Excessive Use of Force

Is Excessive Use of Force a Systematic Problem

The media has always portrayed police brutality as a regular occurrence . The TV series and movies depicting police officers engaging in fights with civilians is a reflection of media 's perception of how the police deal with ordinary citizens . Consequently , this led people to develop a pre-conceived notion that excessive use force by police officers has become a systematic problem . In contrast to this misconception , studies show that force is infrequently used by police The findings also report that the police mostly used force

in dealing with resisting suspects . Thus , despite media 's portrayal of excessive use of force by the police , it should not be considered as a systematic problem due to its infrequent occurrence

According to a survey conducted by the US Department of Justice in 2002 only about 1 .5 percent of the 45 .3 million citizens who had contact with the police reported that force was used or threatened to be used against them (Kouri , 2006 . This implies that only a small percentage of the respondents encountered incidents involving the use of force by the police which generally occurs when the suspect being arrested is resisting (Adams , 1999 . Meanwhile , 75 percent of the people whom force was employed considered the use of force as excessive , although such claims were made by those people who were subsequently convicted and incarcerated . Despite these claims , injuries resulting from police action were approximately 14 percent , while 24 percent of them reported that they argued with , cursed at , insult , or verbally threatened the officers during the incident (Kouri , 2006 . The type of force that characterized occurrences involving police force include pushing ' and grabbing ' which was reported by 42 percent of the respondents who encountered police action . Of the force encounters , there were also incidents of police pointing a gun (19 percent . Only 1 in 5 persons who were suspected of committing a crime were either handcuffed (21 .3 percent ) or arrested (22 .1 percent . This is because the police do not always use handcuffs on suspects when they are arrested and not all handcuffed suspects were subsequently arrested (Kouri , 2006

Given these facts , it could be concluded that the force used by police is generally not excessive but a necessary and justified force that enables them to do their job as law enforcers of the country . In addition , without using force on resisting suspects , no arrests can be made and crime rate would increase . Hence , the excessive use of force by the police cannot be considered as a systematic problem

References

Adams , K (October 1999 . Chapter 1 : what we know about police use of force . Use of Force

by Police , 1-13 . Retrieved October 31 , 2007 from http /www .ncjrs .gov /pdfs1 /nij /176330-1 .pdf

Kouri , J (July 14 , 2006 . Is police use of force a rare occurrence American Chronicle

Retrieved October 31 , 2007 from http /www .americanchronicle .com /articles /viewArticle .asp ?articleID 1150 9...