How Police Brutality Erodes Public Trust and Perpetuates Racial Discrimination

Literature Review on Police Brutality Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Instructors’ Name Course Number Date Introduction Police brutality is an unprecedented truth in American democracy, and it is horrifying, yet it has not received sufficient attention for many decades. The government and its institutions are less concerned with police integrity and misconduct derailing public trust and confidence in policing. The various forms of police brutality include battery, murder, abuse, harassment, mayhem, intimidation, and torture. Statistics show that Americans of all ethnicities, ages, gender and class have been subjected to police brutality (Schwartz, 2020). However, disproportion arises with African Americans who face the adversity of police brutality compared to white Americans. The American police swear to protect its people, but what is evident is a gross misuse of authority intermixed with racial brutality. America's racist police are the biggest problem in the country. George Floyd is among thousands of police killings silently eating the minority. Black men have a 2.5-fold greater lifetime risk of police homicide than white men (2020). This evidence shows police brutality as a tool for discrimination. Unfortunately, there is no definite accountability for police, escalating police brutality as a big problem. Police do anything with their autonomy and escape convictions. Gender is also a determinant factor of police brutality, with LGBTQ, black, and Latino men more susceptible to police brutality. The history of brutal policing dates back to the great migration of African Americans from Southern rural areas to North and West urban areas (Hinton et al., 2021). The white police were unaccustomed to the presence of African Americans in their jurisdictions and tried to resist them by tainting stereotypes. Segregation began in the interest of white safety, and the aftermath was brutal police misuse of African Americans. There is sufficient evidence from studies to suggest that police brutality has strong historical roots in the United States. Growing racial unrest in the 1960s may be traced back to police brutality (Bentley et al., 2018). Protests of police brutality have graced America in the past decades. This discussion will focus on the works of other scholars on (1)reducing police brutality, enhancing police accountability, and reviving the police departments. (2) It also reviews literature on the need for reformation in police departments using viable reforms. (3) It will also reviews literature on the hidden horrific culture of police that is detrimental to Americans. This paper is a literature review and it will coherently focus on police brutality, its adversity, its effect on American society, and the racist police. Literature Review Alang, McAlpine, and Hardeman (2020) conducted a literature review on the relationship between police violence and distrust in healthcare facilities. Their focus was on the relationship between the two (Alang et al., 2020). According to the authors' argument, communities of color have developed a widespread mistrust of institutions in general, and particularly healthcare organizations, as a result of police brutality or systemic racism. This mistrust has enormous repercussions for the physical and mental well-being of the communities in question. The writers start by explaining the historical origins of police brutality, including institutional racial prejudice in the United States, and stressing how these problems have harmed communities of color (Alang et al., 2020)They then go on to discuss how similar concerns have affected other countries. They emphasize that while the Black Lives Matter movement