Gangs And Police Essay, Research Paper

Term Paper

Ensuring peace among citizens should be the top priority of any government. In the United States, especially in New York City, race relations have been a subject that has constantly been brought up, usually in a negative subject matter. What kinds of disputes, exactly, are causing these tense situations? The fact that the minorities feel that they can not trust the police officers, combined with the fact that many of the officers fear for their lives when on duty in a minority neighborhood both contribute to the constant feuding between New Your City’s citizens. Both the minority citizens and the police officers have certain ideas about the other that lead to their deep mistrust of each other.

First, the police constantly fear for their lives when dealing with situations in neighborhoods where the minorities outnumber the majority. This may cause the officers to be more likely to draw and fire their gun if they feel they have been placed in a life-threatening situation. What is the reason for this fear? Is it justified? Is there any possible way to correct this problem, or at least ensure that future generations will not succumb to the same misconceptions? These are all questions that must be answered before a conclusion is reached.

Similarly, the deep mistrust that minorities have for police officers is another problem that must be solved for the City to be able to achieve racial harmony. Like the questions raised before, this situation also raises some questions. Why don’t the citizens trust the police officers? Did one force the other, or is it a mutual mistrust and fear?

It may be impossible to determine what the one incident was that caused the police officers to fear for their lives, especially when in minority areas. The one way to solve the problem, however, is to ensure that future generations will not inherit the same animosities and fears from their forebears. How then can this be made possible? The majority of everyone’s preconceptions are firmed at a young age. Children are very impressionable, and will imitate most of the adult behaviors that they see around them. Currently, with all of the news stories and protests being broadcast that show blatant attacks on police officers, a child will no doubt pick up on the hate and spitefulness that is being thrown from the citizens to the police. There is no doubt this is teaching them to hate. Instead, schools should be teaching alternatives to these protests. If this happens, children will grow up having no need to mistrust police officers.

According to contemporary philosophy, humans should play an active role in how their lives are shaped. The citizens of New York City should take an active, and peaceful, involvement, in the push for a solution to end the violence found on the streets. With the recent problems that have been happening between the police and minority groups, many people are complaining, but nobody has been offering any reasonable solutions to the problems. Violence, rioting, and boycotting are not reasonable solutions. This will not get policy changed. If people really want things done, they must first propose new rules and laws—what they want to see happen. This way, things can get done in a peaceful, organized manner with no more lives lost.