Understanding a Nation: Police Brutality and Ways to Stop It. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Police brutality has become a growing problem. With shootings of unarmed citizens and protests, police brutality has become one of the most discussed issues in the United States. Police brutality is a term used to refer to undue violence by members of the police force, violence often directed against minorities. With the growing awareness towards police brutality, there has also been an increase in questions relating to the issue. Is police brutality really a problem? Are there solutions? The answer to both questions is yes, although some may disagree with the methods. Now, this argument is not intended as an attack on the police. I think the police force and I have a common goal, which is the well-being of the community for which they are responsible (in this case the Ferguson community). But there's no denying that police brutality happens. Police brutality is an important issue to discuss because it continues to this day in various cities. And it still affects minorities across the United States. Not to mention, this is not a new problem at all; police brutality is something people have protested about since the civil rights movement. However, there are various solutions that will help prevent, reduce, and ultimately eliminate police brutality if police implement them. Police brutality is not a worldwide problem. But it's something that's very common here in the United States. Compared to the rest of the world, the United States appears to have a much higher number of police shootings. This means that the issue is perhaps not limited to this country, but is certainly broader here. The article “American police shoot and kill many more people than their peers in other countries” shows statistics to support this. According to FBI data, police deaths last year amounted to approximately 458, which is an incredible figure compared to that of Japan and Great Britain (0 deaths) (Lopez, par.2). Of course there are other factors. The graph does not separate justified from unjustified deaths, and one could argue that this number parallels the crime rate in the United States. However, I think no police officer, no matter how good or bad, wants to take a life. As it stands, the police seem to be losing reliability every day. By at least trying to reduce this number, regardless of the circumstances, the police could begin to regain the trust they have begun to lose. This problem stems from our past history of racism. To be more precise, our current policing system has gradually begun to replace the groups that once hunted and harmed African Americans. Of course it is far-fetched, but there is no denying that the police force has become a force for the control of black bodies, as stated by David G. Embrick in the magazine article “Two Nations, Revisited: The Lynching of Black and Brown Bodies , Police Brutality and Racial Control in “Post-Racial” Amerikkka. Most minorities agree that the justice system does not favor them. This is also something Embrick mentions, when he gives the example of a survey in which minorities were asked whether or not the justice system favored whites over blacks. 69% of minorities surveyed said they believe the criminal justice system favors whites over blacks(Embrick, para. 8). Even if this is just an opinion and not a fact, 69% is a pretty high figure. This type of mentality isn't just spread about unfounded facts and myths. If this mentality were to spread, trust in the police would be lost. This would lead to things like resistance, which would in turn cause the police to use force more often and amplify the problem. The police should work to try to change this growing mentality, so that they gain more trust and are less labeled as discriminatory. Police brutality was born out of our long history of inequality. There are some people who say police brutality is not a problem. Or at least, not big. One of these people would be Andrew Sullivan, author of an article titled "Kaepernick's message is getting lost - along with the facts about race and police violence" in which he talks about how people place a high importance on police brutality, when the facts show that it is not a common occurrence. Sullivan primarily analyzes a graphic from the Washington Post showing statistics on police shootings. Sullivan claims that in reality only about 0.5% of blacks are actually abused by the police, and that blacks are only about 0.3% more likely to be stopped by the police than whites (Sullivan, par . 9). Sullivan closes the article by saying that we should respect the spirit of the protesters, but that we should not “let emotions overwhelm reality” (Sullivan, para. 12). Sullivan is right that we shouldn't let our emotions overwhelm the facts. But he seems to have misunderstood the question. Sullivan seems to think that all these movements and protests are mainly due to the fact that people think that the police are massacring black people in the streets. And although some people might think so, most of those who protest and support these movements know that this is not really the case. Most people protest because the few killed were killed brutally and the officers responsible usually do not go to prison. They are protesting for someone like Timothy Russell, who was shot 137 times by 13 police officers while unarmed (Embrick, para. 10). They are not protesting because of the numbers, but because of the brutality of each case. We shouldn't let emotions overwhelm the data, but we shouldn't let the data stop us from looking at the story behind each case. Many people say that police brutality is no big deal, the fact that it only happens in some cities and happens rarely. This is to some extent true. However, it is also not fair to dismiss the issue simply because it occurs “in certain cities.” The truth is that the families of these people are suffering and will continue to suffer for a long time. There are examples of these stories in the book They Can't Kill Us All by Wesley Lowery. There are several accounts and individual stories that offer insight into the feelings of people related to the victims. A great example is when the mother of Michael Brown, a man killed by a police officer, steps up to the microphone and says “For some it has become a cliché, for us these are our children” (Lowery 35). Just a simple quote like this conveys the feelings of most black communities in the United States. Another example of how people have been affected by police brutality, this time regarding protests, would be when Lowery interviews a protester who says one of the main reasons for protesting is because we live in a society that devalues ​​black life (Lowery 180 ). listening to these stories is important, because they come from those who usually have no voice. These are not the.