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Police Brutality Essay

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Hundreds of innocent lives are taken every year by law enforcement. Whether it is due to bad judgment on the police officers behalf, or intentional targeting due to internalized biases, there are lives being wrongfully taken far too often in our nation today. While people of all racial groups have fallen victim to police brutality, Black men and women are most susceptible to it and suffer from it more than any other group. On average black men are 9 times more likely to be shot by law enforcement than white men (Swaine). The issue with the recurring cases we see regarding police shootings or police harassment is the fact that the officers who abuse their authority don’t always get the punishment they deserve. Misbehaving cops are often spared punishment by colleagues and bosses who cover for them in order to keep them around. There is much controversy regarding how to punish these officers due to the fact that it is difficult to determine whether their actions were justified or not. Even if the victims were proven innocent, courts may still rule the actions of the officers as justified. These circumstances in which officers aren’t held responsible for murdering or severely harming black folks is the reason police brutality is still a serious issue in our society. If a police officer takes an innocent life, they should be immediately removed from the police force and should face further punishment, because if not, law enforcement will continue to abuse their power.

This issue is quite complicated in the way that everyone has a different opinion about whether police officers should be fired for making the mistake of harming an innocent person. Some could argue that not all men and women should be fired from their job because some officers have legitimate reasoning for shooting an unarmed person. They could object my claim by saying not all police officers deserve to lose their job just because they had bad judgment and made a one time mistake. Instead, the option that is proposed on this side of the argument is that these officers should only be suspended and if it happens again, then they should be fired. The issue with this option is that there is the possibility of a second time, the possibility that another innocent life could be taken. While I agree that it isn’t fair to say that every officer who is fired deserves it, or that for the reinstatement of all cops represents the failure of justice, I think killing or severely harming an innocent civilian cause for the removal of the police officer regardless of the circumstances. If we let officers get away with such actions then we cannot expect any progress to be made. For those in law enforcement who want to or do abuse their power, they may begin to believe that they can do so without suffering the consequences because others have gotten away with it in the past.

In an essay written by Assata Shakur, she tells the story of how she was wrongfully accused of murdering Zayd Malik Shakur and state trooper Werner Forester after a traffic stop that went terribly wrong on May 2, 1973. Shakur stated that Trooper Harper claimed he had initially pulled them over due to faulty tail light, yet It became clear that Harper had a racial bias against Black people and that Shakur and her friends were innocent targeted and harassed because of it. Harper claimed he became “suspicious” of their behavior and the resulted in the shooting and killing of Malik. To respond to the events that took place that night, Shakur stated: “The truth is that there was a major cover-up as to what happened on May 2, 1973” (Shakur 65). She continued to explain the ways in which Harper lied in court and to the authorities about who had really shot officer Forester and Malik. This quote is important because it shows the ways in which white police officers whom unlawfully use their power to get away with murder. Since Shakur was a black woman, her side of the story didn’t have much an impact even though she had strong evidence supporting her defense. This story is an example as to how law enforcement holds so much power over minority groups. Harper had lied to cover himself and the court system ruled in his favor because he was a powerful white man. Circumstances like these prove that we cannot excuse officers actions just because they claim they had justified the reasoning for killing an innocent human being. Sure there are instances that are real accidents, but any one of these officers could lie about their true intentions and that is another reason we must hold every officer accountable.

Similarly to Shakur’s experience, there are thousands of African American citizens around the nation today that are still dealing with police brutality and the reality that many guilty officers often get off with little to no punishment. Organizations such as the Black Lives Matter movement continue to fight against police brutality through protest, marches, and sometimes even riots. The group strives to prevent and stop the violence that is inflicted on the black communities by the state and others who unrightfully intervene. In a statement written by the creator of this group, Alicia Garza, she discusses the ways in which the Ferguson case had triggered the momentum within the Black Lives Matter movement. The death of Mike Brown by the hands of police officer Darren Wilson lead to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement that we know of today. Garza stated that “People were hungry to galvanize their communities to end state-sanctioned violence against Black people, the way Ferguson organizers and allies were doing” (Garza). This statement shows that the BLM group used what happened after the death of Michael Brown and brought the anger and passion that they had within the protests back home. Rather than peaceful, non-violent protesting that black rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. practiced in the past, they used the tactics of rioting to gain the attention of the masses. This form of protesting shows how black communities have been pushed to their breaking point due to the oppression they face from the authorities.

Currently, within our society and particularly the media, Black Lives Matter has been given a bad reputation due to the riots that have occurred around the nation. While not all members of BLM agree with the behavior of those involved in the riots, there are a lot of people within the movement that uses violence as a way to point out the injustice black communities face. Members of this group use their anger to damage property and even enforce more violence upon police officers, and this just leads to more bloodshed. In an article written by Joy James in 2015, titled “Moving Targets”, she examines how authority figures within the justice system respond to the riots and violent protesting that have happened more recently by groups such as Black Lives Matter. She stated, “Even as police continued to violate black communities, Attorney General Lynch instructed ‘the Baltimore community’ to adhere to nonviolence” (James). This statement is significant because it shows how someone with so much power within our country responds to cases of police brutality. It touches how police aggression is seen as necessary by many law enforcement officials in our current society and it is often protected by our government. We see this through Lynch’s decision to defend the oppressors rather than the oppressed. Lynch suggests that the solution to this issue is to have activists protest peacefully without violence, instead of holding the police officers who are abusing their power within black communities accountable. This U.S. Attorney General neglects to understand that when groups of Black men and women feel they have to resort to violence in order for change, this shows how big of an issue this really is. If police officers were forced to face the consequences of killing an innocent black person, such as losing their job, and there was justice for those who were killed by law enforcement, groups such as Black Lives Matter wouldn’t feel the need to react with violence.

The loss of a job does not compare to the loss of life. We must prioritize the safety of Black lives and the public over the protection of law enforcement labor rights. If we let these police officers who abuse their authority keep their jobs or merely just temporarily make them pay for their mistakes, we cannot expect police brutality to end. All over the nation, police unions are helping many of these cops to get their jobs back, often through secretive appeals. But we cannot keep reinstating these guilty officers or keeping them employed because we are essentially risking the lives of those belonging to minority groups by doing so. We must stop worrying about the status of these law enforcement officials, and rather we should be focusing on the ways in which we can end police brutality against Blacks within America by any means possible. I believe the first step our country must take to put an end to police brutality starts with Law enforcement officials immediately removing guilty officers from the police force. Because if they don’t, officers will continue to abuse their power and innocent lives within black communities will continuously be at stake.

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87 Police Brutality Topics and Essay Examples

🏆 best police brutality topics for essays, 📌 most interesting police brutality essay topics, 👍 good research topics about police brutality, ❓ research questions about police brutality.

