Citizens And Law Enforcement Research Paper
Citizens and Law Enforcement:
Communication and Perceptions of their Relationship
Mariah Cadwallader
Beloit College
Abstract
This project will look into the communication between citizens, and citizens and their authorities. The authorities that I will mostly focus on will be police officers, anyone who is executing the law over citizens on a daily basis, and determine whether their actions are necessary or in need of revision. The video ‘bike lanes’ was where I started off, an example of a citizen expressing his indifference towards a policy and those who are enforcing it. The citizens opinion was not recognized by the police, therefore he showed examples of how the ‘law’ was extremely contradictory to follow. Another example I …show more content…
But, often as citizens we see our authorities being shed in a negative light through the media. If the media wasn’t so vital to our society, would we be aware of the injustices that occur on a usual basis? Look up “police” on Google and you will find multiple examples of the ways in which we perceive the police to be abusing their power. There are the miniscule examples where only a right or two are infringed upon, but then there are the large-scale situations where the rights of many are being violated. For example, there is a short video called “bike lanes” on YouTube. A citizen receives a ticket for not riding his bicycle in the bike lane and he communicates his anger with the police. The police didn’t empathize with how inconvenient it may be to ride in the bike lanes and gave the man the ticket anyways. The man interpreted this situation through media, so it brought the public’s attention to the situation, but did it change any policies of the New York City police department? Of course, this occurrence in particular is small one the scale of what has happened throughout our history. Police brutality is a common occurrence during protests that are intended to be peaceful. In 2011 during an Occupy movement protest at UC Davis campus, the University police had asked the protesters to leave, but they refused to which led to a police officer pepper spraying the students. (Taibbi, 2011) This event had gained a large amount of attention by the media, people who were there posted videos of the occurrence, and it even had become an Internet meme. Of course, this was only one incidence. Police brutality was often used during the Occupy Movement, although we have the right to protest, if we are ‘trespassing’ officers take whatever action they may find
Communication and Perceptions of their Relationship
Mariah Cadwallader
Beloit College
Abstract
This project will look into the communication between citizens, and citizens and their authorities. The authorities that I will mostly focus on will be police officers, anyone who is executing the law over citizens on a daily basis, and determine whether their actions are necessary or in need of revision. The video ‘bike lanes’ was where I started off, an example of a citizen expressing his indifference towards a policy and those who are enforcing it. The citizens opinion was not recognized by the police, therefore he showed examples of how the ‘law’ was extremely contradictory to follow. Another example I …show more content…
But, often as citizens we see our authorities being shed in a negative light through the media. If the media wasn’t so vital to our society, would we be aware of the injustices that occur on a usual basis? Look up “police” on Google and you will find multiple examples of the ways in which we perceive the police to be abusing their power. There are the miniscule examples where only a right or two are infringed upon, but then there are the large-scale situations where the rights of many are being violated. For example, there is a short video called “bike lanes” on YouTube. A citizen receives a ticket for not riding his bicycle in the bike lane and he communicates his anger with the police. The police didn’t empathize with how inconvenient it may be to ride in the bike lanes and gave the man the ticket anyways. The man interpreted this situation through media, so it brought the public’s attention to the situation, but did it change any policies of the New York City police department? Of course, this occurrence in particular is small one the scale of what has happened throughout our history. Police brutality is a common occurrence during protests that are intended to be peaceful. In 2011 during an Occupy movement protest at UC Davis campus, the University police had asked the protesters to leave, but they refused to which led to a police officer pepper spraying the students. (Taibbi, 2011) This event had gained a large amount of attention by the media, people who were there posted videos of the occurrence, and it even had become an Internet meme. Of course, this was only one incidence. Police brutality was often used during the Occupy Movement, although we have the right to protest, if we are ‘trespassing’ officers take whatever action they may find