About one-thousand unarmed people are murdered by police officers every year in the US (Peeples, 2020). Police misconduct and brutality are common problems that have been addressed in most media platforms in recent years. The police department in New York is not an exception as it has also engaged in behavior portraying brutality and abuse. For instance, the most recent event where police acted in misconduct during the protests prompted by George Floyd’s killings (Human Rights Watch, 2020). Over the years, police officers perceive themselves as superior beings protected by the law. Consequently, they have continuously abused people to the point of killing, like in George Floyd's case. Their misconducts acts are a major problem at hand, and it is significantly contributed by ineffective policies that fail to limit police’s authority when handling civilians ( D’Souza et al., 2019 ). If this problem is not addressed, many people will be at risk of losing their lives or encountering physical assaults from the police.
The existing policies fighting against police misconduct and abuse have proven ineffective mainly because they are handled internally within a police department (Ray, 2020). For instance, when a police officer is accused of misconduct, he faces a trial board consisting of his fellow mates who decide whether he is guilty of the charges or not. Furthermore, the police officers found guilty face light punishments like paid or unpaid leave, put on desk duties, or fined a small amount of money from their paycheck ( McKeown, 2018 ). Therefore, cops with a history of misconduct continue to serve as police officers, granting them more opportunities to abuse people. Undoubtedly, such policies are not effective enough to stop police from exercising brutality. Therefore, as a policy analyst hired by the New York City oversight agency responsible for policy department changes, I am supposed to address the question,” what policies can be implemented to stop police misconduct and abuse in New York City department?”
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References
D’Souza, A., Weitzer, R., & Brunson, R. K. (2019). Federal investigations of police misconduct: a multi-city comparison. Crime, Law and Social Change , 71 (5), 461-482.
McKeown, M. C. (2018). Police Misconduct: Ineffective Policy Department Complaint-Review Procedures and the Proposition of Corrective Federal Oversight. Suffolk UL Rev. , 51 , 309.
New York: Inquiry Confirms Police Misconduct at Protests . Human Rights Watch. (2020). Retrieved 2 February 2021, from https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/18/new-york-inquiry-confirms-police-misconduct-protests .
Peeples, L. (2020). What the data say about police brutality and racial bias—and which reforms might work.
Ray, R. (2020). How can we enhance police accountability in the United States? . Brookings. Retrieved 2 February 2021, from https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/how-can-we-enhance-police-accountability-in-the-united-states/.
