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Summary of the Contemporary Police Brutality
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Institution
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Professor
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Summary of the Contemporary Police Brutality
Police brutality is the unlawful treatment of civilians by law enforcement officers,
generally the police officers. Many cases of police brutality have been found to be racial in that
people of color have been the main target (Lawrence, 2023). In completing my project, I have
used social learning theory which is one of the criminological theories. It is indeed true that
social learning theory supports police brutality acts from the institutions and departments
defending the police officers to the behaviors new police officers learn from the experienced
police officers once they join the professions. However, there are some police brutality cases that
do not stem from the social learning theory (Ihaza, 2020). For instance, the United States of
America is a mixed-race continent, and many police officer participated in police brutality
because of the cultural values they inherited from their countries of origin, and others had a
genetic connection to criminality or brutality that the social learning theory could not cover.
In completing my research project on police brutality, I identified several pros and cons.
For instance, the criminal justice system was able to know that the trust from members of the
public had reduced since the killing of George Floyd, among many other Americans (Ihaza,
2020). Besides, the legislative body, which comprises the house of the senate and the house of
representative responsible for making laws, was able to know of the existence of the police
departments which corrupt the courts once the police officers are caught in brutal actions against
ordinary civilians. However, I faced the challenge of identifying up-to-date sources while
completing my research project; many of the easily accessible sources were outdated. Besides, in
completing my research project on police brutality, I could detect many criminological theories
which encouraged police officers to commit the crime, and thus, I was tied to the social learning
theory that I selected at the start of my research work (Lawrence, 2023). I propose wide research
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to identify the motive of police brutality, which can be explained using rational choice theory,
labelling theory, and biological theory.
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References
Ihaza, I. (2020). Police brutality and state-sanctioned violence in 21st century America.4JRGE,49,
101.
Lawrence, R. G. (2023).4The politics of force: Media and the construction of police brutality.
Oxford University Press.
