Police Equality And Justice

The state has an independent authority to govern itself and the mandate to govern and protect its citizens. The law enforcement officers are the agents of enforcing the law, and the police play a very significant role in promoting peace. There are policies that guide how the police maintain law and order and which describe the growing series of actions that an officer can take when resolving a situation. These policies recognize the rights of the people, and that the police have the instruction to respect them even when enforcing law and order. Despite that the police have authority over the common person, they do not have the right to use this authority to harm them. However, the authority of the police has remained one of the most misunderstood
authority and powers provided by the law.
Police officers have the authority to use physical and psychological force to apprehend criminals (Alpert and Smith 481). The use of both physical and psychological forces should be reasonable. However, the word ‘reasonable’ has raised controversy on how it should be applied and the extent to which the force used should be termed as reasonable or not. The problem that has been faced when determining the reasonability of a police officers’ actions is because reasonability cannot be measured by weight. According to Smith and Alpert (p.484), police officers, especially street officers, can determine what reasonable force means and most of the problems that have been experienced when determining whether a force was excessive or not lies with the departmental level officers. This has also been barred by police officers trying to protect their fellow officers from being accused. It is the judgment of a ‘reasonable person’ that can judge whether an act is reasonable or not.
It is undeniable that police officers work under hazardous conditions, while at the same time, the public keeps a very sharp eye on how they carry their duties. The general responsibility of maintaining law and order, and which is entrusted upon them carries with it the use of force to arrest or even to kill. The question, however, arises on when such excessive force should be used and on whether it applies to a group of people more often than others and on whether sometimes the police is on the wrong side in case such situations happen? These are the questions that have been used to question on whether justice has been carried out in case the integrity of the police is questioned. To determine such cases, it is the responsibility of the courts to analyze the situation and determine whether force was justified or not. The definition of both the permissible and excessive force should be situationally appropriate and should not be constrained by academic or judicial considerations (Smith and Albert 484). Legal efforts have been made to define the legal standards when an officer can be accused of using excessive force or acquainted of using excessive force regardless of whether they used it.
According to Smith and Albert (p. 490) scientific analysis, sequential decision theory and research on police can help in evaluating whether excessive force was used in a given situation or not. There are two critical threats that need to be analyzed prior to using the force. One of them is the threat to escape and the other one is physical threat. There are questions on how a police officer should handle a situation where a suspect is trying to escape from arrest. The critical question is on whether the police officer should let the suspect escape or they can use any means possible to stop the criminal from escaping (Smith and Albert 490). In this situation, if the suspect is running away but has not posed any significant danger to the officer, then it is not justifiable to shoot him or her. If the suspect is trying to escape from an officer who is trying to fight him, the officer can use reasonable force to constrain the suspect, but should not use deadly force.
Under normal circumstances, suspects will escape arrest if no force is used and, therefore, a degree of force has to be used to contain them. Before using a certain degree of force, however, the police should consider the seriousness of the initial offence that the suspect committed. The second consideration that need to be analyzed before determining whether a police officer was brutal or not is the physical threat which involves violence, bodily harm or death (Smith and Albert 491). In the case a suspect acts in a manner that threatens the lives of the police officers, then the police officers can respond in a way to protect themselves and the public. However, the perception of the officer in this situation should count a lot than the action itself. It would be wrong if a police officer kills a suspect who points a gun at the police officer, but the police officer notices that it is a toy gun. After all, a police officer can take the life of an offender if they are firing a weapon or they are pointing a gun to either to police or to a civilian so that they can protect the lives of the civilian and that of theirs.
Nevertheless, serious cases of police abuse to authority have raised intense public debate. Although findings by Weisburd, Greenspan, Hamilton, Williams and Bryant (p.2) show that the use extreme force by the police occur infrequently, the word ‘infrequent’ itself shows that the problem is still there regardless of how slight it may be. It is regrettable how people could be talking of being brutalized and manhandled in the hands of the authorities who should be protecting them. Despite the government having a sovereign power over the citizens, it is sad to see government officers who have been bestowed the responsibility to make people feel comfortable make them feel uncomfortable (Wheeler 471). In a society, there will always be the law abiders and the lawbreakers. The law requires everybody to abide by the law regardless of their position. However, that does not guarantee the police to use force to correct law breakers. In the case it happens, they are legally required to take action and apprehend the criminal. Nevertheless, the question of justice and equality comes when the law seems to be more disciplinary to a group of people compared to the other.
The United States is a continent that is composed of both blacks and whites. When it comes to abiding the law, all the races within the boundaries of the United States are required to follow the law indiscriminately. That means that the police are mandated to arrest any person who breaks the law regardless of whether they are white or black. However, some occurrences in the way police handle criminal activities have left people wanting to step back and reflect on the significance and the developments of the past, based on whether a person is a black or a white (Wheeler 467). Race has been a variable when determining the behavior of the police towards a suspect and, thus has put the question of justice and equality in question especially when blacks are involved. Alpert and Smith (484) confirm that it is justifiable for police officers to use force against a suspect, beginning with presence, verbal or visual commands and using deadly force as the last result if necessary. There have, however, been complaints that the use of the last result (force) has been very common towards blacks than whites.
