good thesis for police brutality essay

Police Brutality - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Police brutality refers to the excessive or unnecessary use of force by law enforcement officers. Essays on this topic could explore the incidences of police brutality, its causes, and its impact on communities, particularly marginalized groups. Further discussions might extend to the legal frameworks governing law enforcement conduct, the calls for police reform, and the movements advocating for accountability and justice. We have collected a large number of free essay examples about Police Brutality you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Police Brutality and Racism

The Declaration of Independence was created to protect the inalienable rights that all Americans receive at birth, yet police brutality continues to threaten the rights of African Americans everywhere. Police everywhere need to be given mandatory psychological tests in order to gain awareness of racial bias in law enforcement and allow citizens to slowly gain trust for the officers in law enforcement. No one wants a child to grow up in a world filled with hate. As Martin Luther King […]

The Effects Police Brutality has on Society

Introduction There are many issues that can cause dysfunction in a society. Police brutality has become debatable and a major issue America faces today. Police brutality can be traced back all the way to the early 1870s. Police brutality is the use of excessive force by a police officer. Which can arrange from anything as far as assaults, lethal force, harassment and much more. The use of force has been around for decades as a way of solving conflicts and […]

Is Racism Still a Current Issue in America

Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. It is no secret that America has a racist past, with issues like hate crimes, police brutality, and slavery. However, the concern of racism is still apparent in American society today. Completely eliminating racism will be very hard. However, to start the process of eliminating this issue, we need to start by recognizing our own […]

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Police Brutality – most Serious Violations to the Black Community

Police brutality started in the early 70s, due to the lack of equal rights for African Americans. Over the last past several years, it has left citizens wondering if policemen are doing their jobs or just looking for another murder case. Due to all the unnecessary shooting, rough treatment, and beating upon black people three radical black organizers created Black Lives Matter. In the result of this injustice, African American lady, Korryn Gaines, a 23-year old woman, was pulled over […]

Police Brutality – Systemic Misuse of Authority and Abuse of Police Powers

Police brutality is the systematic misuse of authority and abuse of police powers through the unwarranted infliction of bodily or psychological pain to civilians by law enforcers during their official duties. The routine enforcement of law using excessive force against unarmed civilians and the correctional misuse of facilities to manipulate, inflict, injure or subject a civilian to torture amounts to police brutality. Militarily prisons and federal penal correctional facilities through the personnel operating the facilities can practice police brutality through […]

About Black Lives Matter Movement

The fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution are inherent for all. There is no question that all people (blacks, Latinos, Indians, or white) were created free and equal with certain inalienable rights. This is a universally accepted principle. Segregation and racism against minorities in this country have been widely discussed, and prominent figures have taken a stand asking people to join in the fight for equality. This stand addresses the significance of black lives. However, contrasting opinions on […]

Defacement Reflecting on Police Brutality: a Jean Michel-Basquiat Story

Thesis statement: Art tends be a reflection of how an artist is feeling in a certain moment or time and at times it dives into the mind of the artist during the darkest periods of their lives. Artists tend to find inspiration in circumstances or instances that directly affect them on an emotional level. May that be as a result of a death or even a life altering incident that maybe they didn't experience in person but it still hit […]

Police Brutality Culture

The use of excessive force on civilians whether innocent or suspected is deemed as Police brutality. And everyone can attest to the fact that police brutality is ever on the rise. We see it every other day in the news, on the internet and some of us have even witnessed it just around the corners in our neighborhoods. Even if it is plastered all over the media, those officers seem to still remain in the lines of duties. Why? Do […]

Police Abuse of Power

Police brutality refers to systematic misuse of authority and powers through the unwarranted infliction of bodily or psychological pain to civilians by law enforcers during their official duties. The routine enforcement of law using excessive force against unarmed civilians and the correctional misuse of facilities to manipulate, inflict, injure or subject a civilian to torture amounts to police brutality. Militarily prisons and federal penal correctional facilities, through the personnel operating the facilities, can practice police brutality through extreme subjection of […]

Institutional Racism and Police Brutality in Education System

In today society there are several police brutality against black people, and in some institutional systems black people still experience racism from people who thinks they are superior. Racism is an issue which emerged from history till now and it has become a major problem in our society. This has affected some families to live their dreams and influences other people mindset towards each other. Institutional Racism is expressed in social and political institution which is governed by the behavioral […]

Police Brutality against Black Communities

Throughout the years, the issue of police brutality against black communities has been a major problem affecting many countries in the United States. Unjustified killings have taken place in the black community, which has clearly led to a national outcry for justice and equality. The issue has become particularly notable in recent years thanks to the numerous murders of young black people that have been committed by police officers. Research shows that young black men were nine times more likely […]

Does the Civil Rights Movement have an Effect on the Way Minorities are Treated by Authorities?

