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Excessive Force Research Proposal

¶ … Excessive Force Since September of 2011, "federal prosecutors are targeting a rising number of law enforcement officers for alleged brutality" (Johnson, 2007). Statistics report that there have been increases in "cases in which police, prison guards and other law enforcement authorities have used excessive force or other tactics to violate victim's civil rights," estimates put it at approximately 25% (Johnson, 2007). Given the increase in excessive force by police, it inevitably leads to the question: why is this happening?

Excessive force is a concept that does not have a concrete definition; but there are some levels of force by cops that are thought to be excessive based on the circumstances that they are confronted with. "Excessive force," according to ABC news, is a "slippery metaphor" and "experts say it's any force beyond what's necessary to arrest a suspect and keep police and bystanders safe" (Segan, 2011). From 1994 to 1998, there have been 147,362 incidence of police related force according to a project manager for the National Police Use of Force Database Project (Segan, 2011). Though, the Human Right Watch group reports that there have been approximately 12,000 complaints a year of law enforcement abuse (Segan, 2011). As attention is being drawn to the excessive force incidents, society is being increasingly alarmed at the violations it poses to their civil rights.

Statement of problem

The issue that needs to be researched are the factors that are involved with the increased police brutality...

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With the increase in excessive force by police, it is important to explore the factors that surround why there has been an increase in police brutality and to potentially gain insight into what can be done to combat it and keep the excessive force incidents at bay. Excessive force in modern day society is not acceptable by law or by the basic human rights that our society has progressed too.
Limitations

In attempting to find out what factors and variables are contributing to the increase in excessive force, the desire to know everything about each encounter and the police officers and victims involved is seemingly impossible. There are great limitations when it comes to drawing out individual details of how and why a certain situation escalated to the level in which it did. There are a myriad of different factors that are in play at any given time, and to find out which each one is and the level of influence that they had over a given situation will be seemingly impossible. Furthermore, in evaluating past excessive force situations, there will be great limitations on what was recorded about personal situations of the victims and the law enforcement individuals that were involved in each incident.

Review of Literature

(Provide Literature), review that supports ideals

There…

Sources used in this document:
Bibliography

Johnson, K. (2007, December 18). Police brutality cases on rise 9/11. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-12-17-Copmisconduct_N.htm

Scrivner, E. (1994, January 9). Controlling police use of excessive force.. Retrieved from http://www.uplink.com.au/lawlibrary/Documents/Docs/Doc37.html

Segan, Sascha (2011, July 14). What is Excessive Force? ABC News. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/U.S./story?id=96509&page=1.
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