Introduction
Culture remains myriad and vital to the events within the criminal courts, hence a need to evaluate its influence on police brutality and arrests effectively. Each institution has its unique culture that influences individual thoughts and behavior. Police culture also needs to be understood by identifying what influences them to take certain actions in their line of duty. Human beings are influenced by family, religion, status, and interactions, which is not different in the police system. Culture which is the way of doing things based on norms, beliefs, attitudes, and values differs from one group to another (Ivković & Haberfeld, 2019). The police culture in this case refers to the way they do things and make a norm within their social groups including constant suspiciousness and this plays a role in shaping how they interact, think, and interact with citizens in the process of interacting.
Police organizations keep evolving as they deal with daily challenges in their duties hence have to adjust to keep up with the daily occurrences in their work. In this case, the police have been granted the privilege to control citizens’ behavior and ensure public order, and this defines the organizational culture. When they use this privilege with excessive force, this is termed police brutality, although it has been perceived differently by various cultures (Anthony, 2018). There are citizens’ complaints regarding this issue, and to some extent, it has been perceived to be culturally based. Thus, citizens believe that police brutality and decisions to arrest are shaped by culture and need to be addressed appropriately by the government to bring police brutality on some social groups to an end in the future.
General Research Question
To what degree does culture play a role in influencing the policy decision-making on arrests and brutality on some social groups, especially the non-white race? Asking the police how they perceive people of different cultures and ethnicities if these two factors affect their interactions can be a nice way of testing the research question. It can also be tested by asking citizens if they have been treated differently in the past by the police because of their ethnicity as well as their culture.
Purpose Statement
This paper aims to identify cultural influences on police decision-making as they serve the citizens in public spaces. There has been a continuous deterioration in trust and respect between the police and some social groups, and this has impacted their relationships. Various areas at police organizational levels are influenced by culture, which affects performance and behavior (Molla et al., 2017). This led to a lack of good relationships between the police and some social groups, as evident in the increasing violent confrontation between the two parties. There has been a loss of trust in the law enforcement body due to this bad relationship between police officers and citizens. One of the major issues that citizens want is for the law justice system to address the adverse aspects including suspicion and inequalities when dealing with minorities, and a lack of accountability (Khan et al., 2020). These negative aspects can be addressed effectively only if culture is understood, including how they are acquired and perpetuated. Through this, the criminal justice system can change police training and develop acceptable institutional reforms.
The purpose of this is to find out why police are negatively perceived, especially by minority communities, and why there are adversarial encounters between the two parties. The decision by police officers during encounters with public members can profoundly affect the citizens and the law enforcement bodies relationship, especially if they are culturally influenced. (Shao, 2019). The police officer’s decision-making seems to be influenced by culture as they tend to view the members of these communities with suspicion and perceive that they are more dangerous than other communities. At the end of this research, the findings can contribute to enhancing police-community relations. The readers of this article should understand that the attitude of the citizens towards the police is majorly influenced by how the police treat them in general, especially African Americans. There is a need to create good relations between officers and the communities they serve to avoid future adverse impacts.
Hypothesis
The dependent variables in this study are the number of cases reported on police brutality, including the homicides committed by the officers and police density. The independent variables include culture, the percentage of African Americans impacted, and racial composition reported by ethnic minorities (Graham et al., 2020). These variables are vital in examining how cultural differences influence police decision-making to arrest and use excessive force when dealing with minorities compared to the majority. Police presence in a given area compared to another is an intrinsic form of social control. This can be analyzed using the dummy variable, commonly used by police homicide counts, to ensure an adequate interpretation.
It is vital to have a viable hypothesis that would help test the causal relationship between the variables for a compelling finding (Graham et al., 2020). The hypothesis that will guide this research paper can effectively be formulated in relation to the research question. The hypothesis tested in this research paper includes, “If most African-Americans have been treated differently by the police then they are more likely to perceive police brutality as a serious issue that needs to be addressed by the police organization compared to the whites.”
Conclusion
The other hypothesis is that “increasing in-service training programs for the police on brutality, having well-defined and written policies in the use of weapons and force when on duty will make the police be fair hence making African Americans feel respected hence change their attitudes towards the police.” Additionally, “if the police are more informed and treat all citizens in the USA equally then African Americans could perceive them differently hence the tension between them be reduced.” These hypotheses need to be tested to ensure an effective finding on the influence of culture on police decision-making to arrest and use excessive force when confronting some social groups, including minorities, compared to the majorities.
References
Anthony, L. (2018). Police culture and decision making. Theoretical framework, 1(2), 35-70
Graham, A., Haner, M., Sloan, M. M., Cullen, F. T., Kulig, T. C., & Jonson, C. L. (2020). Race and worrying about police brutality: The hidden injuries of minority status in America. Victims & offenders, 15(5), 549-573.
Ivković, S. K., & Haberfeld, M. R. (Eds.). (2019). Exploring police integrity: Novel approaches to police integrity theory and methodology. Springer Nature.
Khan, M. A., Ismail, F. B., Hussain, A., & Alghazali, B. (2020). The interplay of leadership styles, innovative work behavior, organizational culture, and organizational citizenship behavior. Sage open, 10(1), 21-40.
Molla, M. S., Hasan, M. T., Miraz, M. H., Azim, M. T., & Hossain, M. K. (2021). The influence of directors’ diversity and corporate sustainability practices on firm performance: Evidence from Malaysia. The journal of Asian finance, economics and business, 8(6), 201-212.
Shao, Z. (2019). Interaction effect of strategic leadership behaviors and organizational culture on IS-Business strategic alignment and Enterprise Systems assimilation. International journal of information management, 44, 96-108.