Abstract The civil rights movement was a mass popular movement to secure for African Americans equal access to and opportunities for the basic privileges and rights of U.S. citizenship. While the roots of this movement go back to the 19th century, its highlighted movements were in the 1950s and 1960s. African American men and women, along with white American’s and other minority citizens, organized and led the movement at national and local levels nationwide. The civil rights movement centered on […]

Police Brutality against Latinos in the U.S.

This research focused on the history of police brutality against Latinos in the U.S. and thedifferent types of police brutality. It starts off with an overview of what police brutality is and providing examples of police brutality in the different states. The examples intend to provide the reader with knowledge of how police brutality affects the Latino community and some other minority groups. Additionally, it talks about injunctions and the system of points (used in Boston), which allow police officers […]

Police Brutality – Aggressive Overuse of Power

Every 7 hours in the United States an individual life is taken by a police officer. Police brutality is defined as an aggressive overuse of power given to them as a status of a police officer. A 395 pound 6'2-foot man named Eric Garner was held in an illegal chokehold by officer Justin D'Amico. Eric Garner was selling illegal cigarettes on a street in Staten Island, New York. As police approach him four of the officers wrestled him to the […]

Police Brutality – Misconduct and Shootings

Abstract In the United States, Police brutality has been a source of concern for many years. Police officers have been known to use excessive and unnecessary force on innocent and unarmed civilians. There have been numerous instances of police officers killing civilians when such force was unwarranted. It is important to look at how police brutality affects the community as well as fellow police officers. There are a number of measures that should be taken to stop this menace. The […]

Police Brutality Towards African Americans

Dear Governor Brown, In this letter I wanted to discuss an epidemic that has occured in America these past few years, which would be police brutality towards African Americans. Police brutality dates as far back as the 1960's but recently there have been many cases towards black people where they do not pose a threat but are still beaten or even killed. Statistics show that police killed 1,147 people in 2017 and 25% of those killed were black people even […]

An American Lie the American Dream

“In recent years, thousands of Americans have died at the hands of law enforcement, a reality made even more shameful when we consider how many of these victims were young, poor, mentally ill, Black or unarmed” (Hill 1).  Minorities have struggled for years to be accepted into a society that excludes them. In “Nobody” by Marc Lamont Hill, he compares the injustices occurring today to those that happened years ago. African Americans are constantly suffering from racial discrimination and denial […]

Stop Police Brutality against Minority’s

Police abuse remains one of the most serious human rights violations in the United States. Over the past decades, police have acted out in ways that have made people wonder, are our officer really doing their jobs?. Unjustified shootings have contributed to the ever present problem of police brutality in America. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States mandated racial segregation in […]

Police Brutality: Hispanics, Asian, and African American

Almost everyone can be involved in police brutality including Hispanics, Asian, and African American. But, black people are most likely to be shot by police than their white peers. However, according to Vox news says, An analysis of the available FBI data by Dara Lind for Vox found that US police kill black people at disproportionate rates: Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in 2012. In other words, that black people are accusing as a threat […]

Different Forms of Police Brutality

According to The Law Dictionary, police brutality is defined as the use of excessive and/ or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians. The brutality can come in several forms; ranging from nerve gas, guns, false arrests, racial profiling, and sexual abuse. Many black men and women fall victims to officers. Police killed 1,147 people in 2017. Black people were 25% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population (Daniliana 1). Since 1992, there has been an […]

Police Brutality – Prevalent Problem in American Society

America has on average one of the highest rates of police violence compared to other developed countries. While it is hard to determine the precise reason to why that is, many argue that it is directly related to racism that has, and still exists today. Until recent times, people of Caucasian decent have held much of the power in the United States government. Meaning that policies were made with white favoritism in mind. This is known as systemic racism. One […]

