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Police Brutality in Us

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BUSI1001 Business Law
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Police Brutality in US – Abuse of Power

1. Introduction
1.1 Background
Police are always said to be a law enforcement officer. They are legally allowed to use legitimate force when necessary to make an arrest, keep the peace and maintain order. However, when the force is used excessively or beyond which is necessary, police brutality occurs. Brutality can be in a number of ways, mostly likely will be physical; pain holds, batons, pepper spray, tasters and guns. In US, police brutality has always been a serious problem which those police officers usually rationalize their behavior by claiming that they maintaining the social order. Let me refer to one of the cases in US.
In January 1997, Kurt DeSilva, 34, was shot and killed by a Pawtucket, Rhode Island police officer after a low-speed car chase. DeSilva, who was unarmed, was suspected of driving a stolen car.()
In this case, shooting is obviously an excessive force used to stop a low-speed driving suspect.
In fact, there are lots of such cases in US. From January 2010 to December 2010, there were 4,861 unique reports of police misconduct recorded which involved 6,613 sworn law enforcement officers and 6,826 alleged victims. () In those 6,613 officers involved, 23,8% of them were involved in excessive force reports, which is the most prominent type among the misconducts.()
This paper aims to discuss the inadequacy of the current law in US to prohibit police brutality and give suggestions to improve this situation. 2. Current Law
According to the United State Code (Title 38, Chapter 9, 901), the secretary of the Department of Justice will ‘prescribe regulations to provide for the maintenance of law and order and the protection of persons and property.’ ‘Regulation’ means the ‘rules of conduct’ of the officers. Therefore, different states are having their own guides

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