Poor policing

Poor policing

Poor policing is one of the issues we are facing as a nation. Police are mandated with the role of protecting the people, and this is why citizens of the United States pay taxes, which are meant to cater for the welfare of the police. Despite the sacrifice, the police do not translate what they are trained for in the ground as they do completely the opposite, killing the citizens rather than mediating violence. This essay has been inspired by Ta-Nehesi Coates, in his short story, “The Paranoid Style of American Policing.” Based on the short story, I will illustrate the police’s role in mediating violence in comparison with the members of the public and highlight how the police have failed in restoring law and order, often resulting in the murder of the same people they swore to protect. When officers take the lives of the people they are supposed to protect and serve, they do normalize not only violence but also undermine their own legitimacy.

Societies are not orderly, and this means that once in a while, issues regarding violence may arise, and it is the duty of both the community members and the police to come together and restore order. However, this is not the case, as many police tend to abuse their position to harass the victims. The public has depicted even greater capabilities in solving issues in society compared to the police, who, most of the time, use their weapons in the wrong way, shooting and killing people as a way of mediating violence. Police are supposed to prevent violence from happening, and this can be achieved by applying common sense and negotiation skills taught during training. But the police are not ready to do their duty and what they do is kill the offender, a simple way of stopping the violence.

According to the short story, the narrator states that members of the community were also involved in solving violent cases. The father had been involved in such mediations, not once, but several times. However, in his course of mediation, he never resorted to murder. In some neighborhoods, it is difficult to maintain peace, especially when the people living there are violent, but the violence of the community members does not mean that it warrants them to be killed. For example, there are many young people who are involved in scary behaviors such as threatening people with metal objects. Even in such an occasion, the narrator states the notion that it is allowed, moral, or wise to kill such as a person threatening others with metal objects as a method of de-escalation, or to kill because one was afraid, was not permitted and never existed among the parents in the community. It is not only in the narrator’s community but also in every community regardless of whether there are violent people or not. No parent of sound mind would result in killing their son for being violent, but they would make sure to use alternative rehabilitation methods to restore sanity in their child.

However, the policy of peaceful mediation does not exist in the vocabulary of police officers. While the community advocates for non-violent mediations, police do the opposite. For example, the narrator states that a Chicago police officer shot and killed her 19-year-old son, a parent killing her own progeny, which completely sounds ridiculous. Based on her action, the police boss struggled to understand the mentality of the people who are paid to keep the community safe. Rather than keeping it safe, they promote violence. A parent will always take the side of his or her family regardless of the mistake the child has committed, and this has been depicted by most of the parents in the community. But there must be something wrong with the police, as shooting and killing their own children is on another level. It brings the question of mental incapacity among the police in handling pressures. Stress can be a reason why police fail to act in a humane manner, being hurtless and killing anyone who comes their way.

The police are well trained on how to handle criminals, and they have a variety of tools that they can use to neutralize the danger before them. Among such tools include the teasers and handcuffs. With the help of these two, a police officer has no reason to turn on their guns and shoot the offender. But this has not been the case in many cases of police confrontation in America. There are hundreds of cases where people have been killed despite having surrendered to the authority, and this brings the question of motive within the police department. Currently, the police in the United States has been in the spotlight for their uncalled behavior; they have been directly involved in murdering innocent people, incidents that can be termed as to be racially motivated. Most of the victims of murder in the hands of police are blacks, with a large percentage coming from black neighborhoods. Despite the use of teasers to take down the victim, evidence has been found that the police even shoot their victims when they are under arrest and make it evident that most of these killings are racially motivated.

However, it might be argued that the police face a lot of challenges at work, which increases their stress levels, which is a precursor to mental illnesses. Depression is one of the mental conditions that the police suffer from, and this can be attributed to long working hours coupled with underpayment. They need to feed their families, and they also have to deal with violent people out in the streets, which makes them easily agitated. Based on this, a small issue can be exaggerated, as the police officer wants somewhere to relieve their stress. It is these acts that make the public lose trust in the police force, often resolving to handle cases on their own rather than inviting the police as they are aware that anything can happen when the police are invited to address a violent case. They don’t take time to analyze the situation, but they are quick to make judgements, which most of the time go the wring way, often resulting in deaths that could otherwise be avoided. When officers take the lives of the people they are supposed to protect and serve, they do normalize violence and undermine their own legitimacy.