Police brutality is a term used to describe the excessive use of physical force, assault, and verbal attacks and threats by police officers. Widespread, systematic police brutality persists in many countries, even those which actively prosecute and successfully punish such activity. Brutality is one of several forms of police misconduct, which include false arrest, intimidation, racial profiling, political repression, surveillance abuse, sexual abuse and police corruption.
Police brutality with respect to certain social groups can in some cases be disproportionate or be perceived to be disproportionate. Differences in race, religion, politics, and economic status between police and the citizenry can contribute to the creation of an antagognistic relationship in which a significant portion of the population view the police as oppressors and a significant number of the police view the population as deserving punishment.
Police are hired by the society to keep order, but by dealing mostly with disorderly elements of the society, people working in police gradually develop the attitude of authority over the society, who is actually their employer. The growing number of investigated cases of police brutality (a convenient euphemism when the victim dies) is attributed not to any increase of awareness within police ranks, but merely to more widespread use of video cameras. The notorious "cover-up" by police superiors is seldom criminally investigated, even though police officers are legally trusted, to the degree that in California there is still an obscured law that requires death penalty to a police officer found guilty of lying in court.
In USA cases of police brutality are investigated by: 1) internal police commissions; 2) District Attorneys; 3) FBI. Internal police comissions are naturally and notoriously biased in favor of the police officers. They frequently declare that he/she acted within the Department's rules, or according to the training. Hardly ever legality of those rules is questioned, never are the training guidelibnes reviewed by an independent organization (e.g. by ACLU), and never authors of rules that violate constitutional civil rights of people are made criminally responsible. Precedence for such criminal responsibility was established during the Nurnberg Trials, where both authors of unjust laws, as well as people who were "obeying the orders" or "just doing their jobs" were punished. The ability of District Attorneys to investigate police brutality is questionable, because of the strong links between these two departments (District Attorneys strongly depend on help from Police Departments). FBI is believed to be highly objective in its work in this area, but it investigates only a small fraction of known cases of police brutality.
In some cases the police can be seen as siding with or against a government on political issues. For example during the Quebec City Summit of the Americas in 2001, it was believed by the anti-globalists that the police were defending the capitalist objectives of the summit participants, but many people viewed those anti-globalists' actions as unreasonable and destructive. Another example is when, in March 2006 masked Kenyan police attacked a media outlet during the midst of a government corruption scandal. (see Corruption in Kenya).
Human Rights
The Amnesty International 2005 report on human rights alleges widespread police misconduct in many countries. Some noteable countries include: Canada, UK, France, USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland
Community Response
Various community groups have addressed police brutality and have worked to engender change in police behavior in their communities. These groups often stress the need for oversight by independent citizen review boards and other methods of ensuring accountability for police actions. Copwatch is a U.S.-based network of organizations that actively monitors and videotapes the police to prevent police brutality. Umbrella organizations including the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation and justice committees (usually named after a deceased individual or those victimized by police violence) usually engage in a solidarity of those affected.
Suspected Cases of Police Brutality
See also
