Policing is a tool for state-sanctioned violence

The systemic racism in the United states of America has allowed the police to become the executors of state-sanctioned violence against African American members of the population. A study from the University of Chicago found that “ too much deadly discretion is given to police officers in the US” as they looked intently at the “ lethal use-of-force policies of police in the 20 largest US cities” and found that “not a single police department was operating under guidelines that are compliant with the minimum standards laid out under international human rights laws” ^[1]. For years the police have been given too much freedom to conduct themselves and therefore violent behavior has been allowed to thrive and stay hidden under the guise of law enforcement. By not taking action to see that police are to be carrying out justice and not racially motivated violence, the government is complicit in sanctioning this brutality. The recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Tayler are all examples of victims of state-sanctioned violence. As the systemic inequalities in the government grow more clear, it becomes more apparent that police reform is the only solution to end this reign of discriminatory violence in policing ^[2].