The police maintain order, enforce the law, ensure safety, protect civilians, look into, and solve crimes. As they are carrying out these roles, the police sometimes use unnecessary or more force than is required to subdue an assailant, which results in physical and psychological abuse. It is this use of force by the police that is commonly known as police brutality.
Police brutality has been in existence for hundreds of years, but it’s only recently that the public has been vocal about it. Examples include breaking code on when a firearm is to be used, especially around civilians, using batons, the use of tear gas and pepper spray, wrongfully arresting civilians, inappropriate sexual contact, accepting bribes, favoring certain races, and inclination towards certain political ideas.
Writing a Police Brutality Essay
The police brutality essay is an argumentative essay. When your teacher asks you to write one, the expectation is always that you try to win over the reader to adopt your opinion despite the already existing views of others. Students are expected to give compelling arguments supporting the side of their choosing.
Remember that winning over a critical reader, who already has their mind made up on what they think about the police, can be daunting. People with no prior opinions may be easy to convince to take sides with you.
So, how can you write a police brutality essay that convinces all your readers to take you up on your view? Here are six steps:
Before Sitting Down to Write the Essay
Before you start writing the police brutality essay, you must come up with and plan your ideas; this involves defining the goals of the essay and then collecting the necessary material to support your article. You can use the internet, a planner, idea maps, or an outline to note down all the important ideas you will be addressing in your essay.
Thought is an Idea-Generating Process
Thinking of ideas should be a fun activity. Therefore, if you find it boring, then you should consider inviting your fellow students to help you generate ideas. The brainstorming process usually follows four rules:
• It should not judge,
• All your ideas must be valid,
• It should expound on other ideas, and
• It should also focus on quantity rather than quality.
Visualize Your Ideas
Planning your ideas to create sentence flow is a standard idea organization tool. When opinions are not listed, they vanish very fast. Mind mapping will allow you to put into order unplanned ideas by identifying similar ideas into groups for the organization. It can also help you to weigh your ideas’ strengths, arrange them from the most relevant to the least irrelevant points.
The designing of the map you end up with is at your discretion. But it is paramount to write down all your ideas before you start the mind mapping process. Furthermore, you are free to attach new ideas you stumble upon at any time.
Fact-Finding
Find and understand the facts that will support the topic you are about to address. The effects are statements that are truthful and can be relied on. They are fixed. For example, the United States became independent on July 4, 1776.
You can also read published and non- published work extensively to enable you to add more to facts you have already gathered to form strong opinions.
Where necessary, interrogate officers and victims of policemen’s brutality so you can have the big picture of the topic and also be able to have personal experiences from which you can benchmark your essay.
Statistical Data
Numerals don’t lie; you should consider conducting police brutality data from state and non-state organizations’ records. Prominent American media houses often follow up on police brutality cases. These cases are such as Washington Post, maintains a database of police shootings. Therefore, you should go through records by year to find out the victim’s designation and residence, among other criteria to view details about particular cases, including the background of the civilians and manner of the crime, if any. From the data you collect, you can draw various statistical diagrams that will help persuade your readers.
The outline
Persuasive essay’s five paragraphs will have five main sections. Parts stand for paragraphs. Every paragraph outline at least three ideas and should not go beyond five. Sub points need aims. The proposed thesis is found in the introduction, while the conclusion possesses the recommendations.
Basic Structure of the Essay
Regardless of the type of essay, structuring one will be more or less the same. The article should introduce the essay, provide an explanation, and a suitable conclusion.
The Introduction
The beginning of the essay gives more perspective on the subject. Students should answer the most common questions, such as, what does brutality mean? How did it originate, and what is its relevance to the thesis? The final two sentences of the introduction state the thesis. It clearly states the student’s position on the topic. Narrowing down on your thesis makes it easier to research.
The Main Body of the Essay
Essays that present arguments to the reader are set in at least three paragraphs — the first and second present the evidence supporting the thesis. Students are required to have many points supporting their view, then pick three of the best of these points and start with the strongest. Contradicting points are also relevant as an essay should be balanced.
Posing contradicting points is essential because it shows that students have actually done their research on the topic and have critically analyzed the topic before penning the police brutality essay.
Secondly, the author’s view is not biased and dogmatic. In particular, it shows that the authors actually took time to consider and dismiss the opposing views on the topic.
Paragraphs should only have one idea. Your starting sentences should introduce your ideas. The other sentences that follow detail your idea. Have proof of this idea in at least two sentences.
This should be more of numerical evidence in the form of graphs, reports, related essays, and articles from journals. Finally, the concluding sentence provides a summary of the paragraph and transits to the next thought.
The Conclusion
The conclusion normally comes last in an essay on police brutality. This is when a summary of the arguments is made. Both supporting and contradicting arguments are highlighted. This is when the author puts forth his final stand and why you, the reader, should agree with the author.