Police Brutality in the United States is a growing concern. It is their training which is causing so much trouble throughout the United States. Firstly American police are among the best trained in the world at what they do however it is what they are trained to do that is the problem, secondly police brutality is also associated with racial profiling, finally police in the United States kill more citizens than any other country in the world. They need better trained police officers to make less mistakes, which would could lead to less deaths and at some stage in time the end of police brutality.
Police training begins at the academy where the idea of officer safety is so heavily emphasized that it takes on an almost religious significance. All rookie cops are taught what is known to most officers as the “first rule of law enforcement”, that an officer’s goal is to be able to go back home to his family at the end of the day. They also learn that the world they live in can be very hostile so they need to stay on their guard, during every encounter, situation and that every individual is a potential threat. A common saying from cops “complacency kills”. “In an article by Seth Stoughton from the Atlantic, he states that during their training cops are shown dash-cam footage of fellow officers being beaten, disarmed and shot after a moment of not paying attention, this footage is vivid and heart-wrenching as they listen to the fallen officers last, desperate radio call for help, thinking that I won’t ever let that happen to me”. Although they make avoidable mistakes we have to give them some sympathy for their actions because everyday they risk their lives working in a country with one of the highest crime rates.
Racial profiling has been a huge problem in the United States ever since slavery laws in 1693 and still continues in a few states across the United States, an example of racial profiling is in Texas there use to be a law where if you saw three native Indian men you were legally allowed to shoot all three of them. Differences in race, religion, politics and social status relations exist most of the time between the police and the public, like how some police officers view the population or a specific part like “African Americans”, as they deserve punishment, while portions of the population see all police officers as oppressors because of their use of over excessive violence to enforce the law. Racial equality is another example of police brutality . Black Americans are more than twice likely to be unarmed when killed by police than whites, one of the most common reason police have killed men is because they mistook the persons black wallet as a gun which is absolutely ridiculous. Also the gap between the amount of white people compared to is very large.
States police kill more of its population than any other country in the world. According to copcrisis.com in 2014; 1294 people were killed by police and in 2015; 1296, so far this year 239 people have been killed by police, this is very worrying as the body count is rising every year, on average every 7 hours US police kill an American citizen, in the first 24 days of 2015 U.S police shot and killed more people than police in England and Wales combined over that past 24 years. In Iceland there has only been one case of police killing since it became independent in 1944. A possible way to reduce the amount of killings in the U.S that all police officers need to be assessed every 6 months to show their ability to properly perform their job, much like school exams.
In conclusion the amount of police killing people in the U.S is essentially “overkill” and it needs to become a high priority. They need better trained police officers to make less mistakes, which would could lead to less deaths and at some stage in time the end of police brutality.
References:
Iceland grieves after police kill a man for the first time in its history (December 03, 2013)
http://www.pri.org/stories/2013-12-03/iceland-grieves-after-police-kill-man-first-time-its-history
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