The Efforts of the Black Lives Matter Movement

Social Change: Police Brutality and The Efforts of the Black Lives Matter Movement CRM 328 Spring 2018 Rodney Morvan Introduction America is known as the land of opportunity and freedom, where equality prevails all across the country, and the justice system is said to protect each and every one of us equally and fairly. However, in 2012, neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman, while on patrol, shot and killed 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was subsequently taken to trial and, surprisingly, […]

Police Brutality in America

The rate has increased over the past years. They call America now a slaughter house; killings leading to uproars in the cities and mass shootings. Police brutality does not only happen to African American, but people of all ethnicities. Police officers were once called the peacekeepers of our community, but now we as people are scared to even leave our home. This is a problem beginning to grow more and more each day. The biggest issue right now is that […]

Police Brutality against Women

Police brutality is one of several forms of police misconduct, which involves undue violence by police officers. It seems to happen in several countries, but very often in the United States against African-Americans. Studies show that the US police kill more in days than other countries do in years. (The Guardian, 2018). Generally, when individuals discuss police violence against African-Americans; recurring names such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner continuously appear in broadcast media. It is very rare […]

Police Brutality and its Contributors

In the past two years, the United States has seen an extreme increase in the police use of deadly force. This deadly increase is speculated to have many contributing factors, some contributing factors are, internalized racism, knowing that if they do something they will not be punished, and the blue wall of silence. These are just a few of the many contributors to police brutality. People may believe that this is the way that we must live, and that nothing […]

Police Brutality and Racial Profiling

If you were stopped by police officers and all they saw was your race, imagine how that would have felt. Sadly, this happens in the real world to people of color daily. Racial profiling is a controversial and illegal form of discrimination, where people are targeted for suspicion based on their race or ethnicity rather than on evidence-based suspicious behavior. Racial profiling is a common practice used by law enforcement agencies in the United States. It is based on the […]

Black Lives Matter against Violence and Racism

Black Lives Matter is a movement that is originated by African-Americans. Black Lives Matter is against violence and racism towards black people. Police brutality is one of several forms of police misconduct which involves violence by police. Police brutality is also a part of why Black Lives Matter exist, because it is going on in many countries. While although illegal, it can be used under the color of law. Black Lives Matter was developed to protect black people from the […]

Police Brutality against Black People

The source of racial disparity that pervades the United States criminal justice system, and for African Americans in particular, lies within the bounds of racial discrimination. In order for this treatment to be stopped, members of society must make efforts to alter a mindset that draws it roots from a dark history of slavery and manipulation. Plan Addressing Diawara’s view that society views whiteness as the norm by objectifying races and creating economic and public policies, Barak Obama’s 2008 Father […]

History of Police Brutality

America’s history allows spectators to realize that police brutality is not a modern-day problem, however it is a rising issue. As a nation built up of diverse groups, it is not a surprise that this country has an interminable past of acts of brutality, especially when it comes to individuals who have been incarcerated which is a huge portion of America’s population. A rising amount of police officers are now unlawfully abusing their power, and many prisoners are not willing […]

US Police Brutality and African Americans

Police brutality is a major issue in the United States, with its target against African Americans being a longstanding problem. The history of police brutality closely relates to racism and discrimination in America. Many factors, such as institutional racism, poverty, education, and even the drug war, contribute to this issue. With these factors combined, there is an increased risk of violence from law enforcement officials toward African Americans. According to Schwartz and Jahn (2020), African Americans are three times more […]

How To Write an Essay About Police Brutality

Introduction to the issue of police brutality.

When approaching the sensitive and complex topic of police brutality for an essay, it is crucial to start with a clear definition and understanding of what police brutality encompasses. This term generally refers to the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers, often tied to a broader discussion of systemic issues within policing institutions. In your introduction, provide context for the essay by highlighting the significance of this issue, its impact on communities, and its relevance in the current social and political climate. This opening segment sets the stage for a deep and thoughtful exploration of the various dimensions of police brutality, including its causes, effects, and the ongoing debates surrounding it.

