Police Brutality Effects On Minorities

Starting with the slave trade in the mid-1600’s and evolving into laws being erected in 1954, racism has been prevalent in the United States for hundreds of years. Now, its 2017 and even after slavery and Jim Crowe laws have been abolished, and Brown vs Board has been appealed, racism still rears its ugly head in the lives of the masses. This particular plague has unfortunately spread into the hearts and minds of civilians, government officials, and those holding immense amounts of power and influence. With that being said, it is no surprise that among the bodies in which such gross injustices occur, the police force comes into question. Seemingly more so than ever, police brutality as a whole has been happening at an alarming rate. Flip on
By definition, police brutality is the use of any force exceeding that reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose, and is accompanied by federal law Article 42 Section 1983 which states, in layman’s terms, that a suit may be filed if a citizen is deprived of their federally protected rights by a person acting under the authority of the law (Cornell). It is also important to note that the most common violations are excessive force, false arrest (in correlation with the fourth amendment), and failure to
But that number is just a figure containing the incidents actually reported as police related. Out of roughly 17,000 law enforcement agencies that litter the US, only 5% of them contributed to a Department of Justice generated report on police misconduct. This statistic is jaw dropping for many reasons, one being that right now in America, a citizen is being killed by a law enforcement officer every 7 hours, on average. Additionally, 1.8 billion dollars is being charged as a cost to taxpayers to pay for court fees in result of the misconduct (Cop Crisis). The effect police brutality has on the lives of the victims is detrimental, but is also surprisingly reaching a hand into the wallets of those who have no direct contact with it. It is appalling that action isn’t being taken and that more outrage hasn’t been drawn from such low amounts of national participation and concern when it comes to such a serious matter. This says a lot about how much importance the agencies, and perhaps even a select percentage of citizens, place on the topic in conjunction with the illegal activity of their own officers. Whether it is from ignorance or lack of awareness is unclear. However, it is no coincidence that both of the aforementioned are the very roots of why racism is still in existence