. There are countless cases of accidental discharges when bullets from police weapons were suddenly released and killed passersby. (c) Understanding the community structure: Despite their rigorous 7 trainings, many police officers haven’t fully grasped the complexity of the community’s structure they were expected to work in. And this often creates a condition of mistrust and misunderstanding (Mastrofski, 1999). On most occasions, such mistrust often compelled police to pull his trigger at a slight irritation. (d) Language barrier: As immigrants poured into the United States for economic or educational purposes, many of these new residents are unable to hold a fruitful conversation in English; hence, when they run into problems with an officer, this encounter may lead to death due to misunderstanding of each other’s intentions. (e) Youth culture: Many cities are witnessing a surge in the number of unruly youths who are forming gangs and hate groups. These kinds of groups are often perceived as dangerous by majority of the police officers in these communities. Therefore, when there a small altercations among the members of the gangs, the police normally react to such an issue with strong determination and aggression (U.S. Department of Justice, 1998). Many young promising people who had unluckily associated themselves with street gangs have lost their lives as a result of police brutality. 8 5. Proposed Theoretical Model The Proposed Theoretical Model for this study is that it is possible to stem this rampant police brutality by creating an atmosphere of mutual understanding between the police and the public (Regoli & Hewitt, 2007). 6. Methodology This study will employ a mixed methodology through the use of an inductive and deductive framework to investigate the phenomenon of police brutality against ordinary American citizens (Kothari, 2008). The reason for the combination of inductive and deductive frameworks lies in making use of the advantages of both. The inductive method is better suited for the use and interpretation of qualitative data, while the deductive method has more emphasis on measurement and therefore is better suited for use in quantitative data and the interpretation of quantitative data. This study employs a mixed methodology by collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data will be secondary data as compiled through a literature review above and will make up the body of knowledge on the subject of police brutality. From the analysis of the secondary resources in this study, I discovered some points that have been used in designing the questionnaire for providing the quantitative primary data. 9 I prefer to use an open questionnaire over a closed questionnaire. In an open questionnaire there is greater structure, which allows for probing deeply into the minds of the victims of police brutality to remove the disadvantage of receiving superficial data, as in the case of a closed questionnaire. Since it may be difficult to be in direct contact with the victims of police brutality, some witnesses or relatives of victims of police aggression are the participants in this quantitative study. The participants were chosen without any discrimination against age, gender, height, looks and status. The total sample size will be 50 (N=50). Random selection is employed to reduce the impact of bias on the study. A large sample size has been selected to make the sample more representative of the cross section of the relations/witnesses to police brutality, and thereby increasing the validity and reliability of the study. The study will not utilize advanced statistical tools like SPSS for analysis. However, this limitation means that simple statistical tools like classification, tabulation, averages, percentages and bar charts are employed for clear statistical analysis of the data. This does not, in anyway, undermine the clearness of the variables analyzed in this study. Rather, it makes the outcomes or findings in the study easy for even a layman to digest and apply quickly. Complex or advanced analyses can confuse, on most occasions, and it could lead to misinterpretation of data. This study’s integrity is based on the fact that it excludes all forms of biases and randomly investigates the possibility of risks in the construction 10 activities, while projecting the appropriate factors leading to police brutality. Some ethical issues are considered in the course of collecting the data for this study: they are outlined as follows: 1. Permission from individual participant was received before giving them the questionnaires. This is to obtain the facts in a democratic circumstance whereby information is elicited with full support from the participants. 2. The participants will be clearly informed about the nature and purpose of the study (Miller and Dingwall, 1997). 3. Professional ethics as a researcher will be maintained at all times during the study: which include non-interference on the participants’ opinions and personal views. 4. The participants will be assured that the data collected would be for academic purposes only, and since no personal identification is required from the participants, they will be excited to participate in the exercise. 