English 111
December 5, 2011
Police brutality Police brutality is one of the most serious and divisive human rights violations in the United States and it occurs in every community. The job of a police officer is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crime. They are engaged in a dangerous and stressful occupation that can involve violent situations that must be controlled. In many of these confrontations with the public it may become necessary for the police to administer force to take control of a situation. Sometimes this force takes the form of hand to hand combat with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all police officers in communities are good cops. At least once a year the news is covering a story about a person …show more content…

Furthermore, the number of children that end up living on the streets is sickening. “According to recent UN data, there are nearly 150 million street children in the world today, and the number is rising daily. That means nearly one of every 60 people living on the planet is a child living on the streets. Half of them die within the first four years of their street life (Evgenia,1).” For example, a child who ends up in the streets at age 8 has a 50% chance of dying before age 12. The facts are off the chart, violent teens are getting younger and younger. “Arrest rates for murder climbed 121 percent for 17-year-olds, 158 percent for 16-year-olds, and 217 percent for 15-year olds and even 12-year-olds were up 100 percent (Tucker, 3)”. Police hit these teenagers for easy crimes because the facts are there. Once these children are on the street with no family and no guidance, they join gangs and began robbing and even prostitution in order to survive. Unfortunately this is the reason for rising crime and police assume that violence and brutality is the only means of dealing with the problem. “ They are young, small, poor, ignorant of their rights, and often have no family or advocates who will come to their defense and its does not require much time or effort to detain and torture a child to coerce a confession, and street children are unlikely to register