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Broken Windows Theory

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Even prior to the killing of unarmed Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, there were three documented killings of black males by law enforcement officers in 2014 . Most noteworthy of the three were Eric Garner, who was put in an illegal chokehold by a white police officer for fifteen seconds, resulting in his death. Officer Daniel Pantaleo was never charged1.
After the killing of Michael Brown, another twelve cases of unarmed black men shot and killed by law enforcement have caught the public’s attention. In the sixteen cases, six cases are still undergoing in-vestigation. Four officers have been charged for the killings, and three of the officers were charged with involuntary manslaughter. In five of the sixteen cases, no …show more content…
This tendency does not only count for the criminal minority community mem-bers. In a survey published by BBC News, 60% of the black population believes that the police reaction have gone too far. 76% of the black populations have little to no confidence in a fair investigation of a police-involved killing . What is breeding this tendency of distrust in the black community? Two of the primary arguments in my opinion are the policing in the United States and black community’s bad im-age to the outside world, and I will explain both of the arguments in this essay.
About the policing, the broken windows theory presented and promulgated by academic and political scientist James Q. Wilson was introduced in numerous police jurisdictions to control crime. The theory argues that cleaning up trash, fixing broken windows and quickly policing deviants and miscreants for small-scale crime would reduce …show more content…
The black community must work on cleaning up their own image and distance themselves from the gang promotions. The black community must also promote coopera-tion and positive interactions with law enforcement. The changes that need to be made in the black community cannot work alone. The aggressive policing must also be changed in a way, so that the av-erage citizen of color does not need to fear the police. The police departments must disband the routine stop and searches based on the color of the persons’ skin and encourage the police officers to engage in positive interactions with the general population instead of working towards an arrest in every

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