“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral.” This is a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. As the quote suggests, violence may only lead to more violence as people will naturally desire to avenge the people who wronged them. This applies to the case with police in the United States (U.S.) as well. For example, the Portland protests, the recent acts of violence committed by the police, have led to more violence in response.

After four officers of the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd on May 25, enraged protestors took to the streets in order to demand justice. These protests have led to calls for defunding the police and, in some cases, even demanding outright disbandment. Despite the attention people give to this issue, the police are known as an organization that is difficult to penalize.

Currently, it is uncommon in the U.S. for the police to be punished even if they commit a crime. This phenomenon is mainly the result of how the U.S. legal system works as the judges make decisions based on how similar cases were resolved in the past. This could be problematic as the judges would have no case to refer to if a similar court case did not exist in the past. In fact, in cases of police violence, such a phenomenon is common and has led to numerous controversial rulings.

How the U.S. Legal System Works

The U.S. legal system works mostly based on previous court rulings. In a series of cases starting from 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police officers and government officials are entitled to a doctrine called “qualified immunity” in civil lawsuits, which specified that police cannot be sued under certain circumstances. After the protests for George Floyd, the doctrine became an issue as the officers who killed Floyd could escape legal punishment because of it.

According to Professor Young Min Kim (Department of American Law, Hallym University of Graduate Studies), qualified immunity offers protection for officers in circumstances where they feel “reasonable fears.” As the Second Amendment grants U.S. citizens the right to keep and bear arms, the rate of crime is high and this in turn has led to the adoption of practices such as qualified immunity.

Due to the legal background, U.S. Courts are only penalizing police in brutality cases of higher media attention, such as the case of Floyd. Accordingly, bringing the police to justice is a challenging task for many victims who do not receive media attention. Reuters conducted an investigation into the issue at hand and found more than three dozen cases in which officers whose actions had been deemed unlawful were protected by qualified immunity.

Why Police Brutality Never Stops

Many possible explanations have been put forth as to why police brutality never stops, but the main factors are inadequate training and legal protection. The U.S. police receive a meager minimum 10 weeks of training in order to become a police officer. This is in stark contrast to many countries such as South Korea, where people have to graduate from a police university or take an arduous test to become qualified.

The U.S. also has a strong police union. People would expect officers who caused problems to be fired and removed from their post. This, however, does not happen in the U.S. based on the shield of protection in the police union contract. As can be inferred from the name of the clause, the unions will do everything in their power to bring even controversial officers back to their post. As stated by Professor Kim, approximately 75% of U.S. police officers are part of a union. This means that the police have a large organisation defending them.

Furthermore, police violence in the U.S. has been protected by numerous court rulings which order the protection of the police in cases of harassment. These court rulings were made due to the possibility that civilians could distract the police from performing their job if necessary, protection was not provided to the police. This is the kind of background which led to the creation of an environment in which the police can freely commit acts of crime without any fear of reprisals.

Despite numerous cases of abusing police authority and public outrage, there had been minor efforts to resolve the issue prior to the death of Floyd. Past laws did not solve the problem at hand as they were too insignificant to change the situation. Accordingly, a new bill called the Justice in Policing Act was proposed by the Democrats on June 8, which aimed to remove qualified immunity as a whole. However, this can be an issue, too, as the police can be subject to civil lawsuits, which could theoretically hinder their performance.

The Future of the U.S. Police

According to a speech given by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat-CA 12th district) on June 16, their plans to remove qualified immunity will alter the culture of policing and bring an end to “the epidemic of racial injustice and police brutality to America.” This, however, is a controversial issue, and many politicians oppose this plan as it could stop the police from doing their job due to potential legal repercussions.

According to a study called How Qualified Immunity Fails (2017) published by the Yale Law Journal, which studied more than a thousand previous court cases, qualified immunity is only applied in approximately 17 percent of court rulings. Facts such as the aforementioned ones are what prompts many politicians to go against the current bill of the Democrats. Republican Senator Ted Cruz is one of these people, and along with him, many Republicans seem to be against the Democrat’s bill on police violence. With these competing goals, qualified immunity could be here to stay for much longer.

The issue of whether the police should be protected from lawsuits is without doubt a controversial one. As the rate of crime is high in the U.S. it may be necessary to keep highly controversial practises such as qualified immunity. What is clear is that this will be a challenging problem to solve. The Justice in Policing Act must change both the legal practices and curtail the power of the police unions to prevent police brutality.