The law enforcement professions attracts some unique individuals. Some come to the job with a willingness to help people and make society a better place for all. Then there are those who have ulterior motives, which leads to highly publicized cases of police brutality and killings. There have been many scholarly articles written regarding the latter. Dr. Joy Leary has her own take on it. View the video and make your own decision about why police officers want to "serve and protect."
9 comments:
I thought that video was great. A lot of what the speaker sad made sense. I especially like the part where she explains that anarchy breeds more anarchy because examples will always have to be set in the society we live in. I was shocked when she stated that wounded black men were referred to as wounded animals and even more shocked when she stated this evidence was factual and documented. LC 1736
Darnell I found the video very interesting, it is clear to see that racism is still taking place in law enforcement. The fact that black males with a darker skin complexion than the average black male is referred to as an animal bothers more deeply. Then authority figures wonder why city residents are not cooperative when police officers seek answers to solve certain crimes. If the people of a community are not sure of their safety, crime is going to continue to increase rapidly.
Police officers want to serve and protect for diverse reasons . Some of them have genuine interests in the field . Some of them just want to settle scores with their enemies or revenge because of their past experiences . Therefore , those individuals corrupt law enforcement , so the profession becomes toxic to honest police officers .
lj 6631
Racism is one of the foremost factors that is still distressing the law enforcement agency up till today. When are we gonna see that we are all created equal.
In the criminal justice study,the chapter of race is more focused on Black African Americans.Always bad things about black, where are those good things and we should proud about Martin Luther King as the result of today in the American history with Barack Obama in the white house. A black president in the white house.
We need to change the society as Martin luther King said" I have A dream" The dream was to see everyone treats as equal. Who wants to follow this way. we should be eduacted in order to find more valuable black African Americans to stand up.J.E 9722
In 2006 I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Leary and purchased her book “Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome”. I used this book as one of my sources for a research project I completed two weeks ago. The topic I chose was “How might the historic role police played in enforcing slavery in the South and later segregation contribute to present-day police minority relations?” Although I found this topic very interesting, it left me feeling even more disgusted with the practice of slavery than I was prior to doing my research. It also gave me a better understanding of why many minorities have a strong hate for the criminal justice system but more specifically police officers. I also learned where much of the ill conduct in police departments stems from. In the video Dr. Leary says “We often look at contemporary problems as if they just showed up…”. She refers to how some police officers label minorities as animals and how they are brainwashed and condition to believe African American males are their biggest enemy. This is a prejudice that has been in existence since slavery. Slaves were not considered human and males specifically were made to feel inadequate just as they are today by the criminal justice system. Many of the practices in present-day police culture are derived from slave masters and the law makers they collaborated with to develop laws such as the Slave Codes, Black Codes, and Vagrancy laws. The same though processes and mental illnesses that were present in these Slavery enforcers exist within present-day police officers who feel the need to behave barbarically. Dr. Leary says some officers are sociopaths. However, I believe ill behaved officers may suffer from another anti-social personality disorder, psychopathy. Psychopathy is defined as a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with strongly amoral conduct, masked by an ability to appear outwardly normal. Psychopaths do not feel guilty about any harm they may cause and often blame someone or something else for their behavior. Hence slave masters putting the blame on god for creating Africans for the sole purpose of doing manual labor. Psychopaths also lack the ability to recognize and adopt social norms, which may be an explanation as to why police brutality is such an immense issue.
My reason for believing ill behaved officers are probably psychopathic rather that sociapathic is because it is believed psychopaths biologically inherit this disorder where as sociopaths are influenced by their environment. Police officers who behave irrationally are found all over the country so even though it is possible that their behavior is caused by their environment it makes more sense to say that this disorder was genetically passed down from the previous generations who enforced slavery.
Dr. Leary also talks about misogyny. This 5% of police officers in a study conducted were determined predators. Misogynists have a strong dislike for women for one or several reasons and they see becoming a police officer as a way to take out their anger. This dislike for women may stem from the way their mother treated them or their lack of a maternal figure all together. It is also possible for a misogynist to have had a bad intimate relationship with a woman or he may have been sexually abused as a child by a woman. Whatever the reason, a misogynist is driven by the idea of having power over someone they view as inferior and because they have the law behind them they can almost always get away with doing what they want.
Overall I believe the desire to become a police officer comes from the want to have some sort of power. Many want to have control over crime and help their community and others many want to have control over people no matter how they achieve it.
Jn 8831
This video is very interesting. Shows many different scenarios. In which I find to be very educational.
smh.. this video is no longer available... I wanted to use it on FB
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