Police’s use of excessive force against minority

Introduction

According to the University-wide Police Policies and Administrative Procedures (UPPAP), use of force by a law enforcement officer or personnel is an issue of great concern both to the public and to the entire law enforcement community. The use of force according to UPPAP involves any physical effort employed to control, restrain or tame the resistance of a suspected or a confirmed criminal. In fact, according to May and Headley (2008), the decision by police officers and other law enforcers on when to apply forceful arrest tactics remains to be their most daunting task especially, with the varied interactions they constantly experience from the suspected citizens. The types of resistances met by law enforcement personnel or officers can be categorized into either active (where the victims of arrest use physical reactions to evade arrest e.g. intimidating, pushing, or even exchanging gunfire with the police officers) or passive (where the victims of arrest use indirect forms of resistance like sitting down, locking arms to avoid being handcuffed, refusing to walk to the relevant police stations and many more). However, use of force can be further categorized into physical force (involves physical contact with suspects e.g. pushing suspects), mechanical force (involves use of devices of arrest including clubs, batons, canines and chemical sprays but not firearms) and deadly force (where the law enforcer compellingly uses very dangerous methods that can easily cause harm to the suspects in attempts of arresting them). The rules and regulations used to decide when to use each and every forceful arrest method are specific in nature but stated below are some of the general guidelines for when to use a particular forceful arrest method and policy by the law enforcement agents for instance, when the suspects engage the law enforcement officers in a physical fight, engages in gunfire exchanges, refuses to be captured or arrested, for self-defense, when preventing crime, when the suspects or criminals are of unsound mind or state and many more. However, Klockars (1996) warned that sometimes the law enforcement officers do not really invoke specified laws in their operations but instead uses excess force to invoke the law simply because they are always permitted by the law to use the amount of force necessary to ensure that the culprits are captured and brought to justice. It is in line with this reasoning that Perez and Moore (2002) argued that the police have always been attempted to use excessive force on the American citizens resulting into a general disrespect of both the law and other law enforcement agencies.

This paper involves an in-depth research on the extents of discriminate use of excess force by the police officers especially, on the black African Americans and on the minority group in the United States of America and other nations in the globe. This paper will look into other related issues including specific police incidents when they used excess force to arrest the minority and the blacks, reasons why there is a general perception that the police and other law enforcing agents normally use excess force to capture their suspects, whether the police officers discriminately use excessive forceful arrest methods against the black race in the United States, how different races view the police in the United States and whether the media plays a role in development of the public general perception that the police and other law enforcing agencies are economically and racially biased when it comes to the implementation of forceful arrest methods in the United States. This paper will end with a precise summary that will give a comprehensive conclusion and recommendation for the findings obtained in this research with regard to the use of excess force by the police officers especially on the minority and the blacks (Homes & Smith, 2008).

Police Incidents of use of force on the minority

The minority group or class in the United States refers to the US citizens characterized by low levels of income with poor living standards and are always largely discriminated since their “voices” are never “heard” by the relevant authorities. The minority group includes the lower social class members mainly made up of the peasant farmers, casuals labourers in firms and companies and many more. Even though Americans celebrate forty years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act that advocated for equality amongst all American citizens, there has been evident confrontations between the law enforcers and the minority group especially, the Hispanics and the African Americans. In fact, a good number of the marginalized or the minority group leaders have relentlessly fought with matters related to institutional racism, racial insensitivity in workplaces and surprisingly enough, the law enforcement plans have never come out clearly to avoid speculations of racial harassment by the police officers and other law enforcers for instance, Mauer and Chesney-Lind (2002) found that,

“more than three-quarters of a million black men are now behind bars, and nearly two million are under some form of correctional supervision, including probation and parole. For black males aged twenty-five to thirty-four, at a time in life when they would otherwise be starting families and careers, one of every eight is in prison or jail on any given day” (pg. 3).