• Police Deviance For the sake of this paper, the scope of this paper will only examine the code of conduct in reference to the relationship between the police force and the society.
• Police Brutality: Internal and External Stakeholders To begin with, internal stakeholders such as police officers and judges have been observed to enforce the law discriminatively. Policymakers can be encouraged to propose and support powerful laws that have the potential to deal […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Police Misconduct Actually, prosecutors are always reluctant to try these victims in the court of law for the following reasons; police officers, in most cases, are protected by the prosecutors.
• Police Brutality: Dissoi Logoi Argumentation Under the influence of societal views, the majority of the representatives of the general public tend to perceive police officers as a safeguarding force that gathers individuals who perform their duties to ensure that the […]
• Police Misconduct: What Can Be Done? Police officers are the individuals charged with the task of maintaining law and order and ensuring the security of the population.
• Excessive Force by the Police On the other hand, the media reported on the severity of misconduct by police officers and cited the Blue code of silence as the key setback against the fight against police torture.
• Police Brutality in the USA This paper aims to discuss the types of police brutality, the particularities of psychological harm inflicted by the police, and its consequences for the population affected by these forms of violence.
• Police Brutality: Causes and Solutions If the criminal is armed and firing at the police, the use of force is acceptable. However, when the actions of the police are disproportionate to the committed crimes, the necessity of such measures is […]
• Impact of Police Brutality on the Society in the United States The issue of racism is one that has led to police brutality that has been witnessed in the American society for a long time.
• Excessive Force and Deviance, Police Brutality The events highlighting racial injustice could positively influence our society, maintaining an appropriate level of awareness regarding the issues encountered by African-Americans and prompting a change in police behaviors.
• History of Police Brutality: The Murder of George Floyd Police officers strive to maintain order and ensure adherence to the laws of the state. The standards observed the right to democracy and addressed the need for representation.
• Body-Worn Cameras Against Police Brutality in New York There is often a legal foundation to such a privileged position; the laws control the oppressed class and mitigate threats to the power of the ruling class.
• Police Brutality: Social Issue This paper explores the issue of police brutality and seeks to shed light on the perceptions of the public, especially the black minority.
• Police Brutality: Graham vs. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 In this essay, a summary of the Graham and Connor case and the decision of the court will be introduced. In case this suggestion is correct, Connor appears as a police officer who failed to […]
• Police Brutality as a Law Enforcement Challenge The problem has persisted due to the ineffectiveness of different leaders. The number of unexplainable shootings, severe beatings, and mistreatments continues to be reported in the country.
• Social Psychology: Police Brutality The first group of solutions to the problem of police brutality includes technical measures, such as the use of body cameras and dashboard cameras. Finally, another potential solution to police brutality is the diversification of […]
• Technology Influences on Police Brutality Modern platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can be used to inform and educate more people about the nature of police brutality.
• Public Administration Issue: Police Brutality The trend is ongoing and is not expected to end any time soon because of the social structure and the culture that does not value the contributions of minorities and people of color.
• Police in Law Enforcement Misconduct This creates a rift between the community and the police leading to further misconduct in the process of enforcing the law.
• The Incidents Involving Police Brutality
• The Infringement of Natural Human Rights Because of Police Brutality in the United States
• Police Brutality and Its Effects on the United States
• The Flaws of Police Officers and the Issue of Police Brutality on an Individual
• The Suffering and Fight of African-Americans Against Police Brutality
• The Image Serving as a Reminder of Police Brutality
• The Negative Effects of Police Brutality
• The Changing Patterns of Racism and Police Brutality in the United States
• Police Brutality and the Death of Freddie Gray
• The Issue of Police Brutality and Injustice in the Story of Kalief Browder
• The Relation Between Police Brutality and Race in the United States of America
• Police Brutality and Racism Against African Americans
• The High Prevalence of Police Brutality Towards African America
• The US Government Faces Different Challenges with Police Brutality
• The Truth About Police Brutality Against Minorities
• The Importance of Body Cameras for Solving the Problem of Police Brutality
• Protesting Protest Against Police Brutality
• The Solutions to the Issue of Police Brutality in the United States
• Racism: Police Brutality and Racial Profiling
• Prejudice, Police Brutality, Racism: The Three Things We Are Trying to Get Rid Off
• Problems Caused by Police Brutality
• Police Misconduct and Police Brutality
• The Issue of Police Brutality Against People of Color in the United States
• The Issue of Police Brutality Against the Colored People in the United States
• The Effects of Violence on Police Brutality
• The Deaths Caused by Hurricane Katrina and Police Brutality in America
• Social Media Activism, Centered on Police Brutality
• The Effects of Police Brutality on the Relationship
• The Long Problem of Police Brutality in the United States
• The Police Brutality Against Minorities
• Race, Police Brutality, Crime, Education and Poverty
• The Issue of Police Brutality in the United States and the Solutions to Curb Police Misconduct
• The Influence of the Media and Social Class in Police Brutality
• The Dangers of Racial Profiling and Police Brutality
• The Effects of Police Brutality on Minority Communities
• The Effects of Police Brutality and Racism English
• The Drug Trade as the Cause of Police Brutality in Brazil
• Police Brutality and Their Power Caught on Video by Bystanders
• How to Deal with the Problem of Police Brutality in the United States?
• What is the Relations Police Brutality and Its Contributors?
• How Repressive Laws and Police Brutality Against Mexican Americans Stigmatized the Race as a Whole?
• How Race and Ethnicity Affects Police Brutality Term?
• Police Brutality Ends Here?
• What Does the Media Cover up the Police Brutality?
• How Does Police Brutality on Children Affect How Society?
• Does Police Brutality Distort the Way People View Law Enforcement?
• How Can We Help Prevent Police Brutality?
• How to Stop Police Brutality Against Minority’s?
• Has Been Police Brutality Alive for Too Many Years?
• Has Police Brutality Increased Throughout the United?
• What Is Wrong with Police?
• How Police Corruption Remains a Tainted Reminder of Police Brutality in the US?
• Does Police Brutality Affect the Mental Health of Black Youth?
• Why Isn’t Outrage over Police Brutality Enough?
• Are the Police Taking Advantage of People by Using Police Brutality?
• Has Been Police Brutality Around for Decades?
• Should There Be Direct Laws Against Police Brutality?
• Can You Trust the Law?
• What Is the Police Brutality Effect on African American Males?
• When the Police Duty to Protect Fails Police Brutality?
• Religious Profiling and Police Brutality: How They Affect Operations?
• What Are the Effects of Police Brutality?
• Police Brutality: What’s Really Going on?
• What is the New York City Police Brutality?
• How Does the Body Camera Increase Police Brutality?
• The Causes of Police Brutality in America: Is It Due to Police Behavior?
• When Excessive Force Becomes Police Brutality Sociology?
• What is the Link Between Police Brutality and the Law Enforcement Officers?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Police Brutality - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Police brutality refers to the excessive or unnecessary use of force by law enforcement officers. Essays on this topic could explore the incidences of police brutality, its causes, and its impact on communities, particularly marginalized groups. Further discussions might extend to the legal frameworks governing law enforcement conduct, the calls for police reform, and the movements advocating for accountability and justice. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Police Brutality you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Police Brutality and Racism

The Declaration of Independence was created to protect the inalienable rights that all Americans receive at birth, yet police brutality continues to threaten the rights of African Americans everywhere. Police everywhere need to be given mandatory psychological tests in order to gain awareness of racial bias in law enforcement and allow citizens to slowly gain trust for the officers in law enforcement. No one wants a child to grow up in a world filled with hate. As Martin Luther King […]

The Effects Police Brutality has on Society

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Is Racism Still a Current Issue in America

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Police Brutality – Systemic Misuse of Authority and Abuse of Police Powers

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About Black Lives Matter Movement

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Defacement Reflecting on Police Brutality: a Jean Michel-Basquiat Story

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Police Brutality Culture

The use of excessive force on civilians whether innocent or suspected is deemed as Police brutality. And everyone can attest to the fact that police brutality is ever on the rise. We see it every other day in the news, on the internet and some of us have even witnessed it just around the corners in our neighborhoods. Even if it is plastered all over the media, those officers seem to still remain in the lines of duties. Why? Do […]

Police Abuse of Power

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Institutional Racism and Police Brutality in Education System

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Police Brutality against Black Communities

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Police Brutality: Hispanics, Asian, and African American

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Police Brutality against Black People

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History of Police Brutality

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<h2>How To Write an Essay About Police Brutality</h2> <h3>Introduction to the Issue of Police Brutality</h3> <p>When approaching the sensitive and complex topic of police brutality for an essay, it is crucial to start with a clear definition and understanding of what police brutality encompasses. This term generally refers to the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers, often tied to a broader discussion of systemic issues within policing institutions. In your introduction, provide context for the essay by highlighting the significance of this issue, its impact on communities, and its relevance in the current social and political climate. This opening segment sets the stage for a deep and thoughtful exploration of the various dimensions of police brutality, including its causes, effects, and the ongoing debates surrounding it.</p> <h3>Analyzing the Causes and Manifestations</h3> <p>The body of your essay should delve into a detailed analysis of police brutality. This includes examining the root causes, such as systemic racism, lack of adequate training, and issues within the criminal justice system. Discuss different manifestations of police brutality, from physical violence to psychological tactics, and consider how these actions affect not only individuals but also communities and public trust in law enforcement. Utilize specific examples, case studies, or statistical data to support your points, ensuring that your argument is grounded in factual information. This section should be structured to provide a comprehensive and balanced exploration of the topic.</p> <h3>Addressing Solutions and Reforms</h3> <p>In this part of your essay, focus on the potential solutions and reforms aimed at reducing instances of police brutality. Discuss various proposals such as increased accountability measures, police training reforms, community policing strategies, and systemic changes in law enforcement agencies. Analyze the effectiveness of these solutions, drawing on examples from different jurisdictions where reforms have been attempted or implemented. Consider the challenges and barriers to implementing these changes, including political, institutional, and social factors. This segment should highlight the complexity of solving the issue of police brutality and the need for multifaceted approaches.</p> <h3>Concluding Thoughts on Police Brutality</h3> <p>Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points discussed, and reflect on the broader implications of police brutality on society and the justice system. This is an opportunity to reiterate the importance of addressing this issue and to encourage ongoing dialogue and action. Offer a perspective on the future of policing and community relations, considering the current trends and movements. A strong conclusion will not only wrap up the essay effectively but also leave the reader with a deeper understanding of the complexities of police brutality and the necessity for continued attention and effort in combating it.</p>

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Solving racial disparities in policing

Colleen Walsh

Harvard Staff Writer

Experts say approach must be comprehensive as roots are embedded in culture

“ Unequal ” is a multipart series highlighting the work of Harvard faculty, staff, students, alumni, and researchers on issues of race and inequality across the U.S. The first part explores the experience of people of color with the criminal justice legal system in America.

