Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
, 2010).
Alpert and Smith (2001, p. 483) note that a survey of the public showed a general perception that the police is frequently excessively violent in their contact with the public. According to the authors, the targets of reported abuse are generally lower class males, with a common factor being a display of disrespect by these citizens towards the police in question.
It is possible that this perception of "disrespect" could have been a factor in the use of excessive force in New Orleans. The police most likely place excessive emphasis on the role of preventing crime, whereas the desperation of the victims involved drove them to seek out food and water from unattended shops and homes. Hence, the two factors escalated each other, leading to excessive police force, among whom there was also a lack of focus upon the protection and service function.
Furthermore, a problem related to police violence is the perception of "reasonableness" when applying force to the crime prevention function. In New Orleans, the police, acting as a collective, could be said to have perceived the public's search for food and water as crime. Citizens who were desperate to provide for their families in turn perceived that they had no choice: no services or products were readily available, and therefore they had to resort to what was labeled as looting. This led to a clash between the victimized public and the police whose function should have been to protect them.
While whatever orders were given are somewhat vague, the use of excessive violence has been consistently reported. Significantly, Purcell (2010) notes that these cases involved both individual police officers and groups. A group of four police officers were for example...
This then raises questions regarding the ability of either individuals or groups to use discretion when they implement violence. Are police officers trained to follow orders so blindly that they completely lose their sense of discretion as soon as they hear the voice of what they believe to be their superiors?
These are difficult questions to answer, particularly as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina retreat into the past. However, they are also vital in order to understand the powers of discretion and collective action within the police force. Research questions like these could be used to improve the force to become the public protectors they are meant to be.
References
Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (2000). Further Exploration of the Demeanor Hypothesis: The Interaction Effects of Suspects' Characteristic Behavior.
Alpert, G.P. And Smith, W.C. (2001). How Reasonable is the Reasonable Man?: Police and Excessive Force. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Vol. 85, No. 2.
Bayley, DH and Garofalo, J. (1989). The Management of Violence by Police Patrol Officers. Criminology.
Purcell, A. (2010). Police violence on trial. Retrieved from: http://www.andrewpurcell.net/?p=762
Shankman, S., Jennings, T., McCarthy, B., Maggi, L., and Thompson, A.C. (2010). After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters. Pro-Publica. Retrieved from: http://www.propublica.org/nola/story/nopd-order-to-shoot-looters-hurricane-katrina/
Force: Examining the Most Relevant Articles The article "The Four Functions of Force" by Robert Art details exactly that: the main purposes for using force in a given situation. Those purposes are as follows: defense, deterrence, compellence and swagger. While these reasons are indeed distinct, as Art demonstrates, it can be difficult from time to determine the exact purpose that a particular state has selected. In this sense, the main
Manage Use of Force Ethical Issues HOW TO MANAGE USE-OF-FORCE ETHICAL ISSUES This objective of this study is to examine how criminal justice and private security managers and executives are addressing use-of-force issues from an ethical point-of-view. There is a growing problem in the United States with law enforcement officer's use-of-force under the color of law and their authority requiring that criminal justice and private security managers understand the ethics in relation
Force and Wars on Terrorism The objective of this work is to consider that as one of the governing principles of the United Nations, the UN Charter Article 2(4) prohibits the use of force in international relations, but its Article 51 permits the use of for e as an act of self-defense against any illegal use of force in violation of Article 2(4). Contemporary wars on terrorism are often justified
Police use of force There is no single globally accepted definition of use of force by police officers. The National Institute of Justice, which is a subsidiary of the Justice Department concurs with this. This leaves the approximately 18,000 police agencies in America with the leeway to formulate their own policies regarding the use of force. Some agencies may address the issue while some may not. The Justice Department has however
The young man had struck the officer repeatedly before continuing to resist arrest, and finally being killed. The court found in favor of the officer. Hopkins v. Andaya is a similar case in which an officer was struck repeatedly and ignore despite several warnings. In both these cases, self-defense necessitated the use of firearms. In the case of Tennessee v Garner, on the other hand, a suspect was fleeing. According to
S. In April 2005, where there is a description of how a cell search took place there as per his version. "The guards secured his hands behind his back and, while he was so restrained, the guards picked him up and slammed his body and his head into the steel bunk in his cell. They then threw him on the floor and continued to pound his body and bang his