Police Misconduct Case Study

1. Identify a social problem experienced by that community. Use an existing study or journal article to explicate the problem.
In this day and age in America’s social class is based on income and race. Political and systematic factors used to oppress the people of a certain community govern our social classes. Within every social order in the world there must be an authoritative system put in place. Those who have low income are subjected to poverty stricken environments where in some cases police have abused their power. In recent news the deaths of Korryn Gaines, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and countless others has sent a shockwave through the black community. To those in the African American community the death and or harm our inhabitants
Amongst the nation there are a various numbers of people of all ages who report situation of police misconduct or use of excessive force. According to the National Police Misconduct Reporting Project in 2010 over 1000 police officers were “involved in reported excessive force complaints, 897 (56.9%) were involved in cases of physical use of force complaints which include fist strikes, throws, choke holds, baton strikes, and other physical attacks”. Out of the approximately 1,600 police officers involved and reported in misconduct cases “343 of those law enforcement officers were criminally charged, convicted, or sentenced for those incidents” (Packman, 2011).

2. Describe how the problem reflects issues of power, structural power and powerlessness of those people in your community especially in relation to oppressed and marginalized groups. (1 page)
The most prominent case for this is the numbers of wounded and killed minorities versus those of the wounded and killed white population. The systematic racial background of America plays a large part in today’s police misconduct. From the days of slavery to the civil rights movement to modern day, authority figures and minorities in this country have been against those whom have darker colors of skin. Referring to the disenfranchisement, stereotypes, and exploitations African-Americans have been subjected to in America historically. African Americans have been disenfranchised through
473,644 were totally innocent (89%), 284,229 were Black (55%), 165,140 were Latino (32%), [and] 50,366 were White (10%)” (Fallon, 2013). “Eight-year NYPD veteran, Adhyl Polanco, said that in 2009 his Bronx precinct supervisors insisted on 20 summons, five street stops and one arrest per month. Those who didn't make the quota were penalized by poor evaluations and denial of overtime. He testified that his supervisors "did not think breaking up fights, ending domestic disputes and other police duties were as important as the numbers (McCauley, 2013). One case of this is the Michael Daragjati incident. “In April 2011, Daragjati, who is white, stopped and frisked Kenrick Gray, a 33-year-old black man, and found no weapons or contraband. But after Gray complained about his treatment during the search, Daragjati took him into custody on a charge of resisting arrest, claiming that Gray flailed his arms and legs during the arrest. Gray spent 36 hours in jail. On the wiretap, Daragjati told a friend that Gray had not resisted arrest and that he had "fried another nigger,” (Rudolf, 2012) .Cases such as this are extreme but they show the motives to some extent of the stop and frisk policy. As of today, stop-and-frisk has been banned in New York but when it was active many victims did not know they were able to deny the search.
3. Describe how would you engage with your community (i.e. group work processes) to develop a vision to address