On July 17, 2014, police officers approached Eric Garner, a 43 year Black American who was selling single unlicensed cigarettes on the streets with an intention to arrest him (Wheeler 468). Garner was unarmed and tried to pull away as the police officers as they were trying to handcuff him. He was put in a chokehold and drugged while being held around the neck. Garner lost his consciousness and went into a cardiac arrest and died a short time later. The whole act was recorded on video and medical examination showed that Garner had been chocked by the police officer. The police officers were later summoned in court and they were acquainted one after the other, even the officer who killed Garner. A related case happened on August 9, 2014, when an unarmed Black American, Michael Brown, was walking out of a convenience store with his friends and a police with a patrol car ordered them to stop. Michael tried to escape and the police officer ran after him until Michael decided to stop and walked towards the police officer. The police officer opened fire on Brown killing him on the spot. The Jury found the officer, Wilson, who was white, innocent.
These two cases raised outcry on the conduct of police officers and the question of equality and justice was put into question.
While police officers are supposed to police all people equality, the two cases gave insights that there is a group that is inferior to the other and whose members have a life less worth than that of the others. It left people thinking that blacks are at a greater risk of being shot by the police than their white counterparts (Wheeler, 469). While the authorities dispute this, the common person judges that excessive forces was used in these case and the police officers involved had to be prosecuted for manslaughter and homicide. It is evident that Garner was unarmed so there was no justification for the police officer to chock him while trying to arrest him. He was even heard telling the police officer that he was unable to breathe, so ruling out that the police officer did not know whether he was chocking him is out of question. The same case applies to the second officer who killed Brown. It was manslaughter to kill the boy when he was not armed. The question remains on why the police officers were found innocent while they had
killed.
Police brutality has been reported to be prevalent when police are handling black suspects than white suspects. According to wheeler (p.470), the killings involving the black men in the two cases and the acquaintance of the police officers who committed such killings, it is a sign of an oversimplification of the injustices and the inequity that has been there when a white and a black are involved in a criminal case. It is evident that blacks are at a greater risk of falling prey to injustices and judges have used this to discriminate against the blacks (Cassandra and Robertson 501). It becomes too easy to say that white policemen hate blacks and this is the new social reality that blacks have to face in America. Down the lane of history, black people have suffered from discrimination, especially when a white person is involved. A person can ask whether the cases would have been ruled the same if the cases where vice versa, that is, if blacks killed whites. Almost definitely, the ruling would have been quite different than it was in these previous situations mentioned.
The results of a ruling are not only determined by the race of the people involved.
The question of justice and equality also applies when gender is involved. According to Mcall (p.75), both institutional and gender models play a very significant role in determining the outcomes of a ruling and this brings the question on whether justice and equality is guaranteed in such cases. He notes that female justices might not be single-handedly effective in implementing policies as explained by the gender theories. This shows that, when measuring whether equality or justice was applied in a case, the gender of the judges also play a role. So, doe this mean that the female gender impairs justice and upholding equality when ruling cases and what determines these factors whenever a female judge is
concerned?
According to Mcall (p.76), female police justices are likely to rule liberal in a case where police brutality is involved. This means that the question on whether the gender of a justice determines the outcome of a case is generalized than it was previously thought. Previous researches failed to find any relevance between gender and the outcomes of rulings. However, just like in the death penalty where men ruled more for the death than women, the same case might be inherent in the brutality cases (Mcall 76). According to the thinking of many and as the gender theories says, women are the major makers of life and they are more impacted when a life is lost or when humanity is leading to sufferings. This, therefore, means that it is likely that women will also be liberal in judgment when a brutality case is involved regardless of whether a white or a black is involved, but the gender bias cannot be ruled out completely. Women are more likely to rule against the police officer if the brutality was involved.
The National Institute of Justice has provided the use-of-force continuum that guides how officers have to respond to certain situations so that that they can prevent the questions of whether injustice or equality was used. The best way to resolve any situation is considered to be the presence of the police. Here, the presence of a police officer in itself singlehandedly works to deter any crime from happening (National Institute of Justice par. 2). The other continuum is the use of verbalization, where officers use calm and non-threatening commands. Officers can increase their voice to influence command compliance. In a much serious situation, officers can use either soft or hard empty hand control technique to control a situation. In less extreme cases, officers can use less lethal methods such as blunt impact, chemical or Conduct Energy Devices to immobilize a suspect. On serious cases where a suspect is posing a threat to the officer or to the public, an officer can use lethal force such as deadly weapons so that they can stop the actions of the person.
Police officers have been accused of being complex and contradictory in the way they practice their authority. Notably, they have been accused of using excessive and brutal force when handling suspects. The use of brutal force has also brought another question on whether the force that they use is the same for both black and white suspects. Many people have had the feeling that the police have a negative attitude towards blacks and blacks are more likely to experience their brutality than their white counterparts. It is also claimed that when a police officer is involved in a case of using excessive force against a white, it is unlikely that the police will be held responsible for their actions. On the other hand, women justices are more likely to rule liberal in cases involving police brutality than their male counterparts. A lot of suggestions have been provided, and which give guidance on when a police act can be termed as brutal or not. It is the high time to reform the police department and abolish any injustices and inequalities that it inflicts while practicing its duty.