A group of races including the whites in New York City confessed that the threat of Police violence had enormous psychological impacts and significance on the minority group and the African Americans than even the use of force occurrences; they claimed that the law enforcers including the police have always used violent threats to dominate the minority communities and to ensure compliance to their demands and requests. Much grieving is the fact that the minority groups are often victimized by the police due to the influence of the past perception that crimes should be directly linked with the blacks albeit with very limited evidences. Most recently the British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC) aired a controversial footage obtained from one of the public surveillance cameras (CCTVs) in the United kingdom that captured a police officer repeatedly punching a woman in attempts of trying to handcuff her but surprisingly enough a former metropolitan Police Commander (names reserved) supported the heinous act by categorically commenting that “punching is okay!….” The helpless woman therefore, received rebuke instead of justice, an act that if it was done to the majority group, the controversial police officer would be rusticated, demoted, transferred or even sued (British Broadcasting Cooperation, 2012).

Generally, the racial minority citizens are devalued by the influential mainstream society giving room for the use of excess force by law enforcement agents consequently putting the minority groups at higher risk of being victimized by arrogant and violent police officers. California has seen many incidents of police brutality and crimes related to their tendency of using force to arrest criminals and suspects but unfortunately not all of their victims brutally murdered in the operations are always “guilty” of the alleged crimes for instance, on 5^th July 2011: Thomas Kelly, a thirty seven year old homeless man suffering from schizophrenia and wandering on the streets of Fullerton in California was brutally murdered by six Police officers belonging to the Fullerton Police Department. The police officers could not even empathize with the wailing sounds of an armless and mentally challenged citizen. This was the highest order of minority discrimination ever witnessed in California prompting the public to protest outside the Fullerton Police Department on July 18, 2011 (Fisher, 2011). Another form of police brutality was depicted in Arizona on May 5, 2011 when the Pima County Sheriff SWAT officers raided and killed a former Iraq veteran by the name Jose Guerena over allegations that he was a drug dealer. The SWAT officers threatened his wife and his 4-year old son and even prevented the ambulance from reaching Guerena for medical intervention after being shot. According to Arizona Daily Star (2011), after releasing a video on the incident, Pima County Sheriff’s Department cleared the SWAT team of any crimes and declined to apologize to the traumatized family members. In fact, up to date the impoverished family has never found justice especially, due to the fact that the allegations were false and that the suspect was as innocent and hardworking as any other American citizen. A total of 71 gunshots were fired on him while the medics confirmed that he actually received 60 shots (Echavarri, 2011). These are clear indications that the minority and the marginalized group are the full recipients of the use of excess force by the police officers and other law enforcement agencies in the United States.

Public Perception

The local citizens in the United States have a general perception that the police officers and other law enforcement agencies always use excess force in their attempts to arrest their targets. This is because the law enforcement officers usually represent the middle class society who has the tendency of looking down upon the minority group for instance, the homeless, criminals, alcoholics and many more. In fact, according to Bouza (1990), the law enforcing police officers are seen by the public as their brotherhood but in “blue” thus inspiring a fierce relationship between the police, civilians and entire law enforcement community. He adds that this leads to the development of a hostile subculture enclave within a culture characterized by negative attitudes, believes and behaviors towards the law enforcement officers in the United States of America. Crank (1998) puts it clearer that the law enforcement agencies are bred in a subculture that envies loyalty to the laid orders while the civilians believe in loyalty to their course and the exercise of maximum levels of solidarity against brutality and pains inflicted on them by the law enforcing officers. This even worsens when McNamara (2002) proposes that the police officers are unique in the sense that they believe in secrecy and overall mistrust on the general public; he adds that they always tend to believe that they are usually unappreciated and misunderstood by the public. He further explains that the mutual policing principles and values of collective solidarity and protection at times waters down their solemn promise to “protect and serve” the local residents leading to a general distaste of the law enforcers by the locals in the United States. Daniels (2000) explains the public perception to be built on the “we verses them” mentality that exists between the civilians and the police officers that fosters hostile relationship between them. He argues that due to the rising levels of corruption within the law enforcement agencies, it is never easy to determine whether their claims of tracking down “suspects” by use of excess force are genuine or false. Regarding the minority groups and Blacks, Brunson and Miller (2006) suggest that almost ninety percent of the criminal activities conducted in the United States are directly linked with the African Americans and the minority in fact; he suggests that in America it is like the black skin color is in itself incriminated.

