Violence: Difference between revisions

Organized [[police]] forces are an example of the state employing its monopoly on violence. Police officers are empowered by the state to use violence to enact the policies of the state. Police are inherently violent - that is the purpose of their role in society, and the violence is ''legitimized'' by the state. However, [[police brutality]] often exists on a scale which exceeds the legitimized extent of violence the state affords to the police. The extent to which ''illegitimate'' police violence is permitted (or overlooked) by the state allows for forms of systemic or structural violence to exist. The consequences of this can be unintentional, but may also allow the police to enact "unofficial" policies of the state, such as the repression of [[Race|racialized]] people, without being directly accountable.<referencesref>{{Cite web |last=Amnesty International |first= |date=2007 |title=Amnesty International Report 2007 |url=http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Homepage |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070807192225/http://thereport.amnesty.org/eng/Homepage |archive-date=7 August 2007}}</ref>