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Abstract

Communities, and their respective police departments, have significant impacts on the social and legal matters they are involved with, making it crucial for both parties to strive to maintain strong, collaborative relationships. Positive interactions between police and the public are therefore extremely vital and beneficial to all involved. Police officers should be held accountable for their transgressions and subject to transparency for their on-duty actions through legal records. Several issues lie in the policies and procedures which requires more attention in its analysis. Changing policies and procedure in the United States regarding police use of force to remedy inconsistencies calls for a national standard and educational rework. Similar conclusions have been reached by the DOJ and NIJ regarding the problems of policing. The problems urgently require reform in order to create sustainability through an updated, and better managed utilized database on police records during the hiring process. This paper will explore the lack of de-escalation methods used in situations where police unnecessarily used force to take control of situations, instead of reserving their use of force as a last resort. Excessive use of force issues that stem from a lack of police accountability will also be explored.

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