Even though, it is evident that over 56 percent of the total homicides and robberies are committed by the African Americans, and that almost all of the crimes performed in the urban settings during the summer months are perpetuated by the young minority males; Russell (2000) warns that this could be a justification procedure by the Hispanics and the negroes to fight the high levels of excessive force used on them and their fellows by the law enforcing police officers in the United States. Walker, Spohn and Delone (2004) argue that the general notion that the blacks are crime-prone is a mere overrepresentation of their criminal activities and that the whites too frequently fall as victims of racial abuse and discrimination. This plays a major role in convincing the minority group that the police force is biased when it comes to identifying and arresting law breakers in the United States. According to Delattre (2002), the height of use of excessive force by the police have been alarming especially, how they deal with issues related to race, social class and political power; where it has been noted that the police officers have been very lenient and respectful when it came to arresting persons from high ranking socio-political class. It was also evident that the police in United States treaded softly when they arrested whites. Finally, according to Barker (1983), the local minority group believes that law enforcement officers always feel that the use of excessive force is deployed to manifest an officer’s authority over the suspects and criminals in connection with the attacks they make.

Literature Review

Due to the alarming rise of the public mistrust on the police operations especially, when it comes to the use of excessive force on the minority and black civilians; the policing methods have been very keen to neutralize the negative perception of the US residents by improvising the following policies in order to foster positive relationship between the officers and the civilians. The interventions by the law enforcing agents includes the following amendments, the United States attorney have lately requested assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) directorate to create training programs for senior persecutors of the newly established Civil Rights Unit that is responsible for checking the police use of excess or deadly force on the citizens. The attorney has ventured in this activity with a major aim of eradicating the negative perception of the police force and other law enforcement agencies by reducing the incidents of use of deadly force by the police officers on the minority group. Another factor that is aimed at reducing this public perception is the establishment of better policing policies which advocate for equal and effective protection and servicing of the American citizens. FBI academies have since been erected with a main intention of “placing prosecuting attorneys in the shoes of officers… who may be involved in incidents of excessive/deadly use of force.” This program is designed to safe-guard the locals from police violence by fostering proper relationship between them and the law enforcement agencies, while giving amicable solutions to issues related to police burst ups with the public and reducing gunfire exchange incidents. Sworn law enforcement officers have a sole responsibility to first of all exhaust all the reasonable means of arrest before resorting to the ultimate use of force not withstanding “excessive force mechanisms.” In fact, according to the New Jersey State policing methods, a law enforcing officer is only allowed to use unobjectionable and reasonable force; they are actually prohibited from the use of “excess force” on the citizens. Furthermore, they are obliged to report all the incidents when other enforcement officers use illegal forceful methods of arresting the civilians.

Human Rights Watch (1998) stresses that race factor still dictates the police use of excess force on the minority when it comes to enforcing law in the United States of America. It found out that the minority groups are always subjected to the excessive use of force by the law enforcement officers for instance, the incidents of the young African American, Hispanics and Latinos (Russell, 2000). Through an extensive research carried by the Human rights Watch (1998), it was established that the minority groups tend to be the victims of human right violations in the hands of police officers in their attempts of trying to enforce the law than the whites. Another association known as the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conducted a research in 2001 on The use of Force in America and analyzed the incidents giving the following statistics in regards to the use of force on the locals; the International Association of Chiefs of Police analyzed 8,148 incidents in the United States when the police used excess force against the locals between 1995 and 2000 and found out that only 38% of the incidents involved the whites while up to 58% involved the white police officers. This proved that the perception was not only evident in the public but also within the police force! According Weitre (1999), the residence of African Americans and the minority groups experience both low income and high crime levels characterized by excessive use of police force in Washington, D.C. This research work proved that excess force was used when dealing with the middle-class African Americans and whites compared to the affluent majority in the US (Reisig, McCluskey, Mastrofski, & Terrill, 2004). Burns and Crawford (2002) add that a criminal or a suspect’s behavior may be the greatest predictor of when the police officers use excess force on the minority group and specific race; they argue that the police officers normally loose their patience very easily when dealing with the minority as compared to when they deal with the affluent members of the society. However, the manner in which the law enforcing officers treat individuals largely depends on the response they get from their target suspects in fact, Jacobs (2002) comments that “Suspects who physically or verbally challenge police officers are much more likely to be subjected to unwarranted police violence.” Hence, the pressure and interventions to reduce the negative mentality existing between the police officer and the general public does not only lie on the police reforms but should also include proper strategies to reduce the hostility of the civilians towards the police.