Analyzing the Causes and Manifestations

The body of your essay should delve into a detailed analysis of police brutality. This includes examining the root causes, such as systemic racism, lack of adequate training, and issues within the criminal justice system. Discuss different manifestations of police brutality, from physical violence to psychological tactics, and consider how these actions affect not only individuals but also communities and public trust in law enforcement. Utilize specific examples, case studies, or statistical data to support your points, ensuring that your argument is grounded in factual information. This section should be structured to provide a comprehensive and balanced exploration of the topic.

Addressing Solutions and Reforms

In this part of your essay, focus on the potential solutions and reforms aimed at reducing instances of police brutality. Discuss various proposals such as increased accountability measures, police training reforms, community policing strategies, and systemic changes in law enforcement agencies. Analyze the effectiveness of these solutions, drawing on examples from different jurisdictions where reforms have been attempted or implemented. Consider the challenges and barriers to implementing these changes, including political, institutional, and social factors. This segment should highlight the complexity of solving the issue of police brutality and the need for multifaceted approaches.

Concluding Thoughts on Police Brutality

Conclude your essay by summarizing the main points discussed, and reflect on the broader implications of police brutality on society and the justice system. This is an opportunity to reiterate the importance of addressing this issue and to encourage ongoing dialogue and action. Offer a perspective on the future of policing and community relations, considering the current trends and movements. A strong conclusion will not only wrap up the essay effectively but also leave the reader with a deeper understanding of the complexities of police brutality and the necessity for continued attention and effort in combating it.

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379 Police Essay Topics to Research & Write about

Looking for police essay topics to write about? The field of criminal justice and law enforcement is really exciting, controversial, and worth studying!

🔝 Top 10 Law Enforcement Topics

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In your police essay, you might want to focus on the historical perspective, elaborate on police brutality, touch upon the psychology of a criminal, or discuss the importance of the police as an institution. In this article, we collected a list of excellent law enforcement topics for a research paper, essay, presentation, or other assignment. There are also A+ police essay examples to inspire you even more.

