Public attitude of violence in the form of police brutality seems to be an issue for law enforcement

Introduction

The central issue distinguishing brutality from the legitimate use of force is the appropriateness and reasonableness of the quality and degree of force police use in light of the specific circumstances involved. Police are legally empowered to use various degrees of nonnegotiable coercive force upon civilians in order to ensure compliance with laws and social norms, and these degrees of force occur across a continuum where appropriateness is defined by the specific situation, the nature of the crime, and the type of violence or resistance used against the officer (Toch 99).

This continuum ranges from the coercive power of the officer's mere presence and the persuasive or threatening language he or she uses (which might be deemed appropriate to persuade a disorderly person to quiet down) through the use of physical force (including the use of punches, kicks, or chemical sprays that might reasonably be used to subdue a suspect violently resisting arrest) and ultimately to the kind of deadly physical force that often involves the use of a firearm (which might be deemed appropriate only if used in defense of the officer's life or the life of another person).

A significant deviation from this standard of reasonableness constitutes an excessive and unreasonable use of force and can be considered brutality (Skolnick 54).

Discussion

Statutes, case law, and police department regulations recognize the tremendous variety of situations an officer may encounter and the tremendous range of factors that can influence the decision to use force, and therefore, they rarely provide police with the guidance of a “bright-line” rule that narrowly defines the type and quality of force appropriate to a given situation. Rather, laws and policies generally adopt a standard of reasonableness (Was the degree and type of force used reasonable in light of the force used against the officer?) and generally require that the degree of force employed is the least force necessary to accomplish the enforcement goal (Palmiotto 28).

Several recent high-profile cases of police brutality, including the videotaped 1991 beating of black motorist Rodney King by LAPD officers and the 1997 incident in which a white NYPD officer sodomized Haitian immigrant Abner Louima with a broomstick in a police station, may illuminate the perception that racial or ethnic bias often motivates police brutality. Although racial bias may be a contributing factor in some instances of police brutality, racial or ethnic animus is not a necessary condition for brutality to occur (Skolnick 39).

Evaluation Of Police Brutality

The extent and frequency of police brutality in the United States is impossible to assess with any accuracy. Brutality victims fail to file complaints for a variety of reasons, and there is no central or national repository for brutality and misconduct complaints against law enforcement officers. Prosecutorial data also fails to yield much useful information, and an unknown number of cases are disposed of by individual law enforcement agencies through administrative sanctions such as terminations, forced retirements, and other ...