Another significant research can be traced from the works of Brunson and Miller (2006) when they conducted a survey on 40 young male Blacks aged between 13 and 19 years old living in a disadvantaged neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States. The survey was aimed at gauging the public perception of the locals on police injustices and violence. In this survey, up to 83% of the respondents confessed having been mistreated by the brutal police acts; and a good majority of 93% respondents admitted to have witnessed the police officers brutally use excess force on the minority group and African Americans in Missouri. This acted as a true indicator that the law enforcement officers and agencies always intended to resort to the use of excess force against the minority group and blacks in the United States of America. According to the findings by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2001) in their report entitled Contacts between Police and the Public: Findings from the 1999 National Survey proposed that, out of an estimated 209,350,660 locals who were contacted by the police in 1999, about 422,000 of them had been evicted from their residences through application of excess force or were brutally threatened by the officers. The report further proved that a majority of 78 percent of the 422,000 tortured by the police were made up of both Hispanics and African Americans, while only 22% of the locals who suffered excess force by the police were whites. Lastly, a research by Garner, Maxwell, and Heraux (2004) from six jurisdictions in the United States proved that the Blacks and Hispanics were most likely to face excess use of force compared to other ethnic groups or races in the entire United States when they are being arrested.

Methodology and Data

The methodology that will be used in this paper to obtain the data recorded here in will involve carrying an elaborate exercise of surveying and interviewing a good number of civilians from various States in the United Sates of America for instance Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Florida, Ohio, Canada and many mores states. This research will involve an in-depth scrutiny of some official police records and data concerning different levels of crime on specific States, cultures or groups of people. This research will also involve the use of questionnaires to the members of the public and law enforcing police officers. Some of the areas that will be of key focus will include posing questions to the public to establish the how different races in the United States view the police and their operations (negative or positive views)? Whether it is true that the police use excess force especially on the minority group and Blacks in the United States? Whether or not the public perception of the police might be affecting how they (minority group, Hispanics and African Americans) respond to police calls and arrest warrants? Whether the mass media plays a role in the development of this perception by the African Americans and the minority group whether the law enforcement agencies normally use excess force against them alone; and finally to establish whether the police uses excess force on the minority due their high level of committing crimes in the United Sates. These questions amongst others will be posed to the citizens and their reactions recorded in order to come up with a proper analysis of the real situation in the US and give necessary conclusions and recommendations to try curbing the hostility and bad perceptions existing between the law enforcement officers and the minority groups in the entire United States of America. All findings and questionnaire responses from various States were obtained and e-mailed to specific website that was purposely created for the analysis of the findings. A total of 2,000 questionnaires were sent to our 2,000 respondents from various States via email, while the survey work was conducted by a panel of seven selected members to interview civilians from varied socio-cultural and economic backgrounds in the specific States as provided earlier. These results also contain some media accounts of instances when the police used excess force on the citizens. The results were obtained and analyzed by a non-partisan team to give the following indisputable findings.

Findings Public Perceptions of Police us of Force

The public were made to answer the following questions regarding their perceptions on the police conducts. First, whether they were satisfied with the police actions? Second, whether the public perception on the police misconducts was genuine or false? Third, whether the perception on police racial biasness is evident in the United States of America? Fourth, whether the police required reforms to curb the public perception of the Blacks and minority group in the United States? Whether racial profiling should be encouraged or abandoned by the forces in the United States? The questionnaires also included queries on whether the minority groups and Blacks deserved the brutal force subjected to them by the police officers when attempting to capture them. However, the total number of respondents that responded back totaled to only 1978 respondents via e-mail to our website. The results from our interviewers sent to the seven different States in the United States gave feedbacks from 1900 respondents from various parts of their research States and the data collected was well analyzed in conjunction with the questionnaires as follows: The respondents’ perception of police brutality and excesses experienced at the; street stops, forced evictions and arrests, insulting languages, corruption and excessive force on the minority gave the following results form various States: 17 percent of the whites believed that the police often stopped civilians on the streets without proper reasons as compared to the 35% of Hispanics and 58% African Americans. While, regarding the use of other kinds of police brutality for instance, use of force, gave negative responses as all respondents accepted that the law enforcing agencies used excess force against the minority and blacks. In fact, the data collected showed that the minority group and blacks are 4 to 6 times more likely to believe that the police officers were racially biased than the whites in the major cities of the United States. This was more evident as, the results obtained suggested that the black drivers were more often stopped by the police as compared to the Hispanics and the whites in the streets simply due to the color of their skin.

