So the semester is coming to an end and the last project to complete is a presentation over the topic we've been studying the entire semester. I will be using this picture as a visual aid in a powerpoint for my presentation over police brutality. The picture is a great representation of police using force over their victim. The officer is holding/ reading a book titled "Legal Use of Force" which presents that officers are allowed to use force when detaining a suspects, but the amount of force is what becomes controversial. This topic is hot on the news right now with policeman using excessive, brutal force to take suspects in. It obviously is a negative problem that needs to be solved, but my presentation goes beyond that and discusses why police may use excessive force and possible solutions.

Solutions

For my proposal paper I need to come up with three solutions to the issue of police brutality. First and foremost I think the most important way to fix this problem would be to incorporate psychologists and psychiatrists into every lay enforcement facility. This would help preform psychological tests on prospective police officers to prevent unstable officers joining the force. Also while on the job the officers become very stressed out, and having these psychologists on hand gives for a great way for the officers to vent about their stressors and this will help their excessive, brutal outbursts. By having psychologists become part of the hiring process, they might weed out too many prospective employees, however. Second, proper training will be very important in the prevention of police brutality. When the officers are completely and thoroughly trained the possibility of a brutal attack lessens dramatically. This could become problematic for the training might be too vigorous and thorough for every officer to pass therefore denying their acceptance into the academy. My last proposal would to just simply monitor theses acts more closely and also to take them more seriously. This could change the percentage of these corrupt police drastically by just making a conscious effort to punish the policemen who take part in them. When seen on the police tape it will be pertinent to punish the officer instead of just brushing it under the carpet. People might see this as not being helpful because there isn't much of an effort of this going on currently so why would it change now. I believe if these steps are taken to make a difference in the policing system then the incidents of police brutality will decrease significantly.

Three articles

So I have found my three articles for my annotated bibliography requirement. The ones I found are great sources for my topic. They all discuss police brutality and they are from different points of view which will help me make a stronger argument. From my research I learned that not many police officers actually commit these brutal attacks, but since they can be so drastic they always make the news and enter the concerns of the pubic. In fact, an officer will come in contact with a situation where they could use excess force at least once in their line of duty, and many of them with refrain from using brutal actions. This was surprising to me. I learned that the four main types of force used by officers are chemical agents, batons, dog attacks, and vehicle ramming. Out of all of these, chemical agents cause the most wounds but are the most effective. Even though this information is pertinent to my topic, I will still need to find more works that discuss why an officer would use aggressive force.I will most likely find this information in more scholarly journal article. This will be my focus for the next couple of weeks.

The Search for Sources.

On my topic of police brutality and when and why some policemen are guilty of using excessive force,the search for articles supporting my ideas was more difficult than I thought. Not many articles focus on why policeman act in an overly violent way, so I will definitely have to go into a deeper search for my topic. However, I am in a forensic psychology class this semester and one of the chapters we already focused on involves police psychology. There is a really good section about why policemen may act the way they do so I will definitely be able to use that book. So while on my search for the other two articles I need for my Annotated Bibliography I took a different route and got an opposite article on why policemen do not use excessive force. The other article was harder to come by. I just used the key words "police brutality" but not a lot of articles were relevant to what I am studying so I had to take different perspectives. I'm nervous that I will not be able to find any more articles on my topic because if I narrow my search to the precise topic I want, there are only about 20 articles. I think we have to use 8 for the whole semester. So, hopefully I will be able to find enough sources for all of my assignments.

Police Brutality

So if you've read my first post,  I was in the midst of choosing a theme to write about for my English paper this semester. I did end up choosing police brutality as my theme because it is interesting to study. Also, because I am majoring in psychology I will be taking the psychological aspect to this and study why policemen may exert brutal physical harm to their criminals. Some questions to start my research:
How much stress is the average police officer able to endure?
What other stressors impact the officer other than the obvious work related stress?
How could an officer cope to these stressors instead of expressing them though their job?
Why do they actually feel as though it is okay to exert this over the top brutality?
Police brutality is very important and has been a hot topic on the news lately. Many teenagers and young adults find this wrong and believe it is happening more often now-a-days then before. The case of brutality strikes us humans as morally wrong (well. . . because it is), but most people just see the actual violence. Not many understand why this happens, and I find it important to educate people of the terrible wrongdoings and also help them understand how and why it happens.
Police brutality is clearly a disturbing part of enforcement, but what exactly brings a police officer to exert this kind of violence and how could we possibly tone down this brutality?

Myself

Hi, my name is Amber Danielle Scull. I am currently a sophomore student enrolled at West Texas A&M. This is actually my first year at WTAMU. I went to the University of Florida for my first year of college and it was absolutely amazing. It was great to be a Gator (I still consider myself one). Certain reasons brought me back home, though, and things are going well for me here too. My major is in psychology as of right now, and I plan on double majoring in criminal justice. However, I just recently became incredibly interested in forensic pathology, which is basically a medical examiner who examines dead bodies of those who died suddenly, unpredictably, or violently and determine the cause of death. I was born in Hampton, Virginia on a naval base as a result of my parents meeting in the Navy. We shortly moved to Amarillo, Texas where I have spent the rest of my life. I was raised by the most perfect dad who introduced me to many of the things I like and shaped me into the person I am today.  I enjoy music, food, reading and watch television series. Some current ones I'm in to at the moment are Chuck, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story. I'm also currently in to the television show Cops. This brings me into a topic that spikes my interest: cops mistreating suspects for no reason or overstepping boundaries to control a suspect. This might become a focus point for all of my English papers for this semester.