It seems there’s no end to them. They are the recent videos and reports of Black and brown people beaten or killed by law enforcement officers, and they have fueled a national outcry over the disproportionate use of excessive, and often lethal, force against people of color, and galvanized demands for police reform.

This is not the first time in recent decades that high-profile police violence — from the 1991 beating of Rodney King to the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 — ignited calls for change. But this time appears different. The police killings of Breonna Taylor in March, George Floyd in May, and a string of others triggered historic, widespread marches and rallies across the nation, from small towns to major cities, drawing protesters of unprecedented diversity in race, gender, and age.

According to historians and other scholars, the problem is embedded in the story of the nation and its culture. Rooted in slavery, racial disparities in policing and police violence, they say, are sustained by systemic exclusion and discrimination, and fueled by implicit and explicit bias. Any solution clearly will require myriad new approaches to law enforcement, courts, and community involvement, and comprehensive social change driven from the bottom up and the top down.

While police reform has become a major focus, the current moment of national reckoning has widened the lens on systemic racism for many Americans. The range of issues, though less familiar to some, is well known to scholars and activists. Across Harvard, for instance, faculty members have long explored the ways inequality permeates every aspect of American life. Their research and scholarship sits at the heart of a new Gazette series starting today aimed at finding ways forward in the areas of democracy; wealth and opportunity; environment and health; and education. It begins with this first on policing.

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad traces the history of policing in America to “slave patrols” in the antebellum South, in which white citizens were expected to help supervise the movements of enslaved Black people.

Photo by Martha Stewart

The history of racialized policing

Like many scholars, Khalil Gibran Muhammad , professor of history, race, and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School , traces the history of policing in America to “slave patrols” in the antebellum South, in which white citizens were expected to help supervise the movements of enslaved Black people. This legacy, he believes, can still be seen in policing today. “The surveillance, the deputization essentially of all white men to be police officers or, in this case, slave patrollers, and then to dispense corporal punishment on the scene are all baked in from the very beginning,” he  told NPR  last year.

Slave patrols, and the slave codes they enforced, ended after the Civil War and the passage of the 13th amendment, which formally ended slavery “except as a punishment for crime.” But Muhammad notes that former Confederate states quickly used that exception to justify new restrictions. Known as the Black codes, the various rules limited the kinds of jobs African Americans could hold, their rights to buy and own property, and even their movements.

“The genius of the former Confederate states was to say, ‘Oh, well, if all we need to do is make them criminals and they can be put back in slavery, well, then that’s what we’ll do.’ And that’s exactly what the Black codes set out to do. The Black codes, for all intents and purposes, criminalized every form of African American freedom and mobility, political power, economic power, except the one thing it didn’t criminalize was the right to work for a white man on a white man’s terms.” In particular, he said the Ku Klux Klan “took about the business of terrorizing, policing, surveilling, and controlling Black people. … The Klan totally dominates the machinery of justice in the South.”

When, during what became known as the Great Migration, millions of African Americans fled the still largely agrarian South for opportunities in the thriving manufacturing centers of the North, they discovered that metropolitan police departments tended to enforce the law along racial and ethnic lines, with newcomers overseen by those who came before. “There was an early emphasis on people whose status was just a tiny notch better than the folks whom they were focused on policing,” Muhammad said. “And so the Anglo-Saxons are policing the Irish or the Germans are policing the Irish. The Irish are policing the Poles.” And then arrived a wave of Black Southerners looking for a better life.

In his groundbreaking work, “ The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America ,” Muhammad argues that an essential turning point came in the early 1900s amid efforts to professionalize police forces across the nation, in part by using crime statistics to guide law enforcement efforts. For the first time, Americans with European roots were grouped into one broad category, white, and set apart from the other category, Black.

Citing Muhammad’s research, Harvard historian Jill Lepore  has summarized the consequences this way : “Police patrolled Black neighborhoods and arrested Black people disproportionately; prosecutors indicted Black people disproportionately; juries found Black people guilty disproportionately; judges gave Black people disproportionately long sentences; and, then, after all this, social scientists, observing the number of Black people in jail, decided that, as a matter of biology, Black people were disproportionately inclined to criminality.”

“History shows that crime data was never objective in any meaningful sense,” Muhammad wrote. Instead, crime statistics were “weaponized” to justify racial profiling, police brutality, and ever more policing of Black people.

This phenomenon, he believes, has continued well into this century and is exemplified by William J. Bratton, one of the most famous police leaders in recent America history. Known as “America’s Top Cop,” Bratton led police departments in his native Boston, Los Angeles, and twice in New York, finally retiring in 2016.

Bratton rejected notions that crime was a result of social and economic forces, such as poverty, unemployment, police practices, and racism. Instead, he said in a 2017 speech, “It is about behavior.” Through most of his career, he was a proponent of statistically-based “predictive” policing — essentially placing forces in areas where crime numbers were highest, focused on the groups found there.

Bratton argued that the technology eliminated the problem of prejudice in policing, without ever questioning potential bias in the data or algorithms themselves — a significant issue given the fact that Black Americans are arrested and convicted of crimes at disproportionately higher rates than whites. This approach has led to widely discredited practices such as racial profiling and “stop-and-frisk.” And, Muhammad notes, “There is no research consensus on whether or how much violence dropped in cities due to policing.”

Gathering numbers

In 2015 The Washington Post began tracking every fatal shooting by an on-duty officer, using news stories, social media posts, and police reports in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Brown, a Black teenager in Ferguson, Mo. According to the newspaper, Black Americans are killed by police at twice the rate of white Americans, and Hispanic Americans are also killed by police at a disproportionate rate.

Such efforts have proved useful for researchers such as economist Rajiv Sethi .

A Joy Foundation Fellow at the Harvard  Radcliffe Institute , Sethi is investigating the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers, a difficult task given that data from such encounters is largely unavailable from police departments. Instead, Sethi and his team of researchers have turned to information collected by websites and news organizations including The Washington Post and The Guardian, merged with data from other sources such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A Joy Foundation Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, Rajiv Sethi is investigating the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers,

Courtesy photo

They have found that exposure to deadly force is highest in the Mountain West and Pacific regions relative to the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states, and that racial disparities in relation to deadly force are even greater than the national numbers imply. “In the country as a whole, you’re about two to three times more likely to face deadly force if you’re Black than if you are white” said Sethi. “But if you look at individual cities separately, disparities in exposure are much higher.”

Examining the characteristics associated with police departments that experience high numbers of lethal encounters is one way to better understand and address racial disparities in policing and the use of violence, Sethi said, but it’s a massive undertaking given the decentralized nature of policing in America. There are roughly 18,000 police departments in the country, and more than 3,000 sheriff’s offices, each with its own approaches to training and selection.

“They behave in very different ways, and what we’re finding in our current research is that they are very different in the degree to which they use deadly force,” said Sethi. To make real change, “You really need to focus on the agency level where organizational culture lies, where selection and training protocols have an effect, and where leadership can make a difference.”

Sethi pointed to the example of Camden, N.J., which disbanded and replaced its police force in 2013, initially in response to a budget crisis, but eventually resulting in an effort to fundamentally change the way the police engaged with the community. While there have been improvements, including greater witness cooperation, lower crime, and fewer abuse complaints, the Camden case doesn’t fit any particular narrative, said Sethi, noting that the number of officers actually increased as part of the reform. While the city is still faced with its share of problems, Sethi called its efforts to rethink policing “important models from which we can learn.”

Fighting vs. preventing crime

For many analysts, the real problem with policing in America is the fact that there is simply too much of it. “We’ve seen since the mid-1970s a dramatic increase in expenditures that are associated with expanding the criminal legal system, including personnel and the tasks we ask police to do,” said Sandra Susan Smith , Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Professor of Criminal Justice at HKS, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute. “And at the same time we see dramatic declines in resources devoted to social welfare programs.”

“You can have all the armored personnel carriers you want in Ferguson, but public safety is more likely to come from redressing environmental pollution, poor education, and unfair work,” said Brandon Terry, assistant professor of African and African American Studies and social studies.