The respondents also gave the following data in regards to whether they had personally experienced police misconducts and violence; a majority of the whites and affluent members of the society refused to accept that the police used excess arrest and eviction methods on the locals, while a majority of the blacks and Hispanics confessed that most of them were brutally and forcefully arrested almost all times. None the less, the blacks and Hispanics attested that the police always regarded the minority group as “always out of place” or “ever suspicious” when they tread the streets of the major cities in the United States of America. According to Weitze (1999), this phenomenon have played crucial roles in increasing the chances of the Blacks and the minority groups being victimized by a large number of law enforcing agencies. Another area that met different public reaction was the fact that a majority of the respondents believed that the mass media played some role in the development of the negative perception by the minority group that the police officers used a lot of force when it came to arresting the minority and blacks in the United States. The black and Hispanic respondents from the seven states confirmed that media played key roles in bringing all the wicked and brutal acts of the police officers to light. However, both whites and blacks anonymously agreed that the frequent exposure of the police heinous acts by the mass media through camera footages and surveillance cameras (CCTVs) installed at strategic points within the city; have lead to an increased distaste of the law enforcing agencies since, they portray little on the benefits of the police force and other law implementing agencies but airs much of their negativities to the public. This leads to the development of a general notion by the public that the police officers and other law enforcers are usually targeting only the minority and the black American citizens. The survey team also established that all respondents admitted that the cities’ major crime-scenes are usually on the city suburbs largely occupied by the minority group and the blacks. However, the blacks and Hispanics were keen to explain that those crimes should not be solely tagged to them and the minority group as, the evil activities and crimes witnessed in these areas are according to their knowledge are always funded by a class of wealthy and affluent members of the society for instance, renowned drug lords, powerful politicians and musicians who have never been brought to book due to their ability to corrupt and influence the decision of the higher authorities in the United States.

The locals’ perception of police prejudice on racial lines in the United State was explored in the public opinion surveys that were conducted in the seven cities that acted as samples to represent the entire region. It was overwhelming that a good majority of Americans were of the opinion that is much common in the United States of America. In fact, a substantial number of the respondents viewed police prejudice as “too common” in the entire region: with 68 percent of blacks, 38 percent of Hispanics and 18 percent of whites sharing the same opinion. When the respondents were asked to evaluate the prevalence of racial profiling in the United States, they were negative that however much the government has tried abolishing this vice, it was still a common practice by the law enforcing agents in the United States of America with: 86% of blacks, 68 percent of Hispanics and 79% of whites proposing that racial profiling still played a major factor in determining when the law enforcement officers and other agencies would deploy the use of excess force on an American citizen. They argued that the police officers still believed that racial profiling plays a key role in the process of arresting criminals in the United States especially, on the minority group and blacks. But when asked on whether the claims made by the police officers were genuine; up to: 90% of black, 85% of Hispanics and 73% of white respondents denied that crimes should never be tagged to an individual’s color and that racial profiling can never assist the officers to “catch” or “arrest” their targeted suspects instead, it only plays a major role in increasing the existing hostility between the minority group and the law enforcement officers in the United States of America. The height of racial profiling was evident when the respondents from the selected Cities unanimously agreed that up to about 8 in 10 American black drivers would most likely to be stopped than their white counterparts for similar traffic violations in the United States (Terrill and Reisig 2003).

