The issue of race has always been fundamental to the topic of police violence. Perhaps the most prominent time period for racially spawned police violence was after the civil war when slaves were emancipated. The south was known for its strong racial biases, and the south's police were no exception. With the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, many blacks were being victimized, and the police did nothing to help. In fact, at least "one-half of the lynchings were carried out with police officers participating, and in nine-tenths of the others the officers either condoned or winked at the mob action" (Skolnick 24). This type of activity, although well over one hundred

Violence has and will continue to be a very important aspect of police work. The relationship between the two, no matter how ingrained, does have room for improvement. Society must proceed to look for the underlying causes of excessive force, and ways to combat them. This ongoing struggle to improve our police system is summed up by Thomas Repetto of The Blue Parade: "Police administration is not applied mechanics, but a living, breathing organism shaped by the political, social, and economic trends of time and place" (Skolnick 172).

Another explanation for the persisting violence is that Los Angeles police officers, like the group in the King incident, were only accountable to their chief. This usually resulted in little or no disciplinary action following a complaint. The chief was able to get away with this, because he was held accountable to no one. As Skolnick said, "just as an army led by generals who do not have to report to the president has no place in a democracy, this insular system -with its lack of accountability to a mayor... has no place in any American city" (Skolnick 22). This type of confined system allowed for a corrupt or unpopular police chief to do whatever he wanted, because he knew that the public had no way of reprimanding or removing him. This problem, however, is not as significant as it was a few years ago. After the King incident, the voters passed Amendment F which gave City Hall more power to remove the chief of police and it limited the chief's tenure to two five year terms.

Whether or not police violence originates from racial issues, a major problem with the use of force is defining how much is too much. Jerome H. Skolnick and James J. Fyfe define police brutality as "a conscious and venal act committed by officers who usually take great pains to conceal their misconduct" (Skolnick 19). They make a point to distinguish this brutality from the use of unnecessary force in which there is no intent to exert more force than what is necessary. One way to define what is acceptable and what is not, is to have complaints about officers reviewed by boards made up of officers outside of the district where the

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1454
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)