Kris Snibble/Harvard file photo

Smith’s comment highlights a key argument embraced by many activists and experts calling for dramatic police reform: diverting resources from the police to better support community services including health care, housing, and education, and stronger economic and job opportunities. They argue that broader support for such measures will decrease the need for policing, and in turn reduce violent confrontations, particularly in over-policed, economically disadvantaged communities, and communities of color.

For Brandon Terry , that tension took the form of an ice container during his Baltimore high school chemistry final. The frozen cubes were placed in the middle of the classroom to help keep the students cool as a heat wave sent temperatures soaring. “That was their solution to the building’s lack of air conditioning,” said Terry, a Harvard assistant professor of African and African American Studies and social studies. “Just grab an ice cube.”

Terry’s story is the kind many researchers cite to show the negative impact of underinvesting in children who will make up the future population, and instead devoting resources toward policing tactics that embrace armored vehicles, automatic weapons, and spy planes. Terry’s is also the kind of tale promoted by activists eager to defund the police, a movement begun in the late 1960s that has again gained momentum as the death toll from violent encounters mounts. A scholar of Martin Luther King Jr., Terry said the Civil Rights leader’s views on the Vietnam War are echoed in the calls of activists today who are pressing to redistribute police resources.

“King thought that the idea of spending many orders of magnitude more for an unjust war than we did for the abolition of poverty and the abolition of ghettoization was a moral travesty, and it reflected a kind of sickness at the core of our society,” said Terry. “And part of what the defund model is based upon is a similar moral criticism, that these budgets reflect priorities that we have, and our priorities are broken.”

Terry also thinks the policing debate needs to be expanded to embrace a fuller understanding of what it means for people to feel truly safe in their communities. He highlights the work of sociologist Chris Muller and Harvard’s Robert Sampson, who have studied racial disparities in exposures to lead and the connections between a child’s early exposure to the toxic metal and antisocial behavior. Various studies have shown that lead exposure in children can contribute to cognitive impairment and behavioral problems, including heightened aggression.

“You can have all the armored personnel carriers you want in Ferguson,” said Terry, “but public safety is more likely to come from redressing environmental pollution, poor education, and unfair work.”

Policing and criminal justice system

Alexandra Natapoff , Lee S. Kreindler Professor of Law, sees policing as inexorably linked to the country’s criminal justice system and its long ties to racism.

“Policing does not stand alone or apart from how we charge people with crimes, or how we convict them, or how we treat them once they’ve been convicted,” she said. “That entire bundle of official practices is a central part of how we govern, and in particular, how we have historically governed Black people and other people of color, and economically and socially disadvantaged populations.”

Unpacking such a complicated issue requires voices from a variety of different backgrounds, experiences, and fields of expertise who can shine light on the problem and possible solutions, said Natapoff, who co-founded a new lecture series with HLS Professor Andrew Crespo titled “ Policing in America .”

In recent weeks the pair have hosted Zoom discussions on topics ranging from qualified immunity to the Black Lives Matter movement to police unions to the broad contours of the American penal system. The series reflects the important work being done around the country, said Natapoff, and offers people the chance to further “engage in dialogue over these over these rich, complicated, controversial issues around race and policing, and governance and democracy.”

Courts and mass incarceration

Much of Natapoff’s recent work emphasizes the hidden dangers of the nation’s misdemeanor system. In her book “ Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal ,” Natapoff shows how the practice of stopping, arresting, and charging people with low-level offenses often sends them down a devastating path.

“This is how most people encounter the criminal apparatus, and it’s the first step of mass incarceration, the initial net that sweeps people of color disproportionately into the criminal system,” said Natapoff. “It is also the locus that overexposes Black people to police violence. The implications of this enormous net of police and prosecutorial authority around minor conduct is central to understanding many of the worst dysfunctions of our criminal system.”

One consequence is that Black and brown people are incarcerated at much higher rates than white people. America has approximately 2.3 million people in federal, state, and local prisons and jails, according to a 2020 report from the nonprofit the Prison Policy Initiative. According to a 2018 report from the Sentencing Project, Black men are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated as white men and Hispanic men are 3.1 times as likely.

Reducing mass incarceration requires shrinking the misdemeanor net “along all of its axes” said Natapoff, who supports a range of reforms including training police officers to both confront and arrest people less for low-level offenses, and the policies of forward-thinking prosecutors willing to “charge fewer of those offenses when police do make arrests.”

She praises the efforts of Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins in Massachusetts and George Gascón, the district attorney in Los Angeles County, Calif., who have pledged to stop prosecuting a range of misdemeanor crimes such as resisting arrest, loitering, trespassing, and drug possession. “If cities and towns across the country committed to that kind of reform, that would be a profoundly meaningful change,” said Natapoff, “and it would be a big step toward shrinking our entire criminal apparatus.”

Retired U.S. Judge Nancy Gertner cites the need to reform federal sentencing guidelines, arguing that all too often they have been proven to be biased and to result in packing the nation’s jails and prisons.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard file photo

Sentencing reform

Another contributing factor in mass incarceration is sentencing disparities.

A recent Harvard Law School study found that, as is true nationally, people of color are “drastically overrepresented in Massachusetts state prisons.” But the report also noted that Black and Latinx people were less likely to have their cases resolved through pretrial probation ­— a way to dismiss charges if the accused meet certain conditions — and receive much longer sentences than their white counterparts.

Retired U.S. Judge Nancy Gertner also notes the need to reform federal sentencing guidelines, arguing that all too often they have been proven to be biased and to result in packing the nation’s jails and prisons. She points to the way the 1994 Crime Bill (legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware) ushered in much harsher drug penalties for crack than for powder cocaine. This tied the hands of judges issuing sentences and disproportionately punished people of color in the process. “The disparity in the treatment of crack and cocaine really was backed up by anecdote and stereotype, not by data,” said Gertner, a lecturer at HLS. “There was no data suggesting that crack was infinitely more dangerous than cocaine. It was the young Black predator narrative.”

The First Step Act, a bipartisan prison reform bill aimed at reducing racial disparities in drug sentencing and signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2018, is just what its name implies, said Gertner.

“It reduces sentences to the merely inhumane rather than the grotesque. We still throw people in jail more than anybody else. We still resort to imprisonment, rather than thinking of other alternatives. We still resort to punishment rather than other models. None of that has really changed. I don’t deny the significance of somebody getting out of prison a year or two early, but no one should think that that’s reform.”

 Not just bad apples

Reform has long been a goal for federal leaders. Many heralded Obama-era changes aimed at eliminating racial disparities in policing and outlined in the report by The President’s Task Force on 21st Century policing. But HKS’s Smith saw them as largely symbolic. “It’s a nod to reform. But most of the reforms that are implemented in this country tend to be reforms that nibble around the edges and don’t really make much of a difference.”

Efforts such as diversifying police forces and implicit bias training do little to change behaviors and reduce violent conduct against people of color, said Smith, who cites studies suggesting a majority of Americans hold negative biases against Black and brown people, and that unconscious prejudices and stereotypes are difficult to erase.

“Experiments show that you can, in the context of a day, get people to think about race differently, and maybe even behave differently. But if you follow up, say, a week, or two weeks later, those effects are gone. We don’t know how to produce effects that are long-lasting. We invest huge amounts to implement such police reforms, but most often there’s no empirical evidence to support their efficacy.”

Even the early studies around the effectiveness of body cameras suggest the devices do little to change “officers’ patterns of behavior,” said Smith, though she cautions that researchers are still in the early stages of collecting and analyzing the data.

And though police body cameras have caught officers in unjust violence, much of the general public views the problem as anomalous.

“Despite what many people in low-income communities of color think about police officers, the broader society has a lot of respect for police and thinks if you just get rid of the bad apples, everything will be fine,” Smith added. “The problem, of course, is this is not just an issue of bad apples.”

Efforts such as diversifying police forces and implicit bias training do little to change behaviors and reduce violent conduct against people of color, said Sandra Susan Smith, a professor of criminal justice Harvard Kennedy School.

Community-based ways forward

Still Smith sees reason for hope and possible ways forward involving a range of community-based approaches. As part of the effort to explore meaningful change, Smith, along with Christopher Winship , Diker-Tishman Professor of Sociology at Harvard University and a member of the senior faculty at HKS, have organized “ Reimagining Community Safety: A Program in Criminal Justice Speaker Series ” to better understand the perspectives of practitioners, policymakers, community leaders, activists, and academics engaged in public safety reform.

Some community-based safety models have yielded important results. Smith singles out the Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets program (known as CAHOOTS ) in Eugene, Ore., which supplements police with a community-based public safety program. When callers dial 911 they are often diverted to teams of workers trained in crisis resolution, mental health, and emergency medicine, who are better equipped to handle non-life-threatening situations. The numbers support her case. In 2017 the program received 25,000 calls, only 250 of which required police assistance. Training similar teams of specialists who don’t carry weapons to handle all traffic stops could go a long way toward ending violent police encounters, she said.

