The judge, jury and investigator are sometimes better known as a police officer. Recently mass attention has been brought to the injustices brought against racial minorities by the police officers of America. Even after the police officers mistreat these racial minorities, they are then mistreated by the criminal justice system in their trial.  Due to this problem, invaluable human lives are being lost. Michael Brown was one of the biggest turning points of the current outcry against police brutality. When an unarmed black teenager was shot, and killed on August 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Prior to the Michael Brown case, the Trayvon Martin case had brought massive attention to the disparities of the criminal justice system. Trayvon Martin, a black teenager, was shot and killed on February 26, 2012, by George Zimmermann. While the mainstream media and social media address emotional appeals, and define police brutality as unethical, there is a need to objectively look at police brutality’s origins and propose feasible policy changes. The police and criminal justice system in America brutalize, imprison, and unfairly target people of minority racial backgrounds because officers are not trained properly, their method of crime fighting is quota-based, the police force is being militarized, and officers endure high stress situations.

Police brutality is a real problem in America that is often reported on without any solution. For example, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) was investigated by the United States Department of Justice. The United States Department of Justice found:

The department found reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of: Conducting stops, searches and arrests without meeting the requirements of the Fourth Amendment; Focusing enforcement strategies on African Americans, leading to severe and unjustified racial disparities in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Safe Streets Act; Using unreasonable force in violation of the Fourth Amendment; Interacting with individuals with mental health disabilities in a manner that violates the Americans with Disabilities Act; and Interfering with the right to free expression in violation of the First Amendment (USDOJ 3).

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) also has problems with police brutality among their ranks. An article from the Los Angeles Time stated, “Though the city prides itself on its progressive values, San Francisco’s Police Department has found itself engulfed in the same outrage over brutality and racial bias that has swept other cities from Baltimore to El Cajon” (“Feds fault San Francisco police for violence against minorities and recommend 272 reforms”). Clearly there is a root problem of racial bias in both BPD and SFPD, but the problem extends beyond just these two police departments. Each state, county, and department trains their officers in different ways. This problem varies between departments based on their training regiments and their behavioral tendencies.

 Historically cases like the ones presented by the media exist, but public awareness wasn’t as focused until the arise of the camera phone in the 2000s. This problem has been in existence but it lacked the public attention to bring any reform from the government to police departments. There are contributing factors to this problem from both police departments and the communities they patrol; however, reforming a community behavior is not reasonable but reforming a police department is. What the government can do is reform the police departments across the United States.

 One area that needs reform is training police officers in America to fully understand the rights of the citizens that they protect. The USDOJ report found that the BPD continually violated The Fourth Amendment, Title VI of The Civil Rights Act, The Safe Streets Act, The First Amendment, and The Americans with Disabilities Act. These violations of citizen’s rights are due to a lack of education in their training program. Police officers need to take classes on the constitution and how it interacts with their jobs. Based on the USDOJ report, these reforms should include education on the violations listed in the USDOJ report on the BPD. A lack of knowledge leads the police to continue violating the rights of citizens without realizing it. Every department trains their officers differently but the federal government needs to create uniform training protocols that require officers in every department to take classes on the United States Constitution and how it applies to their jobs. This new knowledge will give officers the ability to know exactly when they are violating citizen’s rights.

These citizen’s rights violations help officers to meet their quota to fight crime. The method of crime fighting that police officers use is quota-based. This type of crime fighting only seeks to incarcerate as many people as possible. This allows the police to target people of low income. Impoverished people lack the resources needed to protect themselves in the legal system of America. Blacks and Hispanics make up roughly 64% of the impoverished population of America (“The State of Working America”). This allows the police to consistently pick out racial minorities and take advantage of their economic status. 

The reason economic status allows police to single our impoverished people is that, income is directly correlated to education (Porter). People of poverty lack the education and the monetary resources to battle for their rights against the police. The USDOJ stated, “BPD engages in a pattern or practice of: (1) making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; (2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches and arrests of African American” (USDOJ, 3). African Americans make up a majority of the impoverished population (“The State of Working America”). The police single out people of poverty, because people of poverty lack the education and resources to protect their civil rights in court. Most people, especially impoverished people, are not aware of their rights as a citizen. This allows police officers to take advantage of these impoverished people by searching them without probable cause or a warrant. The Fourth Amendment states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Even if the person knows their rights, they are still being unreasonably searched when there is no need for a search to take place. This is one of the ways that the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens, especially impoverished citizens, are being violated. 

Not only is the fourth amendment right being challenged by unwarranted searches but the first amendment is being put under stress by militarization of the police force. Militarization of the police force is occurring, despite crime rates having lowered consistently since 1993. The police do not need to be militarized any more than they already are. The ACLU reported:

The images on the news of police wearing helmets and masks, toting assault rifles, and riding in mine-resistant armored vehicles are not isolated incidents—they represent a nationwide trend of police militarization. Federal programs providing surplus military equipment, along with departments’ own purchases, have outfitted officers with firepower that is often far beyond what is necessary for their jobs as protectors of their communities. 

