Police Brutality Essay Example for Free

Police Brutality Essay Most of us have seen the videotape of police officers savagely beating Rodney King. But how typical was this behavior? The Rodney King incident is not representative of most police officers around the country. Television shows, newscasts, and written media exacerbate the problem when they do not focus on the criminal as the root of the problem. [C]urrent images of the police are drawn largely from television programs bearing little resemblance to reality (Delattre 29). Police brutality is a matter of serious concern, but it is not as prevalent as the media would have us believe. Police brutality is not a national crisis. Rodney King has become synonymous with police brutality. But what is police brutality? Bornstein states that [p]olice brutality is the use of excessive force by police officers (39). Most police are trained to use only the minimum amount of force necessary to control a given situation. The decision to use force is often made on a split second basis usually under difficult circumstances. The boundaries between justified and excessive force can sometimes be blurred under these circumstances. Under one set of circumstances, a particular action might be considered justified, but under differing circumstances, the same action might be considered brutality. Most cops do not like to hurt people; cops sometimes use unnecessary force. They also use extraordinary restraint (Sulc 80). Many police officers feel anguish after using fully justified force; few take pleasure in it. There are great strains on individual police officers: competing responsibilities, values, temptations, fears, and expectations. Police officers are called on to be patient mediators, skilled therapists, effective admonishers, daring crime fighters, obedient members of paramilitary agencies, etc. In the midst of these requirements is the violence inherent in police work. Police officers often witness women battered by husbands and boyfriends, children burned and broken by parents, pedestrians maimed by drunk drivers, teachers raped by students, and innocent strangers savaged by predators in  our streets. Even so, most police do not have a bunker mentality. They go on the force knowing what they will have to encounter. They like their jobs and are ready and able to stand the pressureusually. Some police adjust poorly to the pressures of police work. They become cynical from the danger, the perceived failure of the system, and the repetitiveness of their work. Some police officers despair over the violence, suffering, hopelessness, and ignorance they encounter every day. Even so, the majority of police officers continue the performance of their duties without resorting to brutality. In spite of the seriousness of the publicized incidents, far more serious than police brutalit y is the frequency of assault and murder perpetrated against the police. According to the U.S. Department of Justices Police Use of Force, 44.6 million people, or 21% of the population had face to face contact with police during 1996. Police contacts that resulted in the use of force or the threat of force totaled only five hundred thousand, or one percent of the total. Often times the use of force was preceded by some provocative action. Criminals often threaten the officer, assault the officer, argue or interfere with an arrest, posses a weapon, try to escape, elude, or resist arrest. After accounting for justified use of force, which is inherent in police work, less than one quarter of one percent of police contacts resulted in questionable use of force. This is hardly an epidemic. Given the small number of cases, a preliminary conclusion that could be drawn is that use of force is rare in police-citizen contacts and it is often accompaniedby some possibly provocative behavior (Police 14). On the flip side, if the media cares to report the flip side, 46,695 police officers were assaulted in 1996 (United States 65), resulting in 14,985 injuries and 55 deaths (United States 3). The statistics show that police officers are brutalized three thousand seven hundred and sixty times more frequently than criminals are. Americans are well served with professional dedication and with frequent instances of physical courage. The people who stand between violence and the public are the police. Sometimes criminals do not want to cooperate, but police are still expected to arrest them. Most police officers abhor  violence and despise fellow officers who use excessive force. Police brutality is not the epidemic we are led to believe it is. Let police do their job, if they violate the law, prosecute them as individuals without condemning every police officer in the country. Works Cited Borenstein, Jerry. Police Brutality. New Jersey: Enslow, 1993. Delattre, Edwin J. Character and Cops: Ethics in Policing. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute of Public Policy Research, 1989. Police Use of Force Bureau of Justice Statistics Website. 22 November 1998. Sulc, Lawrence. Police Brutality Is Not a Widespread Problem. Policing the Police. Ed. Paul A. Winters. San Diego: 1995. 79. United States. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation, Criminal Justice Information Services Division. Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted. Washington, DC: GPO, 1997