Conclusion and recommendations

Several major conclusions and recommendations can be drawn from this study: Racial disparities in attitudes toward the police are found across the domains examined. With the exception of overall approval, these racial differences remain after controlling for other variables within and without the police task force showing that African Americans are more critical of the police than whites. Hispanics are less likely than whites to hold positive opinions of the police and other law enforcing agencies in the United States. In many areas, they are less likely than African Americans to view the police disapprovingly, while on other matters they tend to confine with blacks. With respect to police misconduct and racially biased policing, blacks and Hispanics do disagree significantly, with Hispanics being less likely to hold negative views. On some subjects, Hispanics are less likely to identify policing evils than the blacks in the US. With regard to the proposed evaluations and preferences pertaining to improvement of the police rules, however, blacks and Hispanics don’t differ a lot. They are intimately united in support for a host of policing transformations. These conclusions are particularly significant in light of the fact that few earlier researches of citizen views of policing have collectively examined both African Americans and Hispanics. Whites, often in huge figures, articulate positive opinions on the police. A lot of them reject the thought that police engage in the kinds of misdemeanors and racial bias as looked at in this paper. A small number of whites accept that the police habitually stop people without cause, mistreat citizens orally or bodily, or involve in corrupt deals. Over three-quarters of white respondents believe that police officers treat blacks and Hispanics the same as they treat whites, and that a mainstream of whites argue that the minority groups are treated the same as the whites and the influential class. However, many whites are doubtful of the issues to police racial prejudice, or view it as concentrated in specific areas rather than being extensive in the entire United States of America therefore; being inconsistent with the blacks’ views of racial discrimination elsewhere in American society, such as education, housing, and employment. For nearly all whites, racial favoritism in general and police discrimination in particular, are not serious problems in the United States. They are also less likely than blacks and Hispanics to support a variety of reforms in policing policies.

Force against minority, myth or reality?

Demographic factors, without racism, play limited roles in determining general approval of both the police and locals’ views on law enforcer’s misbehavior, racial partiality, and reform. From the findings, it is evident that neighborhood crime situations put an effect on a few of the variables, especially when dealing with the levels of police approval and misbehavior. Individual security in one’s neighborhood and the acuity that some offenses are not serious enhances a general satisfaction with the police and reduces the misconception that police delinquency habitually occurs on the minority and the blacks. In reducing the levels of societal mistrust and hostility, police executives operating in the respondents’ neighborhoods are rated more favorably than the police officers working elsewhere in the respondent’s city, particularly by blacks and Hispanics. Police misbehaviors; for instance, are viewed as more common outside one’s area.

An exemption is that 80 percent of whites believe that racial profiling is widespread in the United States. A civilian experience with police officers during personal contacts powerfully manipulates his public attitude in two areas as examined in this research. Either individual or vivid encounter with police abuse maximizes Americans’ certainty that police misdemeanors and racially prejudiced policing always occur. Familiarity has varied effects regarding general satisfaction with the police and it doesn’t envision support for alterations in policing. Transformation preferences are designed by bigger thoughts of the police such as the belief that their misbehavior is widespread, transcending individual’s experiences with officers. Dissimilar to other researches, greatly focusing on the function of personal experience, this result propose that it is not the only significant issue that shapes the blacks and minority stance on the police. It is a somewhat strong predictor, in two of the substantive areas evaluated in this paper, and it has more varied effects in the view of overall satisfaction with local police.