“Imagine you have those kinds of services in play,” said Smith, paired with community-based anti-violence program such as Cure Violence , which aims to stop violence in targeted neighborhoods by using approaches health experts take to control disease, such as identifying and treating individuals and changing social norms. Together, she said, these programs “could make a huge difference.”

At Harvard Law School, students have been  studying how an alternate 911-response team  might function in Boston. “We were trying to move from thinking about a 911-response system as an opportunity to intervene in an acute moment, to thinking about what it would look like to have a system that is trying to help reweave some of the threads of community, a system that is more focused on healing than just on stopping harm” said HLS Professor Rachel Viscomi, who directs the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program and oversaw the research.

The forthcoming report, compiled by two students in the HLS clinic, Billy Roberts and Anna Vande Velde, will offer officials a range of ideas for how to think about community safety that builds on existing efforts in Boston and other cities, said Viscomi.

But Smith, like others, knows community-based interventions are only part of the solution. She applauds the Justice Department’s investigation into the Ferguson Police Department after the shooting of Brown. The 102-page report shed light on the department’s discriminatory policing practices, including the ways police disproportionately targeted Black residents for tickets and fines to help balance the city’s budget. To fix such entrenched problems, state governments need to rethink their spending priorities and tax systems so they can provide cities and towns the financial support they need to remain debt-free, said Smith.

Rethinking the 911-response system to being one that is “more focused on healing than just on stopping harm” is part of the student-led research under the direction of Law School Professor Rachel Viscomi, who heads up the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program.

Jon Chase/Harvard file photo

“Part of the solution has to be a discussion about how government is funded and how a city like Ferguson got to a place where government had so few resources that they resorted to extortion of their residents, in particular residents of color, in order to make ends meet,” she said. “We’ve learned since that Ferguson is hardly the only municipality that has struggled with funding issues and sought to address them through the oppression and repression of their politically, socially, and economically marginalized Black and Latino residents.”

Police contracts, she said, also need to be reexamined. The daughter of a “union man,” Smith said she firmly supports officers’ rights to union representation to secure fair wages, health care, and safe working conditions. But the power unions hold to structure police contracts in ways that protect officers from being disciplined for “illegal and unethical behavior” needs to be challenged, she said.

“I think it’s incredibly important for individuals to be held accountable and for those institutions in which they are embedded to hold them to account. But we routinely find that union contracts buffer individual officers from having to be accountable. We see this at the level of the Supreme Court as well, whose rulings around qualified immunity have protected law enforcement from civil suits. That needs to change.”

Other Harvard experts agree. In an opinion piece in The Boston Globe last June, Tomiko Brown-Nagin , dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at HLS, pointed out the Court’s “expansive interpretation of qualified immunity” and called for reform that would “promote accountability.”

“This nation is devoted to freedom, to combating racial discrimination, and to making government accountable to the people,” wrote Brown-Nagin. “Legislators today, like those who passed landmark Civil Rights legislation more than 50 years ago, must take a stand for equal justice under law. Shielding police misconduct offends our fundamental values and cannot be tolerated.”

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USA: Rights experts call for reforms to end police brutality, systemic racism

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Independent UN human rights experts appealed on Friday for the new United States Government to adopt wide ranging reforms to end police violence and address systemic racism and racial discrimination. 

Affected communities must be included in shaping these reforms, which include diverting funding from policing to alternate safety measures, they added. 

🇺🇸 #UnitedStates: UN experts call on the Government to adopt wide ranging reforms to put an end to #PoliceBrutality, and to vigorously address systemic racism and racial discrimination.Learn more 👉 https://t.co/Y1hKbxuarr#StandUp4HumanRights #FightRacism pic.twitter.com/RID05ilaRj UN Special Procedures UN_SPExperts February 26, 2021

“We have repeatedly raised our concerns about the excessive force used by American police in the context of peaceful demonstrations, and the use of lethal force against individuals who did not present a threat to life at the time of the police intervention”, the experts said in a statement. 

“In this time of political change, the United States must initiate far-reaching reforms to address police brutality and systemic racism.” 

Excessive force used 

African American communities have long decried police brutality and racial profiling. 

The issue gained global attention last year when protests broke out across the US, some of them violent, following the death of George Floyd, the unarmed African American man whose death while in police custody was captured on video. 

The rights experts welcomed a recent report on protest response in the city of Philadelphia which found authorities failed to sufficiently plan for the demonstrations and that excessive force had been used. 

They urged other municipalities to assess their response and allegations of systemic racism. 

“In Philadelphia, as in other parts of the country where Black Lives Matter protests took place, law enforcement interventions were not limited to areas where lootings and vandalism had allegedly occurred”, they said. “Police officers fired tear gas, rubber bullets and used pepper spray from close range against protesters, residents and bystanders indiscriminately. Tear gas canisters even landed in home yards hurting children.” 

 Revise laws on use of lethal force 

The experts were also concerned that law enforcement officers in the US are allowed to use lethal force whenever it is deemed “reasonable”. They called for relevant legal and policy frameworks to be revised urgently to reflect established international human rights standards. 

“The use of potentially lethal force is an extreme measure, which may be resorted to only when strictly necessary to protect life or prevent serious injury from an imminent threat”, they said. “Likewise, less lethal weapons must be employed only subject to strict requirements of necessity and proportionality, in situations where less harmful measures would be ineffective.” 

Relatedly, they called for reform of laws and policies regarding the use of tear gas, pepper spray and other “so-called less-lethal weapons” during protests. 

“The expanding and improperly regulated use of less-lethal weapons raise serious and dramatic concerns for the respect of the right to life and the right to be free from torture and other ill-treatment”, the experts said. “They can kill and have killed; they can harm and wound horribly, leading to permanent disability.”  

Against ‘militarisation’ of policing 

Noting the increased “militarisation” of policing, the experts said the use of military equipment by law enforcement cannot be justified, adding that studies show military gear and armored vehicles do not reduce crime or increase officers’ safety. 

With misdemeanours accounting for some 80 per cent arrests in the US, the rights experts said reducing “unnecessary interactions” between the police and community members would lead to decreased violence and deaths. 

“We have witnessed many police killings that have resulted from police action related to petty offences. Instead, non-serious offenses, including minor traffic violations, should be addressed through mechanisms outside the criminal legal system”, they recommended. 

The experts said ensuring equality and justice in law enforcement will require the participation of affected communities, who must be involved in shaping policing and related reforms. 

 “Policing reforms must adopt genuine and substantive measures to dismantle systemic racism in policing, including against racial, ethnic and other minorities, by divestment from current policing budgets and reinvestment in alternative social and economic resources that are vital for the safety of these communities”, they stated. 

“We hope that the new US administration will be able to pursue the necessary reforms with resolve, determination, and a strong political and financial commitment.” 

The role of UN experts 

The 18 experts who issued the statement were appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor and report on specific thematic issues.  They include members of a Working Group studying racial discrimination faced by people of African descent globally. 

The experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid by the Organization. 

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Understanding What Police Brutality Is and Why It Occurs

Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.

Verywell / Nusha Ashjaee

Why Police Brutality Occurs

Examples of police brutality, tyre nichols, breonna taylor, george floyd, dontre hamilton, eric garner, john crawford iii, why racism can turn to violence, how to reduce police brutality, trigger warning.

Information presented in this article may be triggering to some people as it describes various examples of police-related violence.

If you are in crisis, contact the  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline  at  988  for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

For more mental health resources, see our  National Helpline Database .

Police brutality refers to the excessive use of force by a police officer against a victim or victims that is deemed to go beyond the level required to sustain life, avoid injury, or control a situation.

Most encounters with the police do not involve violence. A U.S. Department of Justice Report measured contact between police and the public in 2018.

Around 61.5 million people had an encounter with the police the year before the survey, but only 2% of people experienced threats or use of force. However, it's worth remembering that roughly half of the encounters in this survey were traffic-related incidents, and the report did not include police behavior during protests as a category.

In order to solve the problem of police brutality, it is necessary to understand the underlying factors that lead to it happening in the first place. In fact, there are a number of different factors that may play a role, not all of which have to do with the underlying personality of the officer who engages in the act.

However, each of them can be considered from a psychological standpoint or psychological lens. This helps us to understand how to fix the problem from a psychological view.

Individual-Level Factors

What are the individual-level factors that contribute to police brutality? These can be understood as those that originate from the offending officer. Some examples of individual-level factors are given below.

