Strategies to Reduce Police Brutality

Police officers were once called peacekeepers however now they seem to be nothing more than law enforcement officers. More and more people are becoming victims of police brutality which is unethical and needs to change. There needs to be a program to retrain police officers. Psychological testing for all officers. All officers should be required to take racial profiling classes. Check the mental health of every field and disk officer. All active officers must take a psychological test twice a year. Racial profiling and mental health test should be done twice a month and each officer must pass all of these tests before the end of each year. This Bill Ordinance No. 2729 will be presented to the city board and the board of public safety community. Expenses for this program will come from higher property taxes and the new city infrastructure. There should be steps in place if an officer does not pass their tests.

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Police brutality is the use of excessive and unnecessary force on the part of a police officer when he is interacting with a civilian, which results in the violation of the civilian’s civil rights. The use of such are pepper spray, batons, and tasers, hitting, choking, throwing a non-combatant civilian to the ground, and sexual abuse are all examples of police brutality. Excessive force by law enforcement officers is a violation of a person’s constitutional rights. The term excessive force is the use of force greater than that which a reasonable officer would use under the circumstances is generally considered to be excessive. Police officers generally have broad powers to carry out their duties. The Constitution and other laws are in place to limit how far police officers can go in trying to enforce the law. Police brutality is a violation of the law. Cruel and unusual punishments by the state police are prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment provides further protection to individuals, prohibiting the state from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Police brutality is unethical in so many ways. Officers are taking advantage of their authority and minorities are the ones who are paying the price. Police brutality puts a division between the community and the police officers. This leads to the corrosive relationship that currently exists between the police and minorities. This implies that officers are targeting only Blacks and Latinos which is considered to be racial profiling. It does not matter if you’re sleeping in your common room at the university dorm, barbequing in a park, walking home and wearing a red hoodie, wanting to use the restroom in a coffee shop, etc. Being non-white is suspect. Sad to say this is the culture in which Edwards et al. find, “the chances of being the next victim of police brutality and or a homicide is much greater if you are Black or Latino” (Alang, Sirry, 2018). This goes to show that every active and nonactive police officer should be required to take retraining classes. This way the Black and Latino communities and the police department may have a better connection and respect for each other.

To keep police brutality numbers down every officer should be required to go through psychological testing. These tests will be given to every active officer twice a year. Both results will be compared at the end of the year to evaluate the psychological behavior toward the job and the community. The officer will have two months to schedule their two psychological testing which needs to be done at the beginning over every quart. The psychological testing will take place on the officer’s day off. When it is time for their testing, they will be asked multiple questions from the professional and will have five minutes to answer each question on a computer. They will have a fifty questionnaire computerized test along with a physical examination, and a two separate thirty-minute psychologist evaluation. There will be a three to six licensed psychologist for every police department. A licensed psychologist will be assigned to each department to complete all of the psychological testings. These testing will take place in a secure off-site location. After all of the testing is done the psychologist will evaluate the results and upload the results to the department’s database, the captain of each department will go over the results with each officer individually.

There are several psychological testing that is available that is appropriate for the selection of police officer. The purpose of these psychological tests is to employ quantitative research synthesis methods to assess, compare, and contrast the correlation between the officer’s job performance and the most commonly used personality inventories within the field of officer selection. “This study looked at the research from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI and MMPI-2) and the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) to determine if the officer was up to the department’s standers” (Simmers, Kimberly D., et al., 2003). Even though there is a pre-psychological testing for officers there needs to be testing twice a year to keep up with the changes officers go through on a day to day bases of the job.

Along with the psychological testing, all active and nonactive officers will be required to participate in racial profiling and mental health seminars. These seminars will be one to two times a year on the officers’ days off. The itinerary will consist of three guest speakers, group work, worksheets, handouts, videos, and a Q. & A. Officers will be able to link up with other officers in different departments as well as their own, this will build up the support from within the police community. The seminars will teach each officer the proper steps to be a better service to their community and the department.