Minority and excessive force

From the findings above it is safe to say that the mass media influence opinion of the police officers too. Continual publicity of media reports on police mistreatment for instance, excessive force, vocal abuse, corruption, was established to be strong predictors of discernment of police wrongdoing, racial policing, and facilitation of proper reforms. Studies have acknowledged the result of occurrences of misbehavior on tarnishing the reputation of the police in a particular city. The responsibility of the media has not earned the notice it worthy of from policing practitioners; it may be a significant dimension of any inclusive descriptive structure of police-citizen associations. In total, the findings address the question of why race structures attitudes toward the police. As indicated earlier, much of this literature records race disparity but does not sufficiently clarify them. This paper points to the role of numerous micro- and macro-level issues in nurturing or strengthening racial discrepancies in assessment of the police. The greater propensity for Hispanics and blacks to grasp serious views of the police is mainly a function of their uneven unfavorable experiences with police officers and media exposure. Department of Justice reported of police cruelty, and (less consistently) residence in high-crime neighborhoods where police practices may be controversial. This findings comment on the investigation of popular support for reforms in policing. All of the investigations on public perceptions focus on common satisfaction or on particular policing evils and misconduct, rather than on counteractive measures that might help to lessen misconduct or to generally improve policing. Maybe it is merely assumed that the public tremendously favors policing transformations, but this is an unproven postulation. Little is understood about the level of civilian support for explicit kinds of reform or about the determinants of Americans’ assessment of the stipulated transformations in policing. The findings recognize the types of alterations that would realize maximum public sanction, which might be helpful in enlightening public policy. In cases where accepted support for a particular amendment is widespread, it may be suggestive of a predicament that needs to be solved. When put into practice, the modifications for instance, rigorous sensitivity training, and recording drivers’ race might help to lessen the levels of police delinquencies or overally improve police practices. Furthermore, some types of reform may have a noteworthy result on public trust and confidence in the police officers and other law enforcement agencies. Alterations may be symbolically significant and boost public confidence in a police subdivision. Certain reforms have the potential to improve the performance of officers and locals during encounters. In as much as it was abnormal to find that 90 percent of whites, blacks, and Hispanics settled on the Miranda rights, it was shocking to find out that up to 97 percent of the 3 groups agreed with the declaration that, “When a police officer stops a person on the street or in a car, the officer should be required to explain to the person the reason for the stop”; and up to 90 percent of the three groups thought that, whenever a police officers stopped and searched a citizen and his or her vehicle, and found no evidence of any crime, the officer in question would be obliged to make an apology to the civilian for the inconveniences caused by the search. In fact, most affiliates of the 3 groups strongly agreed with those policies. Therefore, these findings confirm what some researches have reported on the value people put on being treated justly and with respect by officers.

The mentioned and other practices for instance; sensitivity training can improve police conduct through encounters, and might boost citizens’ readiness to work together with the police. Even though the effect on civilians conduct and obedience has rarely been studied, this restricted data suggests that citizens’ perception are affected by behaviors of the police officers; and when police officers and other law enforcement agencies converse properly and treat the locals with equal dignity, they will respond with kindness. Police officers are able to do more to dismiss the pubic notion that stops are racially aggravated for example, by preventing altercations with the locals, by supplying more information to defend their motives at the stops. Americans are more likely to collaborate with officers when given proper reasons and purposes for the stop, and the reasons as to why they should put premiums on the police officers being courteous, paying attention to citizens, and elucidating their dealings (Wiley and Hudik 1974). In regards to Authority Maintenance Theory, law enforcement officers and agencies must appreciate that they are not better than the civilians. In fact, according to McNamara (2002), law enforcement agencies are inclined to envision themselves as keepers who are to be in charge of ridding the societies and communities as they out do unexpected hostilities that would enable them to use excessive. Even though law enforcement agencies can easily become weary and pessimistic due to the nature of their career, they should always keep in mind that the society they serve also provides them the authority they need (Tetrowski, 2002). Another method of training that can be utilized by the law enforcement agencies to minimize the frequency of excessive force incidents is the basic focus on Authority Maintenance Theory involving law enforcement police officers craving to uphold their influence when interacting with citizens. However, the officers should be warned as, the urge to uphold power can frequently result into the use of excessive force. According to May and Headley (2008), habitual training in the correct use of force should be performed by each and every law enforcement agency to incorporate both hands on training as well as visual computer-generated scenes and role-playing scenes. Training have to be both unremitting and practical. “Preparation for any exercise should simulate as closely as possible the real working situation for which trainees are being equipped (Fyfe, 1996 pg. 169). In fact, Fyfe (1996) adds that some of the most significant crime lessening skills are seldom used, and that they deteriorate over some period and remain inactive unless the police officers get refresher training on them. However, use of force training however has some milestones as quoted below. “The quandary facing use of force trainers is how to train law enforcement officers to use sensible force when faced with a large number of tricky situations” (Tetrowski, 2002 pg. 25). Therefore, officers have to be trained to identify and understand when they are faced with an impending danger (Tetrowski, 2002). Therefore the basic principal of use of force training should be overall threat assessment or the ability to recognize a threat and/or hostile intent by a suspect. Lastly, through habitual training on the correct use of force, law enforcement agencies and police officers will be able to how to use the required level of force for any given situation to reduce incidents of use excessive force on the minority by the police.

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