5. Data will be collected in such a manner as to ensure absolute confidentiality. Concerning the design of the questionnaire, the questions the participants will be asked are concerned about the issues leading to police brutality, the victims’ self-defense efforts and the quest for criminal justice by the families of the victims. Their responses were expected to contain information that would be used in measuring 11 the impacts of police brutality in American communities. Considering the Literature Review above, the questions below are selected to target the ability of participants in explaining their traumatic experiences of seeing police doing the dastard act of civilian bashing. While all the participants are given these questions, emphasis will be placed on the fact that they personally choose what kind of responses to give to the questions—that is, no prompts, hints, or ideas will be offered before the participants voiced out their personal opinions. Question1: What was it like seeing police brutalizing someone in your presence? Question 2: Did the victim make any attempt to defend himself or herself? Question 3: Did people around this scene of physical battering do anything to help? If yes, what kind of help? Question 4: How long did the assault last? Question 5: What kind of weapon did the police officer carry? Question 6: Did other law enforcement agents around to stop the attack? Question 7: What were your reactions to this police brutality? Question 8: Do you think that the police officer was doing the right thing? 12 Question 9: If you happen to be one of the victim’s relations, what would you have done? Question 10: How safe is America in the face of increased police aggression? 7. Expected Outcomes My study is expected to yield modern approaches to handling the ageless problem of police brutality. This field of study is dynamic, and studies are constantly sought by the law enforcement agencies in order to control the rate of occurrence of this enigmatic problem. I believe my study will be given due recognition by the appropriate authorities. 8. References Kothari, C.R. (2008). Research methodology: methods and techniques. 2nd edn. Delhi, India: New Age International. Lendman, S. (2010, July 23). Police brutality in America. Baltiimore Chronicle & Sentinel. Retrieved from http://baltimorechronicle.com/2010/071310Lendman.shtml Mastrofski, S.D. (1999). Policing for people, ideas in American policing. Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation. 13 Miller, G., and Dingwall, R. (1997). Context and method in qualitative research. Thousand Oaks (CA): SAGE. . Milton, C.H., Halleck, J. W., Lardner, J., and Albrecht, G. L. (1977). Police Use of Deadly Force. Washington, D.C.: Police Foundation. Regoli, R.M., and Hewitt, J.D. (2007). Exploring criminal justice. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. US Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice (1998). Community Policing in action: lessons from an observational study. Research Preview, 10, 2-7. Walter, L.(2000). Eradicating racial stereotyping from Terry Stops: the case for an equal protection exclusionary rule. University of Colorado Law Review, 71 (1), 255-94. 14 9 Timeline—Schedule The time schedule for each of the activities associated with my research is as follows: (i) Research secondary data for literature review-------------(5 days) (ii) Prepare the questionnaire……………………………(2 days) (iii) Data collection…………………………………………(7-10 days) (iv) Data Analysis………………………………………….(2 days) (v) Initial draft of the research paper……………………..(5 days) (vi) Final draft of the research paper……………………..(3 days) 10. Budget Since it is difficult to give the exact amount of money that will be needed for this study, I would rather suggest it may gulp $3000 USD. I am going to self-sponsor myself. 11. Data Analysis As indicated in the methodology above, this study will not utilize advanced statistical tools like SPSS for analysis. Simple statistical tools like classification, tabulation, averages, percentages and bar charts are employed for clear statistical analysis of the data. This does not, in anyway, undermine the clearness of the variables analyzed in this study. Rather, it makes the outcomes or findings in the study easy for even a layman to digest and apply 15 quickly. Complex or advanced analyses can confuse, on most occasions, and it could lead to misinterpretation of data. The data will highlight the probable factors leading to police brutality. It will reveal the level of prevalence, and people’s reactions to a scene of police aggression. Other variables like loopholes in the laws and their implementation would be explored. 12 Conclusion My study will reveal the modern causes of police aggression, the perception of such an attitude in the society, and how it could be controlled. Future studies may want to concentrate on the mental health investigation of the police officers involved in civilian bashing. 13. Abstract Police is expected to be a shield to many armless civilians, however, some officers have turned around to terrorize, threaten and exterminate the people they are trained and paid to protect. This study investigates the modern causes of police brutality with hope of determining the possible impact on the American communities. Investigation is launched into how this dastard attitude could be halted. Both quantitative and qualitative methodology are employed in this research, and the participants are relations of the victims, who provide the in-depth information about their experiences watching police officer harassing their friends or family members. Data are collected, analyzed and 16 discussed. Appropriate conclusion is drawn on the facts obtained, using the theoretical model or frameworks provided by the qualitative data obtained from secondary studies. Fifty (50) participants are used for the purpose of this study. Read More