Mental Health Issues

The mental health of the offending officer may play a role. A 2019 study found that officers who self-reported engaging in abusive police practices tended to have higher levels of PTSD symptoms.

It is possible that officers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from job-related stressors and trauma may have an increased startle response , a tendency toward suspicion, and problems with aggression. These traits can make it more likely that they will overreact and use deadly force when not necessary. However, it is also possible that engaging in excessive force results in a sense of profound guilt and moral injury that in turn lead to PTSD symptoms.

Some researchers theorize that traits of "psychopathy", also called antisocial personality disorder (APD) , may be more prevalent in police officers than the general population. Traits such as "fearless dominance" or "cold-heartedness" can be adaptive in dangerous or emotionally charged situations, but they can also make an individual more likely to engage in excessive use of force or to feel that they do not need to follow the rules.

That said, research on this theory is limited. It is unlikely that APD, which is very rare, could explain most police brutality cases.

Personal problems experienced by police officers may increase the likelihood of them engaging in excessive force, such as relationship problems or other stressful life events.

Organizational-Level Factors

What are the organizational-level factors that contribute to police brutality? These can include policies of the police department or the general working environment.

If the police department sets limits for the use of force that allows police officers to use their own discretion (in other words, limits that are too vague or lenient), then the likelihood that officers will use excessive force is going to increase.

In addition, if the general working environment of the police department is such that excessive use of force is not punished or reprimanded, then that sends the message to the police force that it's an acceptable part of their job description.

The Washington Post's police shootings database shows that police shoot and kill roughly 1,000 people a year in the United States. However, only 110 officers since 2005 have been charged with murder or manslaughter, and only 42 officers have been convicted.

In other words, the use of force becomes legitimized because everyone does it and nobody says anything about it.

This, despite the fact that if a civilian were to inflict the same level of force on another individual in the same situation, it would be considered to be a violation of the law. Due to qualified immunity, it can be difficult to prosecute officers for misconduct.

In order to understand the problem of police brutality, it is helpful to consider some of the more prominent examples in recent times. Below are some of the more well-known cases and issues surrounding them.

On January 7, 2023, 29-year-old Black man Tyre Nichols was pulled over in Memphis, TN, due to claims of reckless driving.

The five cops who stopped him, who were also Black, brutally beat him for about three minutes. As a result of his injuries, he died three days later.

The charges brought against the officers included second-degree murder and kidnapping.

After body-camera footage was released on January 27th, the public was outraged as many deemed it to be one of the most heinous acts of police violence ever witnessed.

Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old Black woman who died after being shot in her apartment on March 13, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. Her death was the result of a search warrant that was being executed by white police officers from the Louisville Metro Police Department.

The raid began shortly after midnight. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, thought the officers entering the apartment were intruders and fired a warning shot at them, which hit one officer in the leg. In return, the officers fired 32 shots, leaving Breonna Taylor dead and Walker physically unharmed.

While the City of Louisville agreed to pay $12 million to Taylor's family, the three police officers involved were not indicted on charges related to Taylor's death. The incident led to subsequent protests throughout the United States.

George Floyd was a 46-year-old Black man who died on May 25th, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota after being arrested for using a counterfeit $20 bill. During the arrest, former police officer, now convicted murderer Derek Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd's neck while Floyd was handcuffed and lying on his face.

Bystanders who tried to intervene were prevented from doing so by other officers. Prior to his death, George Floyd pleaded for relief, saying that he could not breathe and that he was going to die. The entire incident became public when video footage shot by onlookers was released to the public. Autopsies revealed Floyd died as a result of the actions of the officers, and worldwide protests were sparked by the incident.

While these incidents occurred in 2020, police brutality has been a problem for decades. Below is a list of incidents from 2014, at the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement that brought police brutality to the forefront of public discourse.

On April 30, 2014 Dontre Hamilton was killed after being shot 14 times by a police officer in a Milwaukee park. Local Starbucks employees had called the police for a wellness check after seeing Hamilton sleeping on a park bench. The officer who responded to the call, Christopher Manney, began what would later be described by the Police Chief Edward Flynn as an "inappropriate pat-down."

Hamilton woke up and began to struggle. Manney's defense team would later use Hamilton's prior diagnosis of schizophrenia to suggest that he was dangerous, but Flynn would later justify his firing of Manney by saying the officer ignored departmental policy and instigated the fight.

Eric Garner was killed on July 17, 2014 in New York after he was put in an illegal chokehold by a white police officer. Garner said "I can't breathe" 11 times while he was held down. The officer involved, Daniel Pantaleo, was not charged with a crime. His death sparked protests and "I can't breathe" as a slogan for protest.

John Crawford III was killed on August 5, 2014 after being shot by a police officer at a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio. He had been holding a pellet gun, which the store had advertised as being on sale, and there was no confrontation. The officers involved were not charged.

These are only some examples of how excessive use of force can lead to death.

Racism refers to bias held against a person or group of people because of their race or ethnicity. Why does racism turn into excessive use of force or violence among police officers? There are several factors to consider.

Prevalence of Deaths Due to Police Brutality

Research has demonstrated that the risk of being killed as a result of the use of excessive force by police in the United States varies by racial and ethnic group membership.

Specifically, Black men and women, American Indian/Alaska Native men and women, and Latin American men were shown to have a higher lifetime risk of dying due to police violence compared to their White counterparts.

In contrast, Latin American women and Asian/Pacific Islander men and women had a lower lifetime risk of dying due to police violence than White counterparts.

The overall lifetime odds were shown to be 1 in 2,000 for men and 1 in 33,000 for women. Overall, the highest risk was shown for Black men, who faced a 1 in 1,000 chance of being killed by a police officer over the course of their lifetime.

Racial Profiling

Why are Black men and other minorities at a higher risk for dying due to an excessive use of force by police than their White counterparts? Racial profiling may help to explain this phenomenon.

Racial profiling refers to assuming guilt based on race or ethnicity, a problem that mostly affects those individuals who have a higher lifetime risk of dying as a result of police brutality.

For example, police officers may use stereotypes when trying to determine the suspects in a crime, or they may perceive persons of certain races (such as Black men) as more aggressive or threatening when faced with a confrontation.

How can we work to reduce police brutality? There are a number of different steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of this phenomenon from an organizational and psychological standpoint.

In 2014, President Barack Obama signed an order to appoint a task force on 21st century policing. The task force developed a list of recommendations such as improving training and education, reducing bias among police officers and departments, introducing and improving crisis intervention training , and promoting cultural sensitivity as well as compassion.

Implicit Bias Training

Implicit bias training takes the approach that police officers operate with subconscious biases that they may not even be aware of. When these biases are activated, they may handle a situation differently than they would if, for example, a person was White instead of Black or driving a BMW instead of a old beat-up pickup truck.

The premise of this training is to help police officers understand that everyone grows up with subconscious biases, even if someone doesn't feel like they have any prejudice. The goal is to make police officers aware of their biases so that they can manage them in the moment. This is more effective than calling out police officers as racist, as most officers would not consider themselves to fall into that category. Rather, this approach takes the stance that all officers need training.

The idea behind implicit bias training is that those who are better able to manage their biases will be safer, more effective, and fairer in their role as police officers. However, there have been very few studies on the effectiveness of implicit bias training for police.

Only one 2020 study has looked at impacts on real-world behavior. While implicit bias training seemed to improve officer knowledge of implicit bias concepts and motivation to act without prejudice, the study found that training had little to no effect on racial and ethnic disparities in police enforcement. In other words, implicit bias training alone was not enough to change behavior.

Improved Hiring Practices

One way to reduce the risk of police brutality is to hire individuals who have a lower risk of becoming violent on the job.

Personality psychology can be helpful in making these decisions, as there are assessments that can be used to predict how individuals will respond to stressful situations as well as predict their behavior when on the job.

The use of personality assessments can also be a way to level the playing field for minorities, as it can be an unbiased way to determine who is the best fit for the job.

Improved Disciplinary & Supervision Measures

Suppose a police officer engages in excessive or deadly force, and there is no punishment. In that case, this sends the message to the rest of the department that the behavior is acceptable.

Instead, adequate supervision to identify police officers acting inappropriately before that behavior gets out of control, as well as disciplinary measures to send the message that the behavior is unacceptable, are necessary to identify and reprimand police officers who are the most likely to use excessive or deadly force.

Using such measures will also deter other officers from acting in the same manner and set the tone for the overall behavioral expectations of police officers in a department.

In other words, police departments should begin to lead by example, and that starts with enforcing the law for police officers in the same way that it would be for civilians.