Every six months there will be a mandatory mental health workshop for every officer that is actively on duty and out in the field. When officers keep up with their mental health, they serve the public more effectively. In this workshop, officers will learn how to change their mindset and daily wellness tactics. There will be gym sign-ups, nutrition classes, decluttering your life courses, free counseling pamphlets for the insured and uninsured, there will also be free mental health screening and food will be donated to the workshop.

“Police officers organizations strive to provide excellent service. Fulfilling this duty requires healthy police professionals. Police officers should take responsibility for their wellbeing by strengthening and conditioning themselves to better handle the negative effects of their careers. All department leaders need to cultivate the health of their officers by having the proper support in place” Marx, John, 2016.

Whenever officers are going through emotional issues at the workplace, officers will be able to take advantage of the emotional and psychological health program that will be available 24/7 to help with their emotional needs. When officers have control over their emotions they will have a better handle on the work at hand. Officers should have a 10-minute mental meditation quiet time before and after each shift so that they can clear their mind and let it reset themselves. This will give the officers time between work and home to have a mental reboot.

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 This program will be passed as a Bill Ordinance No.2729 proposes a lower crime ratio in the city, reduce the numbers of police-related shooting, and create a public safety plan that will be presented to the city board and the board of public safety community. This bill will be included in the next upcoming election of 2020 for the State of California. When the bill is approved and passed by the city officials, 42% of the funding will come from higher property taxes and the new city infrastructure. The rest of the funding will come from well-needed city budget cuts and city funding grants.

A pass or fail checklist will be given to every psychologist and the caption to look over. Every officer that passes all of their tests for the year will get a bonus incentive from the police state funding. For the officer that fails any of the tests will have three attempts to retake and pass before the end of that year. With the first failed attempt, the officer will be reprimanded to come out of the field and onto a desk position for three months and required to take a retest. The second failed attempt, the officer will be placed on suspension for three months and required to speak to a police psychologist pending a psychological evaluation. The third failed attempt, the officer is placed on admiration leave, pending active investigation and police board review. If an officer doesn’t meet the requirements and fail all three attempts they will be let go from the police department and will not be able to in lest back into the police department for the next four years.

The testing will go as followed, there will be over fifty different tests. Each test will have a number on it and every officer will get a different test each time they come to test. Officers will take each test on a computer with their photo ID. Questions will be pulled out of a pool of 1600 questions and selected at random of 100 at a time. The test will be timed for two hours for the 100 questions. Once the test is done the office will log out of the computer, a copy of their score will be uploaded to the department’s databases. The department’s captain will have one month to go over the officer’s score and make changes if needed with the officer.

 A third party contracting agency called N.P.O. (National Poly Graft Organisation) of  68 agents will overlook all of the department’s testing results. They will be uploading the scores to the police department’s database in the state of California. They will oversee all the physical and psychological evaluations of each officer in California.

Police brutality is an issue that can affect not only the officers but also the community they work in. Many innocent people are being taken advantage of because officers believe they are above the law. This can also affect the lives of officers that are just trying to do their jobs. However, steps could be taken in order to give the good name back to the men and women in blue. With this new highly innovated program will decrease the statistical city crime rate down by 32% within the next two years. This will not only put the community at rest, but taxes dollars will be put to good use, and all officers will be highly trained and skilled to better serve the community.

Work Cited

• Alang, Sirry. “The More Things Change, the More Things Stay the Same: Race, Ethnicity, and Police Brutality.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 108, no. 9, Sept. 2018, pp. 1127–1128. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304628.
• Marx, John. “Building Community Trust Requires Supporting Healthy Officers.” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Oct. 2016, pp. 8–11. EBSCOhost, chaffey.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=119439022&site=ehost-live
• Simmers, Kimberly D., et al. “Pre-Employment Psychological Testing of Police Officers: The MMPI and the IPI as Predictors of Performance.” International Journal of Police Science & Management, vol. 5, no. 4, Winter 2003, pp. 277–294. EBSCOhost, chaffey.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=11677195&site=ehost-live.