Dirty Harry And Police Brutality Term paper
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In class we defined force as use of power, energy and strength, and we said that it was an occupational requirement for police. We defined violence as the rapid intensive use of force and it could be good, legal and legitimate in some circumstances for police officers. We defined brutality as illegal, illegitimate, inappropriate or excessive use of force, and that brutality could be physical or psychological.
In terms of policing a definition of brutality must include use of physical force. In class we stated that brutality involved inappropriate or excessive use of force. More exactly we stated that force involved the use of power, energy and strength all of which are physical elements. In the brutality questionnaire that we completed for class, incidents that I found most brutal involved some unreasonably harsh physical violence. One incident that demonstrates the most brutality is the following:
"A child was kid-napped and ransom was paid which effected the child's release. The child had been somewhat battered. The suspect is approached by the police but he does not surrender even after warning shots are fired into the air. He is finally shot and wounded in the stomach by one of the officers. He had a long criminal record but at his trial he was found not guilty when his defense proved that he could not have committed the crime, to the jury's satisfaction." (Brutality questionnaire)
This incident is highly brutal because it was not stated that the suspect had any weapon on his person, or that he was in any way a threat to the arresting police officer. I don't see any appropriate reason why the officer should have used that kind of force to subdue the suspect. The article stated that the suspect was approached by the officer, the suspect was not sneaking up on the officer. It looks to me like the officer felt he needed to avenge the injuries that the kid-napped child had received. The police officer was not justified in his actions toward the suspect, as he was not in any personal danger as far as the incident states. Therefore, he should not have shot the suspect and his actions were in fact brutal in terms of how we defined brutality in this class.
The movie Dirty Harry featured a police officer who relies on violence and brutality to get the bad guy. Some critics, at the time of the film's release and for some time afterward, said that Harry was "excessively violent," racist, and even cruel. I personally would define "excessively violent" as use of extreme force that is not necessary in order to accomplish a certain end given a particular situation. The use of violence becomes excessive when the victim or police officer is no longer in danger, and the officer continues to use force even after a suspect has been subdued. Dirty Harry was excessively violent by the standards for films at the time of its release. However I don't feel that the film is excessively violent by the standards of the film-making industry and audiences of today. Recently released films such as Saving Private Ryan and Fight Club were much more violent because of the use of physical force that they portrayed.
Harry provoked the wounded bank robber at the beginning of the film in a similar manner to how he provoked Scorpio to draw his gun at the end of the film. He uses the same line, after firing a few shots, he reminds the criminal that his gun only has the capacity to hold six shots. He asks the criminal if he has fired all six or only five shots as he holds his gun pointed at him. He tells the criminal that he should ask himself "do I feel lucky?"then Harry says "well do ya punk?" In the earlier incident Harry has in fact fired all six shots already before he pulls the trigger again and scares the bank robber. In the later incident with Scorpio, Harry goes through the same routine but this time he does in fact have another shot left and he shoots the serial killer.
Was Harry a racist? Siegal, the film's director was correct in his claim that Harry certainly was a racist. Early in the film, Harry gets a new partner who happens to be a Mexican-American. Chico asks how Harry feels about Mexicans, Harry says to another police officer "tell him." He tells Chico that Harry "doesn't play any favorites... he hates everybody." This is clear evidence that Harry is a racist.
Cruelty is "willfully causing pain or distress to others" according to Webster's Dictionary. I define cruelty as deliberately causing the pain or suffering of another person. Harry was a cruel person while...
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