Provide Mental Health Support for Police Officers

When police officers are better able to manage their emotions under stress, understand which emotions they are experiencing, and communicate well despite being in high-stress situations, they will be better able to de-escalate complex scenarios rather than react by using excessive force.

In other words, there is a tipping point at which excessive force begins to be used, and this tipping point can be dialed backward when police officers receive adequate support for their mental health needs.

Additionally, given the fact that PTSD can be a risk factor for the use of excessive or deadly force, providing swift and adequate support to officers who have experienced trauma on the job seems to be a necessary prerequisite to preventing the use of excessive force.

This begins by providing adequate funding to support the mental health of police officers, and it also means reducing stigma and encouraging police officers to come forward when they are struggling with their mental health.

As a society in general, mental health is still surrounded by stigma , so it is doubly important that police officers are made to feel that it is acceptable for them to talk about their mental health struggles. Rather than feeling isolated with their trauma, stress, or unmanageable emotions, police officers should be made to feel that they know exactly who to speak to for support and that those supports will be in place and easily accessible when they are most needed.

This also means the police departments should be trained to recognize the symptoms of PTSD so that they can intervene and offer support when an officer may not recognize their own symptoms of post-traumatic stress.

Improve Relationships Between Police & Community

To reduce the use of excessive and deadly force, it is important to improve the relationships between the police department and the community, particularly the Black community, as this sector is generally the one most affected by police brutality (and subsequent anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress).

This could take the form of programs and initiatives that place police officers in the community in a helping or educational role instead of a policing role. It could also mean having the police department work with the community or participate in marches and rallies to show their support and understanding. This was seen taking place when some police departments chose to attend Black Lives Matter protests and marches and kneel in support instead of taking a combative stance.

When police officers and the public begin to see each other as individuals rather than as groups to fear or cast stereotypes upon, real change will begin.

Conduct Research

In addition to the above measures, it is also necessary to continue to conduct research to understand the psychology behind police brutality. Which personality factors are most likely to correlate with excessive use of force? Which mental disorders show the highest correlation with deadly use of force? What forms of training help most to reduce implicit bias and improve the situation?

Ongoing research on these and other topics is the cornerstone of moving forward and improving the situation when it comes to the excessive use of force by police officers and the disproportionate impact that it has on racial minorities.

Defunding Police Departments

What about defunding police departments? This is a tactic that has been brought up as a solution to police brutality.

Defunding the police means taking money away from funding the police department and instead sending those funds to invest in the communities that are struggling the most and where most of the policing occurs.

It's very much similar to the concept of directing money toward prevention instead of dealing with problems after the fact. While not a simple solution, there is merit in funding programs and communities that are struggling instead of putting more people behind bars.

A Word From Verywell

Understanding the psychology behind police brutality is the first step toward fixing the problem. Unfortunately, the situation is inherently one that needs to be fixed from the top down, beginning with the government systems and how they allocate their funding. When better training and education are in place for police officers, as well as better mental health support, then better outcomes may result.

It's also worth noting that while this problem seems to be most prominent in the United States, other countries may have their own racial tensions (for example, in Canada and Australia, there is tension between the government and Indigenous people). The United States, however, struggles more than most with using deadly force in the form of gun violence.

Mental health support is available if you or someone you know has been affected by or witnessed police-related violence. Please reach out to a mental health professional . Acts of police brutality are traumatizing, and you deserve care, understanding, and support.

Amnesty International. Police violence .

U.S. Department of Justice. Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2018 .

DeVylder J, Lalane M, Fedina L. The association between abusive policing and PTSD symptoms among U.S. police officers . J Soc Soc Work Res . 2019;10(2):261-273. doi:10.1086/703356

Falkenbach D, Balash J, Tsoukalas M, Stern S, Lilienfeld SO. From theoretical to empirical: Considering reflections of psychopathy across the thin blue line . Personal Disord Theor Res Treat. 2018;9(5):420-428. doi:10.1037/per0000270

Thomson-DeVeaux A, Rakich N, Buchireddygari L. Why it's so rare for police officers to face legal consequences . FiveThirtyEight .

American Bar Association. Qualified immunity .

NPR. What we know about the killing of Tyre Nichols .

The New York Times. A timeline of Nichols's Lethal Police Encounter .

D'Amore R. Breonna Taylor: What we know about her death, the investigation and protests . Global News .

BBC News. George Floyd: What happened in the final moments of his life .

CBS News. Former Milwaukee officer not charged in fatal shooting of mentally ill man .

O'Kane C. Eric Garner's mom says seeing a black man plead "I can't breathe" is "like a reoccurring nightmare" . CBS News .

CBS News. Family sues over fatal shooting at Ohio Wal-Mart .

Edwards F, Lee H, Esposito M. Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex .  PNAS. 2019;116(34):16793-16798. doi:10.1073/pnas.1821204116

Laurencin CT, Walker JM. Racial profiling is a public health and health disparities issue . J Racial Ethn Health Disparities . 2020;7:393-397. doi:10.1007/s40615-020-00738-2

President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Final Report of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing .

Center for Police Research and Policy. The Impacts of Implicit Bias Awareness Training in the NYPD .

Williams DR. Stress and the Mental Health of Populations of Color:Advancing Our Understanding of Race-related Stressors .  J Health Soc Behav . 2018;59(4):466-485. doi:10.1177/0022146518814251

Johnson DK. Confirmation Bias and Police Brutality . Psychology Today .

Miller L. Why Cops Kill: The Psychology of Police Deadly Force Encounters . Aggression and Violent Behavior. 2015;22:97-111. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2015.04.007

Muller RT. Officers with PTSD at Greater Risk for Police Brutality . Psychology Today.

Sherman RA. The Problem of Police Brutality . Psychology Today .

Turner E. How can psychology advance police-community relations? Using psychological science and advocacy to contribute to solutions . American Psychological Association.

By Arlin Cuncic, MA Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

Argument: Calls for Police Reform Are Getting Louder—Here Is How to Do It

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Calls for Police Reform Are Getting Louder—Here Is How to Do It

The united states’ chronic police brutality problem can be solved using evidence and data..

• Human Rights

Horrifying videos of police officers suffocating and shooting Black people in the United States have generated outrage around the world. The killings also triggered demonstrations in thousands of cities and towns in the United States and across the globe, temporarily displacing the COVID-19 pandemic from headlines. Footage of peaceful protesters being beaten, tear-gassed, and rammed with police vehicles escalated the outrage. Some demonstrators and commentators have called for defunding and abolishing the police outright. For many, the persistence of police violence—especially against African Americans—warrants radical policy moves, and anything less seems like capitulation to the status quo.

All police violence must be condemned, but should the future of policing really come down to a decision about whether the police ought to be disbanded altogether? Amid growing pressure to radically cut funding for law enforcement, what the debate needs is a serious, evidence-based discussion about what works, and what does not, when it comes to restricting the use of force by police, improving public safety, and making police substantially more accountable to the people they are supposed to protect and serve. In the United States, police have substantially more discretion to use lethal force.

The first order of business is to curb the excessive use of force. The International Association of Chiefs of Police has described “use of force” as the “effort required by police to compel compliance by an unwilling subject.” In other words, the force used should be proportional to the degree of resistance—but what does this mean in practice? In Europe, knee-on-neck restraints such as what was used to kill George Floyd are banned, and officers use other types of force only when “ absolutely necessary .” In the United States, police have substantially more discretion and can resort to lethal force when they have “ objectively reasonable ” belief that their lives are in danger (except in California , which tightened restrictions on the use of force in 2019). Perhaps it is not surprising that some officers shoot first and ask questions later. It also does not help that U.S. police receive an average of  58 hours of firearms training compared to only eight hours of de-escalation training and eight hours of crisis intervention training.

Proposals to ban chokeholds, strangleholds, and other neck restraints such as the ones that killed George Floyd  are good first steps, but much more needs to be done. In the United States, national and state lawmakers are hastily introducing bills to reduce the use of force, improve civilian oversight, require the use of body cameras, and monitor officer misconduct. They would do well to consult the  30 guiding principles  recommended by the Police Executive Research Forum, an association of U.S. law enforcement officials. According to Campaign Zero, a nongovernmental organization mobilizing against police brutality, restrictions on the use of force—especially in relation to lower-level infractions—have resulted in fewer killings of innocent people in big U.S. cities. Adoption of de-escalation training and techniques may also lead to improvements, but experts say more research is required. Given the political opportunity for reform, these promising measures should be incorporated into new national policing standards, along with a commitment to ongoing evaluation.