• The role of technology in crime prevention.
• Eyewitness testimony: is it reliable?
• Preventing police brutality: the key methods.
• Race discrimination in law enforcement.
• Gender discrimination in the criminal justice system: does it still exist?
• International drug trafficking: how to prevent it?
• The approach to death penalty in different countries.
• The prison systems around the world.
• Kidnapping: the top motives.
• Body cameras: do they help?
• Police Arrest and Incident Record: O.J. Simpson’s Case J Simpson’s car had blood stain on his driveway and the stain was similar to those that were found at the site of the violent crime.
• Police Deviance For the sake of this paper, the scope of this paper will only examine the code of conduct in reference to the relationship between the police force and the society.
• Discipline as an Integral Part of Effective Police Supervision Supervisors as disciplinarians The ability to maintain discipline among the subordinates is one way of measuring the suitability of a supervisor for the role.
• Police Professionalism: Examples and Issues In order to ensure that the much anticipated policing is achieved, the relationship between the police and the community needs to be streamlined.
• Police Brutality: Internal and External Stakeholders To begin with, internal stakeholders such as police officers and judges have been observed to enforce the law discriminatively. Policymakers can be encouraged to propose and support powerful laws that have the potential to deal […]
• A Ride With a Police Officer By signing the waiver, I assumed all the risks that I could have been exposed to at the time of the ride and throughout the program.
• Police Brutality: Dissoi Logoi Argumentation Under the influence of societal views, the majority of the representatives of the general public tend to perceive police officers as a safeguarding force that gathers individuals who perform their duties to ensure that the […]
• Police Misconduct Actually, prosecutors are always reluctant to try these victims in the court of law for the following reasons; police officers, in most cases, are protected by the prosecutors.
• Internal Control Factors Used by Police Departments There has been influencing by the government on police operations and this has weakened the independence of the department in its attempts at internal controls.
• Change Management Steps in Police Organizations In the constantly changing world, every organization needs to adjust to the current environment and alter according to the dictates of the time, and police departments are also subject to this phenomenon.
• Importance of Police Training Majority of people have always aspired to become police officers for the reason that the job holders are seen to be the public vigor.
• Implementing Budget Restrictions in a Police Department The trust between the public and the police is the essential element of the police forces’ success in protecting the citizens and communities.
• Police Decision Making Analysis It is claimed that the police have a high level of accountability for their actions because they are involved in the initial process of justice administration where their decision to arrest or not to arrest […]
• School Bullying: Causes and Police Prevention It is for this reason that there has been need for the intervention of the community and the government to address the issue of bullying schools lest the school environment becomes the worst place to […]
• The Police Functions in the Modern World The primary functions of the modern police are crime control, order maintenance, and social work. Moreover, the second point is the changing nature of the crime that the police are fighting.
• Police Attitudes Toward Drugs and Drug Enforcement The researchers suggest that the cause of these gaps in knowledge is the lack of large-scale scientific studies of the perceptions or perspectives of the police.
• Excessive Force by the Police On the other hand, the media reported on the severity of misconduct by police officers and cited the Blue code of silence as the key setback against the fight against police torture.
• Criminal Justice Ethics of Traffic Police Officers The police officer had the choice to take the children to a juvenile center home and arrange for a person to take care of the baby and then take the woman to jail as she […]
• Media Impact on the Police Public Image Even though the studies indicate mixed results about police use and the application of its powers, how the public perceives the police is primarily influenced by the media.
• Dubai Police Force: Human Resource Department The mission for the Dubai police is to strengthen the security systems of the city to facilitate the protection of the citizens’ rights.
• Police-Youth Relations/Community Policing and Young Offenders Aims of the Study The study is aimed at determining the fairness and acceptability of the youth justice system and its effects on the youth-police relations in Canada.
• Police-Youth Relations and Community Policing This is because of the long history of the strained relationship between the Canadian youth and the police which has created a very negative perception of the police to the youth.
• Excessive Force and Deviance, Police Brutality The events highlighting racial injustice could positively influence our society, maintaining an appropriate level of awareness regarding the issues encountered by African-Americans and prompting a change in police behaviors.
• Concepts of Police Ethics and Deviance Corruption is one of the most common police deviant behaviors, a fact that has tainted the image of the police in society.
• Police Officers and Cultural Differences This is because the police force holds specific power in this section of society, a factor that necessitates a proper understanding of a multicultural and pluralistic society among the officers.
• Police Actions in “44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out” I believe that this crime thriller was shot to restore the reputation of the Los Angeles Police Department. The filmmakers achieved this goal; that is why the film encourages the audience to feel proud of […]
• Decision-Making and Problem-Solving in the Police My grade is the captain and I have to take the responsibility to coordinate the work, which requires problem-solving skills. I believe that in order to make the right decision, you should be confident in […]
