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Police brutality

Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group.[1] It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, asphyxiation, beatings, shootings, improper takedowns, and unwarranted use of tasers.[2][3]

"Excessive force" redirects here. For other uses, see Excessive force (disambiguation).

Pressures to conform to certain aspects of "police culture", such as the , which can "sustain an oppositional criminal subculture protecting the interests of police who violate the law"[18] and a "'we-they' perspective in which outsiders are viewed with suspicion or distrust"[17]

Blue Code of Silence

Command and control structures with a rigid hierarchical foundation ("results indicate that the more rigid the authoritarian hierarchy, the lower the scores on a measure of ethical decision-making" concludes one study reviewed in the report); and

[19]

Deficiencies in internal accountability mechanisms (including internal investigation processes).

[17]

The 2007 report on human rights also documented widespread police misconduct in many other countries, especially countries with authoritarian regimes[23]

Amnesty International

In the UK, the reports into the death of New Zealand teacher and anti-racism campaigner in 1979 was published on the Metropolitan Police website on 27 April 2010. They concluded that Peach was killed by a police officer, but that the other police officers in the same unit had refused to cooperate with the inquiry by lying to investigators, making it impossible to identify the actual killer.

Blair Peach

In the UK, was filmed by an American tourist being hit with a baton and pushed to the floor as he was walking home from work during the 2009 G-20 London summit protests. Tomlinson then collapsed and died. Although he was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter, the officer who allegedly assaulted Tomlinson was released without charge. He was later dismissed for gross misconduct.[24]

Ian Tomlinson

In the UK, in 2005, a young Brazilian man was arrested and shot by Metropolitan Police in Central London. The man, Jean Charles Menezes, died later.

[25]

In Serbia, police brutality occurred in numerous cases during protests against , and has also been recorded at protests against governments since Milošević lost power. The most recent case was recorded in July 2010, when five people, including two girls, were arrested, handcuffed, beaten with clubs, and mistreated for one hour. Security camera recordings of the beating were obtained by the media and public outrage when released.[26][27] Police officials, including Ivica Dačić, the Serbian minister of internal affairs, denied this sequence of events and accused the victims "to have attacked the police officers first". He also publicly stated that "police [aren't] here to beat up citizens", but that it is known "what one is going to get when attacking the police".[28]

Slobodan Milošević

Episodes of police brutality in India include the , the death of Udayakumar,[29] and of Sampath.[30]

Rajan case

Police violence episodes against peaceful demonstrators appeared during the [31][32][33] Furthermore, on 4 August 2011, Gorka Ramos, a journalist of Lainformacion was beaten by police and arrested while covering 15-M protests near the Interior Ministry in Madrid.[34][35][36][37][38] A freelance photographer, Daniel Nuevo, was beaten by police while covering demonstrations against the Pope's visit in August 2011.[39][40]

2011 Spanish protests

In Brazil, incidents of police violence have been very well-reported and Brazil has one of the highest prevalences of police brutality in the world today

South Africa from to today has had incidents of police brutality, though police violence is not as prevalent as during the apartheid years

apartheid

There have been several instances of police brutality towards protesters in the

2019–20 Hong Kong protests

Measurement[edit]

Police brutality is measured based on the accounts of people who have experienced or seen it, as well as the juries who are present for trials involving police brutality cases, as there is no objective method to quantify the use of excessive force for any particular situation.


In addition to this, police brutality may also be filmed by police body cameras, worn by police officers. Whereas body cams could be a tool against police brutality (by prevention, and by increasing accountability). However according to Harlan Yu, executive director from Upturn, for this to occur, it needs to be embedded in a broader change in culture and legal framework. In particular, the public's ability to access the body camera footage can be an issue.[42][43][44]


In 1985, only one out of five people thought that police brutality was a serious problem. Police brutality is relative to a situation: it depends on if the suspect is resisting. Out of the people who were surveyed about their account of police brutality in 2008, only about 12 percent felt as if they had been resisting.[45] Although the police force itself cannot be quantified, the opinion of brutality among various races, genders, and ages can. African Americans, women, and younger people are more likely to have negative opinions about the police than Caucasians, men, and middle-aged to elderly individuals.[46]

Independent oversight[edit]

Various community groups have criticized police brutality. These groups often stress the need for oversight by independent civilian review boards and other methods of ensuring accountability for police action.


Umbrella organizations and justice committees usually support those affected. Amnesty International is a non-governmental organization focused on human rights with over three million members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the organization is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated".


Tools used by these groups include video recordings, which are sometimes broadcast using websites such as YouTube.[47]


Civilians have begun independent projects to monitor police activity to try to reduce violence and misconduct. These are often called "Cop Watch" programs.[48]

Authoritarian personality

Civil liberties

Civil rights

Death squad

(15 March)

International Day Against Police Brutality

Law enforcement agency

Law enforcement and society

Legal observer

List of cases of police brutality

List of unarmed African Americans killed by law enforcement officers in the United States

List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States

List of killings by law enforcement officers in Canada

Militarization of police

Photography is Not a Crime

Police misconduct

Police riot

Prisoner abuse

Rough ride

Suicide by cop

Use of force continuum

; Peterson, Abby; Reiter, Herbert, eds. (2006). The policing of transnational protest. Ashgate.

della Porta, Donatella

della Porta, Donatella (1998). Policing protest : the control of mass demonstrations in Western democracies. Univ. of Minnesota Press.  0-8166-3063-1.

ISBN

Donner, Frank J. (1990). Protectors of privilege : red squads and police repression in urban America. Berkeley: University of California Press.  0-520-05951-4.

ISBN

Earl, Jennifer S.; Soule, Sarah A. (2006). "Seeing Blue: A Police-Centered Explanation of Protest Policing". Mobilization. 11 (2): 145–164. :10.17813/maiq.11.2.u1wj8w41n301627u.

doi

Oliver, P (2008). "Repression and Crime Control: Why Social Movements Scholars Should Pay Attention to Mass Incarceration Rates as a Form of Repression". Mobilization. 13 (1): 1–24. :10.17813/maiq.13.1.v264hx580h486641.

doi

Ross, J.I. (2000). Making news of police violence a comparative study of Toronto and New York City. Praeger.  0-275-96825-1.

ISBN

Zwerman, G.; Steinhoff, P. (2005). "When activists ask for trouble: state-dissident interactions and the new left cycle of resistance in the United States and Japan". In Davenport, C.; Johnston, H.; Mueller, C. (eds.). Repression and mobilization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pp. 85–107.

Hessbruegge, Jan Arno (2017). Human rights and personal self-defense in international law (First ed.). New York, NY.  978-0-19-065503-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

ISBN

Police Violence

Police Brutality Statistics

Worldwide Police Brutalities archive

Names of Victims of Police Brutality In Canada

Policing the Police: Civilian Video Monitoring of Police Activity

To Protect and Serve?: Five Decades of Posters Protesting Police Violence