![]() ![]() The concept of broken window policing - targeting the breaking of minor laws to deter bigger crimes - led to poor communities across the country receiving disproportionate amounts of police scrutiny, and at times, police brutality. While the civil rights movement was eventually overshadowed by the Vietnam War and other events, police violence continued. Many protests held against police brutality ended up becoming examples of it themselves, including the use of dogs and water hoses against nonviolent protesters. and other civil rights leaders protested for equal rights, they often endured police brutality. It’s unsurprising then that when Martin Luther King, Jr. As crime rose across America from the ’60s until the ’90s, police departments also received more and more funding. While mobs and lynchings had been used to intimidate black Americans in rural areas, that wasn’t practical in cities, and so police violence became a major way to keep black Americans from polling stations, white neighborhoods and more. The result was many white Americans being around black people for the first time in their lives. Nonetheless, black Americans continued to advocate for their rights more strongly than ever, leading to the beginning of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.Īfter the war, many black Americans moved North while fleeing segregation in the South, and many rural white Americans were moving to cities. ![]() The draft made many black Americans question the value of a government that would send them to war but not protect their rights, leading to mass protests and police violence in response. ![]() While police brutality, especially against people of color, has existed in the United States in one form or another since American police have existed, the type of violence we’re familiar with today can arguably trace its roots to the end of World War II. Police Brutality and the Civil Rights Movement After the Civil War, local sheriffs did similar work by enforcing laws aimed at segregating and disenfranchising black Americans. They were armed bands of white men who tried to catch escaped slaves and intimidate others into staying on plantations. Because of that, slave patrols were the most common form of law enforcement in the South. As a result, European immigrants and free black people were the ones most likely to be on the receiving end of a policeman’s club in those days.Īlthough police departments eventually spread throughout the United States, runaway slaves were the biggest concern of wealthy landowners in the South, not criminals. Meanwhile, business owners wanted a controlled environment for commerce and the ability to regulate the new arrivals that made up their work forces. Factories and industrialization were on the rise, and European immigrants were arriving in large numbers as well as escaped slaves from the South. While there’s little clear evidence that crime was on the rise at the time, it was a period of transition. It wasn’t until 1838 that Boston founded the country’s first police force, with other major Northern cities soon following suit. Instead, there was a mix of private and volunteer watch services that looked out for danger and bad behavior as well as constables who handled everything from land surveys to arresting criminals. In the first few decades after the United States won its independence in 1776, police departments as we know them today did not exist. This is what you need to know about the history of police brutality in the U.S. ![]() The civil rights movement of the 1960s marked a high point in attacks on protestors by officers of the law, but police brutality itself goes all the way back to the creation of the first police departments in the United States. ![]()
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