This is a major factor that leads to more and more police brutality. Why do the police need access to assault weapons and riot gear? When gear like this is brought out into the public it only incites violence. People do not always harness aggression towards the police, but when officers are sent to contain people in riot gear the people will take that as a sign of aggression. The Black Lives’ Matters movement has faced constant pressure from the police. Most rallies held are met with officers lining the streets in riot gear. Yes, the people need surveillance and the police need to be on standby but not to move against the protesters. The police need to be there to make sure they can protest in peace.

Along with increasing militarization of the police, former President Lyndon B. Johnson coined the phrase, “War on Crime” (Hinton, 1). This outcry caused Americans to believe that crime rates in the United States were out of control years past the time when President Johnson was in office. Per FBI statistics, violent crime rates and murder rates have been steadily decreasing since 1993 (Robertson). Incarceration rates have exponentially risen in America since the 1970s and have recently started to decline since 2006. This decline in the incarceration rate, decline in the murder rates and violent crime rates all within the same period show that putting more people behind bars is not the main policy that causes crime rates to decrease.

The war on crime is allowing the police force to militarize themselves. Also, it is allowing quota based crime fighting to thrive in the current police force. Time Magazine reports: 

For example, in Detroit in the early 1970s, officers of a decoy squad known as STRESS (an acronym for “Stop the Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets”) killed 17 African American civilians—the vast majority unarmed—during its two years of operation. If the “War on Crime” was meant to be a useful metaphor that would spur policymakers into action, it quickly evolved into what resembled an actual war (“Why We Should Reconsider the War on Crime”).

The militarization of the police places too much power in the hands of officers. These officers do not need the power that the military possesses. This new-found power can easily make officers become trigger happy. The police force needs to be demilitarized to protect the citizens of the United States. 

This senseless violence that kills and maims the people of America is a product of militarization incorporated into high stress situations. The Los Angeles Times reported, “Federal officials reviewed 548 use-of-force cases between May 2013 and May 2016, finding 37% of the people whom city police used force against were African American, a larger percentage than for any other ethnic group. Nine of the 11 people who were killed during use-of-force incidents in that time frame were people of color” (“Feds Fault San Francisco Police for Violence Against Minorities and Recommend 272 Reforms”). Nine of Eleven people that were killed during use of force were African American. That data alone suggests that police are more prone to kill African Americans. These 11 cases all included a high stress situation that ended up in someone being killed. With 9 of those lives being African-American Men, there is clear evidence of targeting by this officers. 

These deaths are due to a lack of training among police officers in the handling of high stress situations. For example, 

According to a July 2013 study published in the International Journal of Human Sciences, a difference in the formal training officers receive at the police academy and the informal world of the streets causes officers to abandon training methods. Based on this finding, police officers should receive training specifically calibrated to the situations they encounter on the streets (Craig).

These officers are not properly trained to handle their duties on the street because their training is not sufficient. Officers need rigorous training on how to handle cases on the streets, because the streets are almost always different than academy training simulations. If the officers are not trained properly to handle high stress situations on the street it endangers the lives of everyone around them. 

The police force should be reformed due to the ongoing violence between officers and racial minority persons. It is more logical to change an organization that has a set of codes, the police, rather than millions of people that are different than each other individually. One life lost to this police brutality is one life too many. Most of these lives lost are of African Americans and other racial minorities. This war must stop between the police and the racial minority community. The people of America are becoming divided because of an issue that should not be defined by race but by the value of human life. Officers are dying and people are dying all because people refuse to admit that the officers need to be trained better. The police do not need to be militarized anymore. Officers need more education and training to help them realize the racial bias they hold before they express it. 

There are certain people that deny officers need training reform and that the problems are not real. These same people also claim that “all lives matter” with the argument that black lives matter is a racist movement that spreads hate for police officers. Black Lives Matter defines themselves in this way: 

When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state.  We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity (Black Lives Matter).

Black Lives Matter is a civil rights group that is not racist but dedicated to making sure the government treats black people in a fair and just manner. Yes, all lives matter but Black Lives Matter is dedicated to the people of color that have been mistreated since the founding of this country. For many years black people have been deprived of their human rights and black lives matter is fighting to make sure that these rights are secured for these people of color.

Crime rates are dropping yet we continue to imprison more and more people every day. This problem with the police force that effects racial minorities most is starting to bleed over and effect all of society. Officers are losing control and using tools they are equipped with in ways that exceed the violence necessary to resolve the situation. With just the simple reform of training programs for officers, the people of America would be better protected and represented by the good officers of America. Not all officers of the law are bad but there are enough bad officers in existence to make it a problem that should change the way officers are made. The police in America have the potential to be the protectors of tomorrow but they lack the training to do so. The police and criminal justice system in America brutalize, imprison, and unfairly target people of minority racial backgrounds because officers are not trained properly, their method of crime fighting is quota-based, the police force is being militarized, and officers endure high stress situations. 