• Gratuities for Police and Professional Ethics As a Chief of Police, I would not allow police officers to accept gratuities because tokens of gratitude can be used to compromise their integrity, judgment, and impartiality in the administration of justice and law […]
• Police Violence Against People of Color The article’s main argument for why racial stereotypes and their behavioural effects are to blame for police violence is that these effects extend beyond the direct victims to communities of colour.”The racialization of crime and […]
• Whether a College Degree Should Be Mandatory for Police Recruits In this regard, technical training and college education are crucial for the police force to effectively perform their work in the community.
• Decision Making in Police Office Management 83, it is essential to say that far from the fact that criminals deserve to serve their sentences in prisons after the trial plays a role and the degree of punishment.
• How to Become a Police Officer: Steps, Duties, Requirements, and Challenges Police officers are responsible for ensuring the safety of all the citizens and capturing the criminal in order to maintain a process. It is sufficient for those who are confident about the job and wants […]
• High-Speed Police Car Chases: A Deadly Pursuit In the year 2010, specifically in Milwaukee, the policy chief introduced a new policy indicating that the police force was not to engage in these violent and high-speed chases if the crime of the suspect […]
• Police Brutality in the USA This paper aims to discuss the types of police brutality, the particularities of psychological harm inflicted by the police, and its consequences for the population affected by these forms of violence.
• Asian Community and Police Plan to Curtail Future Attacks The police should encourage citizens of the Asian community to report incidences and crime, which allows the law enforcement to fully understand the scope of the problem in the community and put resources to fight […]
• Problems Facing Police Departments in Recruiting and Retention People think that as the time goes along, no or little increase in the salary does not satisfy the employees of police departments and compel them to leave the job.
• Is Tipping a Police Officer a Bribe? In the context of law enforcement, a gratuity is a gift to operating officers based on their occupation. However, there is a blurry line between tips, gratuity, and bribes, and it is the main argument […]
• Police Officers, Killed in the Line of Duty In particular, it is necessary to focus on their experience in the field, line of work, the structure and jurisdiction of their departments.
• Pros and Cons of Being a Police Officer: Police Oficers’ Interviews To investigate the Pros and Cons of this profession aims, and attitudes of police officers I conducted the interview with two police officers from different departments and of different ages.
• Human Rights Violations by Police: Accountable in Discharging Their Duties Corey in his study and reflection on two mass exonerations, that is, the Rampart and Tulia exonerations, identified police misconduct, and in particular perjury as the primary cause for wrongful convictions.
• The Police Agency’ Conflict Management In the police agency, parties may use the collaboration strategy involving information sharing, openness, and elucidation of the various conflicting issues not only to reach a common ground that is satisfactory to the conflicting parties […]
• San Diego Police Department The department also addresses the issues affecting the surrounding community. The applicant should be a citizen or inhabitant of the United States.
• Organization of Abu Dhabi Police This led to a change in the organization structure of the police force, an increase in the number of police officers, introduction of rigorous training and development exercises, and the acquisition of sophisticated technology to […]
• Police Brutality: Graham vs. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 In this essay, a summary of the Graham and Connor case and the decision of the court will be introduced. In case this suggestion is correct, Connor appears as a police officer who failed to […]
• Mental Illness Emergencies and Police Response According to Dempsey et al, the roles of law enforcement agencies and the police when dealing with individuals with mental illness are to assess the situation, intervene, provide support, and connect individuals with mental illness […]
• The Atlanta Police Department’s Code of Ethics An interesting regulation issued by the Atlanta Agency is related to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and has been implemented at this stage.
• The Drawbacks of Police Wearing Body Cameras Thesis: Despite the claimed benefits of police wearing body cameras, such as increased transparency and accountability, the drawbacks of invasion of privacy, breach of trust, and cost implications make the use of body cameras a […]
• Police Culture: Criminal Justice Ethics The set of values and standards in police culture shapes the perceptions of law enforcement officers about policing and the delivery of services. Therefore, police culture is similar to other customs and habits that guides […]
• The Wakefield Police Department (WPD) in Memphis Solutions A designated task force is created from the pool of officers to routinely monitor repeat offenders and supervise young individuals who are more likely to engage in carjacking again.
• Relation Between Leadership and Police Ethics To prevent such situations in the future, it is essential to put effort into addressing the moral beliefs of the team and ensuring the organizational values are being shared among all officers.
• Mental Health Interventions for Police Officers The expected outcome of this study is a generalized classification of existing mental health interventions available for the police workforce and their assessment in terms of efficiency.
• Police Academy Training: Comparing Across Curricula All in all, the investigation proves that the COPS is a more efficient curriculum that leads to better performance in recruits due to it being well-designed and adjusted to the modern model of policing. Overall, […]
• A Train Hits Police Vehicle With a Suspect Inside On the one hand, there is the suspicion that the train was used recklessly and endangered the life of the suspect, while on the other hand, train officials argued that they did so to apprehend […]