Another priority is getting more and better data on police use of lethal force. Despite the large number of homicides involving police in the United States, there is no reliable government database tracking the exact number of fatalities. At the moment, just 40 percent of the country’s roughly 18,000 federal, state, and county police forces have contributed to a Federal Bureau of Investigation database tracking police misconduct. To fill the gap, newspapers such as the Guardian and the Washington Post have assembled data repositories, and activists are mapping police-related deaths , though all are using unofficial sources. Without better data, police and citizens are flying blind. Despite the large number of homicides involving police, there is no reliable U.S. government database tracking the number of fatalities.

Police departments and their unions should also include more stringent accountability mechanisms in employee contracts. Too often, police are legally shielded from any consequences of their actions. At a minimum, complaints levied against officers must be investigated, disciplinary measures for misconduct need to be swiftly enforced, and any appeals for reinstating police officers after they use excessive force should be more carefully reviewed. An  investigation  by the Washington Post found that at least 1,881 officers were fired for misconduct between 2006 and 2017 from the largest U.S. police departments—and almost one-quarter of them were reinstated after an appeal.

Police departments should also monitor complaints about the use of force more carefully, not least because evidence  shows that officers with a record of abuse can negatively influence the behavior of others. As the proverb goes, “A rotten apple quickly infects its neighbor.” Making data on fatal and nonfatal police-related incidents public could improve oversight, deter misconduct, and strengthen badly tarnished community relations. Policies to strengthen internal discipline and prevent officers terminated for serious abuses from being rehired are also  associated  with improved overall performance.

Recruiting more women into the police may also contribute to reducing excessive force. A  2017 study  of police use of force found that male officers were three times more likely to have discharged their firearm while on duty than their female counterparts. In another study published in 2002, men were two to three times more likely to be  accused of citizen complaints  and cost police forces at least two-and-a-half times more in liability payouts to victims of excessive force or their families. Increasing the diversity of police by boosting minority recruitment is important, but the evidence on the relationship between diversity and misconduct is surprisingly unclear.

Responders outside law enforcement must play a greater role in maintaining public safety. Police certainly need more training for situations involving mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness. Just as importantly, however, other services need to be available when police are in over their heads. In practice, however, this is harder than it seems: Mental-health crisis intervention teams have been around since the 1980s, but their overall effectiveness is questionable . Prevention strategies—based on ample U.S. and international evidence and scaled up—can also shrink the need for police in the first place. Cognitive behavioral therapy , home visiting programs, and parent training programs are all effective crime prevention strategies.

There is also a growing chorus among advocacy groups for greater federal oversight and investigation of police departments that record a higher-than average incidence of excessive use of force, especially when there are significant racial disparities in the use of such force. In the United States, for example, the Department of Justice’s investigations and recommendations have generated tangible reductions in gun violence. Measures such as stricter policies against use of force, better training, and independent reviews contributed to a stunning decline in police shootings in cities such as Philadelphia. Stricter policies against use of force, better training, and independent reviews contributed to a stunning decline in police shootings in cities such as Philadelphia.

Another strategy is to  demilitarize the police. Around the world, police are acquiring increasingly sophisticated firepower. One of the most notorious examples of this is the so-called 1033 program  sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense, which supplies local police departments with surplus military equipment left over from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is  evidence  that kitting up officers with armored personnel vehicles and grenade launchers can contribute to an overreliance on violence to solve problems. One study, for instance, found  that U.S. police departments supplied by the 1033 program had a higher incidence of lethal violence compared to departments that did not receive such assistance.

At a time of spiraling deficits and reduced revenue, hard choices also need to be made about how police violence shouldn’t be curbed. This means investing in what works, but also avoiding  what does not work . Take the case of implicit bias training—instruction in awareness about biases and prejudices about race, class, and gender. Although Black people are as much as three times as likely to be killed by police officers than white people, it turns out that such training does not necessarily influence police officers’ implicit bias or alter their behavior . To the contrary, some research suggests that such training could actually increase the expression of bias in what researchers call a “rebound effect” when people try to suppress stereotypical thinking, but their deep-seated prejudices remain.

There is a heated debate about the effectiveness of body cameras worn by police, which have shown  mixed results  in randomized control trials. While there are positive examples of police cameras reducing the incidence of police brutality and citizen complaints, it turns out that merely outfitting police with cameras is insufficient, by itself, to curb police violence. Robust policies and oversight are needed to ensure that police turn on their cameras during incidents and are prevented from tampering with video evidence after the fact.

Another intervention showing surprisingly limited effect is citizen oversight of police. There are regular calls to set up mechanisms to improve transparency and accountability and strengthen police-community relations in the wake of officer-involved shootings—to prevent police departments from conducting entirely internal investigations of complaints, for example. Roughly 80 percent of the 50 largest police stations in the United States have set up some type of citizen oversight mechanism. But the  evidence of their effectiveness  is thin. Part of the problem is that they are so diverse. They should certainly not be viewed as a panacea. In this season of protest, Americans have a wide-open window of opportunity to reform their police.

There is no one strategy to reduce police violence. Like most persistent and complicated social problems, there are no obvious, easy answers. But that does not mean that there cannot be progress, and that there isn’t any data and evidence from around the United States and the world on what works and what doesn’t. Putting multiple policies into place, informed by the best data and evidence available as well as common sense, can ultimately make it far less likely for innocent people to die at the hands of police.

In this season of protest, Americans have a wide-open window of opportunity to reform their police. A June survey by Monmouth University found that 76 percent of Americans agree that racial and ethnic discrimination is a “big problem,” up dramatically from 51 percent in 2015. The poll also showed that 57 percent believe that police officers are more likely to use deadly force if the suspect is Black, another seismic change of opinion. A majority of 57 percent also find the protesters’ anger to be “fully justified.” At the same time, 71 percent say they are very or somewhat satisfied with the work of their local police. That suggests that now is not the time to abolish the police altogether, but to dramatically transform and improve it.

Robert Muggah is a principal at the SecDev Group, a co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, and the author, with Ian Goldin, of Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years . Twitter:  @robmuggah

Thomas Abt is a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice. Twitter:  @Abt_Thomas

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• Personality

The Problem of Police Brutality

And the personality science solution..

Posted July 7, 2020 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

The cases of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor represent just two recent and horrific examples of police brutality resulting in unnecessary loss of human life. The awfulness of these cases is amplified by the fact that Black Americans—both George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are Black—are more than 2.5 times as likely to be killed by police than white Americans. Although statisticians, social scientists, and activists dispute the root cause of this difference (e.g., systemic racism , crime rates, culture, socioeconomics), one thing is for sure: When a police officer takes the life of another person, the responsibility for doing so lies ultimately with that officer.

Personality refers to the ways in which people think, feel, and act differently from one another. Some people think doctors can be trusted, others do not. There are movies that some people love and other people hate. Some people make their bed every morning, others do not. Virtually every difference between people is related to personality. Police officers, like all people, differ in how they respond to situations they encounter. Where one police officer sees threats and responds violently, another does not.

The deadly encounters with the police over the past decade or so have led to repeated calls for police reform. In 2018, for example, the New York Police Department began a program for implicit bias training . Similar programs already had been adopted across the United States, though the effectiveness of these programs has been seriously questioned . Most recently, the city council of Minneapolis voted to defund the city’s police department. Although some attempts at police reform are better than others, it is important to ask ourselves whether training, education , and policy reform are even the right place to start in dealing with police brutality.

In a stand-up comedy routine that went viral, Chris Rock stated what many of us already know. Police work is difficult, risky, and inherently dangerous. The people who dedicate their lives to serving and protecting their communities deserve the utmost respect. But, as Mr. Rock also points out, “In some jobs, everybody has to be good.” You cannot have mistakes. You cannot have “just a few bad apples.” The best way to keep bad apples out of your barrel is to avoid picking bad apples in the first place. The best way to avoid police brutality is to avoid hiring people who are likely to resort to unjustifiable, violent, and life-ending tactics when they are under pressure.

Personality psychology has a long history of helping communities hire better police officers. Unlike the clinical assessments of old that were used to diagnose personality disorders (e.g., the MMPI ), modern personality assessments are used to predict everyday work behavior, how effectively people do their jobs, and how people respond under stress . Moreover, well-designed assessments promote diversity and inclusion by providing an unbiased view of a job candidate’s fit for a given job. That is, men and women get the same average scores and people of different ethnicities get the same average scores. In short, scientifically validated personality assessments provide an accurate and fair way to hire better police officers, reduce police brutality, and rebuild the respect and admiration that police officers deserve.

This post was co-authored by Chase Winterberg, M.A., J.D.

Ryne A. Sherman , Ph.D. is Chief Science Officer at Hogan Assessment Systems.

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