Aristotle Essay example -- Biographies Bio Biography

Aristotle was born in 384 BCE at Stagirus, a Greek colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace. His father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life. While he was still a boy his father died. At age 17 his guardian, Proxenus, sent him to Athens, the intellectual center of the world, to complete his education. He joined the Academy and studied under Plato, attending his lectures for a period of twenty years. In the later years of his association with Plato and the Academy he began to lecture on his own account, especially on the subject of rhetoric. At the death of Plato in 347, the pre-eminent ability of Aristotle would seem to have designated him to succeed to the leadership of the Academy. But his divergence from Plato's teaching was too great to make this possible, and Plato's nephew Speusippus was chosen instead. At the invitation of his friend Herm eas, ruler of Atarneus and Assos in Mysia, Aristotle left for his court. He stayed three year and, while there, married Pythias, the niece of the King. In later life he was married a second time to a woman named Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nichomachus. At the end of three years Hermeas was overtaken by the Persians, and Aristotle went to Mytilene. At the invitation of Philip of Macedonia he became the tutor of his 13 year old son Alexander (later world conqueror); he did this for the next five years. Both Philip and Alexander appear to have paid Aristotle high honor, and there were stories that Aristotle was supplied by the Macedonian court, not only with funds for teaching, but also with thousands of slaves to collect specimens for his studies in n... ...sofar as they are properties of all existence. Aristotle argues that there are a handful of universal truths. Against the followers of Heraclitus and Protagoras, Aristotle defends both the laws of contradiction, and that of excluded middle. He does this by showing that their denial is suicidal. Carried out to its logical consequences, the denial of these laws would lead to the sameness of all facts and all assertions. It would also result in an indifference in conduct. As the science of being as being, the leading question of Aristotle's metaphysics is, What is meant by the real or true substance? Plato tried to solve the same question by positing a universal and invariable element of knowledge and existence -- the forms -- as the only real permanent besides the changing phenomena of the senses. Aristotle attacks Plato's theory of the forms on three different grounds.

What is digital television?

