police brutality
In the past decade, many police departments have adopted a new theory that says serious crime can be reduced by controlling minor disorders and fixing up obvious signs of decay or litter. The theory is called broken windows, after a 1982 Atlantic Monthly magazine article by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. The article argued that when low-level quality-of-life offenses were tolerated in a community, more serious crime would follow. According to this view, broken windows, abandoned buildings, public drinking, litter and loitering cause good people to stay in their houses or move out of the neighborhood entirely, leave criminals free to roam and send a message that law violations are not taken seriously. The theory's biggest test has been in New York City, where a dramatic decline in crime has been attributed in large part to "order maintenance." Rundown parts of the city have been cleaned up, and police focus more on such problems as panhandling, turnstile jumping, and public drinking. Police have even cracked down on people who clean the windshields of cars at stoplights with squeegees (Parenti 77). Among the first and hardest hit were the homeless, who travel, beg, and live in the political and physical basement of the class s
Between June 1996 and June 1997, the city settled 503 police misconduct cases, taking only twenty-four to court, where it won sixteen. Yet, as far as reforms are concerned, settlements provide little public information about incidents of police misconduct and there are few repercussions for an officer who is the subject of such a lawsuit, for which the city pays (Human Rights Watch, 2). On July 4, 1996, Nathaniel Levi Gaines, Jr., was shot in the back and killed by Officer Colecchia on a Bronx subway platform after Gaines had been frisked and Colecchia knew he carried no weapons. The victim was black; the officer was white. Colecchia had a history of complaints - three for excessive force in 1994; all had been found unsubstantiated, though he was found to have given false statements to superiors investigating the complaints (Human Rights Watch 2). In the early morning hours of August 9, 1997, police officers arrested Abner Louima, a legal Haitian immigrant, outside a Brooklyn nightclub following altercations between police and club goers. During the trip to the station house, officers allegedly stopped twice to beat Louima, who was handcuffed. At the 70th Precinct station house, two officers, Justin Volpe and Charles Schwarz, allegedly shouted racial slurs and Volpe allegedly shoved a wooden stick (believed to be the handle of a toilet plunger or broom) into Louima's rectum and mouth. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the fourteen officers who were either arrested, suspended, transferred or placed on desk duty in the week following the alleged torture of Louima had been accused, among them, of eleven prior unsubstantiated excessive force complaints and of another five misconduct complaints that had been ruled inconclusive or resolved through conciliation (Human Rights Watch 1). On December 22, 1994, Anthony Baez, age twenty-nine, was playing football with family members at the Baez home in the Bronx. When the ball hit a parked police car more than once, one of the officers in the car, Francis X. Livoti, reportedly became angry and arrested Anthony's brother, David Baez, for disorderly conduct. When Anthony Baez told Livoti to calm down (Livoti later claimed Anthony pushed him), Livoti allegedly used a chokehold, resulting in Baez's death. Livoti reportedly had been the subject of at least eleven brutality complaints over an eleven-year period. He had been in the force's monitoring program because of these complaints, but then was removed from the program. A PBA lawyer said of Livoti, he is "what you want more of in the Police Department: an honest, dedicated, decent young man" (Human Rights Watch 2). The shooting of William Whitfield on December 25, 1997 by Officer Michael J. Davitt uncovered the disturbing fact that an officers' records on shooting incidents had not previously been trac
Some common words found in the essay are:
Rights Watch, York City, Law Department, Cornell Law, Officer Davitt, Anthony Baez, Amnesty International, Court's Terry, George Kelling, Liberties Union, human rights, rights watch, human rights watch, amnesty international, york city, police misconduct, broken windows, police brutality, serious crime, 24 feb 2001, police department, feb 2001, rights watch 2, watch shielded justice, rights watch shielded,
Approximate Word count = 1905
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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