Violence That Doesn't Go Viral
My observations and take on this matter:
Whenever we see a news report of police violence online invariably it is about police violence in the U.S. We can draw three conclusions from this:
First, there is an assumption that police violence doesn't exist in other parts of the world or even if it exists it is not as severe as it is in the U.S.
Second, it doesn't matter what happens in other parts of the world as they are not newsworthy.
Third, it doesn't matter what happens in other parts of the world because what happens to the people there is not of much of a concern to the developed world.
Here is a website from which you can glean the statistics for police violence worldwide. Read this statistics with caution though. Always remember not all countries report police violence accurately. A lot of cover-ups do occur by the reporting agencies for the sake of self-preservation. The U.S is not the worst but stands at the sixth position with 1099 police killings and Brazil stands at first position with 6160 police killings. Between the U.S and Brazil there are four more countries with huge police killings and we hardly hear about these killings in the news.
Truth be told, police violence exists in almost all the countries with a few exceptions. In fact, in some of the other countries, probably the violence is much more inhumane than it is in the U.S.
That brings us to the next question: Since it is a global problem what can we do about it?
First thing first, there must be an acknowledgment that it is a global problem for which a global solution is needed, just like what we are doing for terrorism, money laundering, climate change and what not. For that acknowledgement to take place, we need to collate up-to-date data on police violence throughout the world and create awareness among people that the problem is much more serious than we acknowledge.
Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash
Having collated the data and created the awareness, we need experts in psychology, judiciary, law enforcement, social work and other relevant disciplines to come together to discuss and deliberate on ways to overcome this issue. None of these is going to work without the approval and participation of the people in power.
Are we, as a society, civilized enough to acknowledge it and take remedial action?
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Violence That Doesn't Go Viral
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