Digital television offers a superior format by broadcasting sharper pictures and clearer sound. Also, digital television is versatile and can be used for a variety of purposes. Furthermore, with digital television, there is an efficient use of the spectrum for a variety of essential services such as police departments, emergency services, delivery companies, etc. This is because digital signals free up bandwidth and provide space. Jerome Adda and Marco Ottaviani write that, â€Å"Digital compression technology allows roughly six times as many channels to be broadcast with the same amount of spectrum used by one analogue channel.† (169)Digital television is a new advanced technology which is used to send and receive broadcast signals (both picture and sound). Digital television supports the following services: subscription TV programming, computer software distribution, data transmissions, teletext, interactive services and audio signals. Digital television is superior to analo g television because it is more accurate, versatile and compatible with other electronic media such as computers, satellites, mobile phones, etc. Digital television has certain technical specifications which set it apart.Joel Brinkley writes that these qualities of digital television have made it very popular and attractive. These are as follows: progressive scanning, square pixels, enhanced frame rates, added lines per frame, different aspect ratios, different aspect ratios, and clearer sound. Progressive scanning is a better technical format than interlaced scanning. The former allows for smooth sequence of video frames. With this, progressive scanning which is used in digital television allows for compatibility between digital television and computers.With square pixels, digital television has 1920 pixels per line and a total of 1080 lines per frame. This gives pictures on digital television a sharper resolution. With the enhanced frame rates digital television allows more frames per second. As a result motion portrayed on digital television is more realistic- the more frames per second, the more realistic motion will be. The aspect ratio for digital television is 16:9. This aspect ratio of digital television gives larger pictures and makes viewing more natural. Digital television produces clear sound because it uses five channels of discrete compact disc quality audio.Apart from the aforementioned, digital television presents a number of advantages which hitherto were unavailable with analog television. With digital television there is a wider choice of programs available for the audience to choose from. Digital television presents a large number of channels and this does not affect the quality of any the programs on the channels. Furthermore, on digital television, the audience is able to engage in other activities such as electronic shopping, betting, etc. Digital television is also a channel for reaching the audience with information services because th e medium is not restrictive.With digital television, the audience is able to browse the Internet. Also, digital television also provides telephone services and is compatible with computers and mobile phones. The technology of digital television is very compatible with many other digital devices. This ability makes it possible to achieve a high level of interactivity on digital television. Viewers are able to vote on digital television using remote controls, as well as achieve two way communication with the mother station for various purposes.In terms of income generation, digital television offers an efficient way of monitoring subscriptions and ensures that only people who pay receive the service. In this way digital television is very useful to manager so broadcast stations. From this time on, there has been steady growth in digital television. Toward this end, there has been a deadline set to ensure a transition from analog broadcasting to digital broadcasting in the United State s. Other developed countries of the world have also set dates for this transition. Origin of digital television.Although digital television is often perceived as a recent phenomenon, the journey to where it is now began a long time ago. According to Alexander B. Magoun the first digital television system originated between 1956 and1961. It was started by Richard Webb, an ex RCA engineer, who was working on contracts for encrypted video communication contracts required by the military and National Security Agency in the United States of America. Magoun writes that Richard Webb was able to obtain digital signals when he â€Å"converted the analog brightness data from a monochrome video signal into a binary bitstream.†This binary bitstream was encrypted by the digital computers used by the US Military at the time. Webb based his work on the knowledge and experience of other engineers from other companies. Webb found the modulation technique of Frank DeJager (an engineer from Phi llips) very useful. Originally this modulation technique was used in sound recordings. Using the modulation technique, Webb and his team in Colorado encoded the relative brightness of each pixel (they did not encode the absolute brightness). In doing this, they saved significant bandwidth and created a single channel for data transmission.Thus digital television came into being. The first digital television station was established in the White house when President Dwight Eisenhower was in office. This system remained in place in the white house till 1979. What is Analog Television? Analog television encodes pictures using varying single voltage and radio frequencies. Analog television receives and displays broadcast signals that are transmitted using the radio waves. Alexander B. Magoun notes that in analog television, the video component is transmitted using amplitude modulation (AM) while the audio component is transmitted using frequency modulation (FM).Analog television is ineff icient because it is subject to interference. When this interference happens, the pictures become grainy and picture quality is greatly diminished. The quality of analog signals is dependent on the distance between the receiver and the transmitting station. On analog television, the broadcast signal continues to weaken as distance increase from the broadcast station to the receiver. When this happens, the pictures which appear on the analog television become ghosty with grains (it appears to be snowy). This is often referred to as a snowy, fuzzy or ghosted picture.However, digital television is able to overcome this shortcoming which plagues analog television. With digital television, distance does not matter. No matter how far the broadcast station is from the receiver, the picture quality does not diminish. As long as the digital signal is still being received, the picture quality remains the same. Digital television does not suffer from ghosting or noise that arises from weak sig nals. The converter boxes which are used by digital tuners receive numeric information from the antenna. This eliminates the possibility of interference in digital signals.Analog television signals are transmitted using and interlaced format. In this interlaced format, the odd number lines are transmitted first before the even number lines. Each of these sets of lines are referred to as fields. These two fields make up one picture frame, i. e. the video image. In a sense, analog television is restrictive. On the other hand digital television provides an opportunity for datacasting which enhances interactivity. In this modern age there is need to establish a two way relationship with the audience and this is what digital television ensures.The era of delayed feedback is no longer the case. Audience reaction can be measured with ease. However, it is important to state that analog television has been used before the advent of digital television. Although the former has its shortcomings it has served many uses in society to date. In the early days, according to American television standards, there the analog television was operated at 30Hz frames per second. This was in contrast to the 24 frames per second in the early days of motion pictures. However, with the introduction of color television there was a slight adjustment to 29. 97Hz frames per second.

The Moral Heroism Of Antigone By Susan B. Anthony

Humans are born with the potential to achieve greatness and to create a difference in the world. Though individuals possess the capacity to prove the immorality within them, they also possess an inner hero that is capable of performing tremendous good for the benefit of others. However, seldom do humans actually embrace the courage to stand up for their ethical principles and to challenge the existing social standards that are organized under strict leadership. Famous figures—from Susan B. Anthony to Rosa Parks—drew their moral heroism from the heroic action of characters in Greek literature such as Sophocles’s Antigone. The protagonist, Antigone, creates a conflict between her allegiances to political law and morals when the Theban king Creon decrees that the body of his nephew, Polyneices, remains unburied. To Creon, it sets a substandard example for the future of Thebes because Polyneices attacked his native city in a battle against the invading army of Argos. Since the morals of Antigone have a close connection with true justice and human well-being, she defies Creon’s laws and vows to give the proper burial rites to Polyneices as they were presented to her brother Eteocles. Antigone’s sacrifice to bury her brother results from a need to embrace family pride, a feeling to satisfy the gods’ desires, and a responsibility to represent the Theban citizens. The honor that Antigone wants to maintain for her family, coupled with the irreplaceable nature of family, outweigh her