The Debate Over Police Violence - 1864 Words

For this paper I will be talking about the process of setting up the debate and the topic of the debate. This was a new concept for me and I found it to be very interesting. When I registered for this class I didn’t think we’d be doing such debate oriented things and I have to say it was a great learning experience. Thinking back on it, I probably should have joined the weed debate. I chose to go with police violence because I feel very strongly on the topic and have a strong appreciation for the police force and wanted to make sure the topic wasn’t presented with a bias. With the debate we had a lot of obstacles come about. We started off by choosing a topic that was probably a little too much of a hot topic and found it really hard to†¦show more content†¦Increased militarization of law enforcement officers fails to take into account both the purpose of law enforcement and the violent history of American policing, and is furthermore a perceived solutio n to a problem that is in fact reproduced by increased militarism. The presence of a highly militarized police force has an inciting effect on feelings of aggression, tending to escalate violence rather than deter it. Additionally, public feelings of insecurity and fear tend to increase with higher militarization, which may in turn lead to higher crime rates. Argument 1: Increased militarization of law enforcement officers fails to take into account both the purpose of law enforcement and the violent history of American policing. The purpose of a law enforcement agency is to protect and serve the people inside its jurisdiction. Increased militarization of police enforcement agencies often increases police perceptions of being at war with the people they have sworn to protect. American police, unlike police forces in many other industrialized countries including Norway, the UK (with the exception of Northern Ireland), and New Zealand, carry weapons as a matter of course. This is for two reasons: First, guns are protected rights for American citizens, not only law enforcement agents, and second, writes journalist Robert Koehler, because American police forces were founded on the basic understanding that they were keeping certain parts of the population down, rather