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Verywell / Nusha Ashjaee
Most encounters with the police do not involve violence.
A U.S. Department of Justice Report measured contact between police and the public in 2018.
However, each of them can be considered from a psychological standpoint or psychological lens.
This helps us to understand how to fix the problem from a psychological view.
Individual-Level Factors
What are the individual-level factors that contribute to police brutality?
These can be understood as those that originate from the offending officer.
Some examples of individual-level factors are given below.
Mental Health Issues
The mental health of the offending officer may play a role.
These traits can make it more likely that they will overreact and use deadly force when not necessary.
That said, research on this theory is limited.
It is unlikely that APD, which is very rare, could explain most police brutality cases.
Organizational-Level Factors
What are the organizational-level factors that contribute to police brutality?
These can include policies of the police department or the general working environment.
TheWashington Post’spolice shootings databaseshows that police shoot and kill roughly 1,000 people a year in the United States.
Due to qualified immunity, it can be difficult to prosecute officers for misconduct.
Below are some of the more well-known cases and issues surrounding them.
The five cops who stopped him, who were also Black, brutally beat him for about three minutes.
As a result of his injuries, he died three days later.
The charges brought against the officers included second-degree murder and kidnapping.
The raid began shortly after midnight.
In return, the officers fired 32 shots, leaving Breonna Taylor dead and Walker physically unharmed.
The incident led to subsequent protests throughout the United States.
Bystanders who tried to intervene were prevented from doing so by other officers.
The entire incident became public when video footage shot by onlookers was released to the public.
While these incidents occurred in 2020, police brutality has been a problem for decades.
Local Starbucks employees had called the police for a wellness check after seeing Hamilton sleeping on a park bench.
Hamilton woke up and began to struggle.
His death sparked protests and “I can’t breathe” as a slogan for protest.
The officers involved were not charged.
These are only some examples of how excessive use of force can lead to death.
Why does racism turn into excessive use of force or violence among police officers?
There are several factors to consider.
The overall lifetime odds were shown to be 1 in 2,000 for men and 1 in 33,000 for women.
How to Reduce Police Brutality
How can we work to reduce police brutality?
In 2014, President Barack Obama signed an order to appoint a task force on 21st century policing.
Rather, this approach takes the stance that all officers need training.
However, there have been very few studies on the effectiveness of implicit bias training for police.
Only one 2020 study has looked at impacts on real-world behavior.
In other words, implicit bias training alone was not enough to change behavior.
In that case, this sends the message to the rest of the department that the behavior is acceptable.
Which personality factors are most likely to correlate with excessive use of force?
Which mental disorders show the highest correlation with deadly use of force?
What forms of training help most to reduce implicit bias and improve the situation?
Defunding Police Departments
What about defunding police departments?
This is a tactic that has been brought up as a solution to police brutality.
Acts of police brutality are traumatizing, and you deserve care, understanding, and support.
U.S. Department of Justice.Contacts Between Police and the Public, 2018.
American Bar Association.Qualified immunity.
NPR.What we know about the killing of Tyre Nichols.
The New York Times.A timeline of Nichols’s Lethal Police Encounter.
D’Amore R.Breonna Taylor: What we know about her death, the investigation and protests.Global News.
BBC News.George Floyd: What happened in the final moments of his life.
CBS News.Former Milwaukee officer not charged in fatal shooting of mentally ill man.
CBS News.Family sues over fatal shooting at Ohio Wal-Mart.
Center for Police Research and Policy.The Impacts of Implicit Bias Awareness Training in the NYPD.
2018;59(4):466-485. doi:10.1177/0022146518814251
Johnson DK.Confirmation Bias and Police Brutality.Psychology Today.
Sherman RA.The Problem of Police Brutality.Psychology Today.
Turner E.How can psychology advance police-community relations?
Using psychological science and advocacy to contribute to solutions.American Psychological Association.