• Killing Fields: Explaining Police Violence Against Persons of Color In particular, this topic concerns the biased attitude towards people of color among representatives of the protection of law and order.
• Police Agencies: Functions and Responsibilities After the rise of terrorism, the management of the Police agency or organization has evolved in several ways. This suggests that a line supervisor makes explicit requests to their representatives and prioritizes maintaining the “solidity […]
• Mental Health and Well-Being of Canadian Police Officers As found in the study by Tehrani, most police officers that worked during the pandemic have been emotionally affected by it, with the lowest indicators of mental health being strongly related to anxiety and depression […]
• Police Accountability and Community Relations Contrary to expectations, the working of overtime police officers and regular police officers seems to differ, as the former is more hostile to the community.
• Police Departments’ Diversity Hiring Practices The first article by Donohue is titled Shades of Blue: A review of the hiring, recruitment, and selection of female and minority police officers.
• Terrorism and Changes in Police Management Firstly, the police and organizations related to the population’s safety prioritized the prevention of terrorism to minimize the damage. Organizing in the police station involves the creation of organizational structure, points of authority, and responsibilities.
• The Usefulness of Using Offender Profiling to a Police Force Determining the value and effectiveness of this practice can be performed by analyzing the approach in the context of interaction with the police forces involved in the investigation of criminal offenses.
• The Media and the Police: Interactions Analysis The idea of a trust hierarchy is crucial in determining how the media and the police interact. The idea of a trust hierarchy is crucial in determining how the media and the police interact.
• The Police Culture and Corruption Goal misalignment between the community and police occurred as a result of militarized police starting to view themselves as armies battling on the front lines of war instead as public servants.
• Professional Police Force: Environmental Research and Public Health In this context, the objective of police advertising is to attract precisely those who are both seriously interested in the position and are well-qualified for it from the potential applicants’ total pool.
• Social Issue Analysis: The Trauma Lens of Police Violence It is the most visible manifestation of the struggle for justice, and the police are usually expected to support the victims of injustice.
• Police Administration Issue: Crime Victim Rights Moreover, the police administration has not acknowledged that the decision of the hospital does, in fact, protect the victims’ rights, a duty that is to be implemented by law enforcement.
• Effects of Body-Worn Cameras on the Relationships Between the Police and Citizens The reasons for carrying out this research are to learn the impact of BWCs on the relationships between the police and ordinary citizens and to clarify if some improvements can be offered at the moment.
• Effective Police Supervision: Encouraging Collaboration With the combination of the two methods in question, a rise in collaboration between the community and the police is to be expected.
• Being Killed by Police Use of Force in the US The topic of the chosen article is the risk of being killed by police in the United States. In connection to the topic, they find that Latino men are at a higher risk than white […]
• Police Brutality: Causes and Solutions If the criminal is armed and firing at the police, the use of force is acceptable. However, when the actions of the police are disproportionate to the committed crimes, the necessity of such measures is […]
• Police Corruption: A Crime With Severe Consequences Police corruption is a severe crime that can lead to adverse consequences for the officer-criminals and society. The documentary “Seven Five” shows the story of one of the most criminal police officers Michael Dowd.
• Black Lives Matter and Trump’s Use of Secret Police He has tried to hide the truth and the police brutality that took Floyd’s life, just as it endangered the lives of other black Americans.
• Police-Minority Relations: Criminal Justice Occasionally, charges of police misbehavior, such as the tragic killings of Black individuals at the hands of police in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ferguson, Missouri, spark public unrest.
• Impact of Police Brutality on the Society in the United States The issue of racism is one that has led to police brutality that has been witnessed in the American society for a long time.
• The Ethical Issue of Police Informants The inconsistency of Chambers’s figure lies in the fact that the agent pretended to be a person without a criminal past to get the job.
• Analysis of Mapping Police Violence After analyzing the content on the web page related to police violence, I realized that there are more murders committed by police than I expected.
• Police-Involved Shootings and Use of Force Analysis Adler and Adler expressed this scenario in the form of “The Gloried Self” a socially- and media-reflected blinding self-image of glory. Police officers should not be hesitant and incapable of maintaining order in the streets.
• March for Our Lives: Campaign to Defund Police in Schools The fundamental goal of the March for Our Lives movement is to inspire Americans to avoid unnecessary risks and prevent gun violence by any means.
• Howard Liebengood’s Life as a Police Officer For example, he took part in an event that celebrated the meaning of justice, where he demonstrated to children the various practices of the everyday life of an officer.
• Firing Police Officer for Violation of Code of Ethics Therefore, the officer’s actions could not be judged in any other way, and the fact of being off-duty does not justify the violation of the Code of Ethics of his department.
• Defunding the Police: What Does It Mean? Those supporting the action of defunding want to see true reforms in the police force and cut down the ‘rotten trees’ that have been tarnishing the reputation of the institutions.
• Impacts of the Overlaps Between Communication and Criminal Justice for Police-Suspect Interactions The underlying concern raised by the interaction between Floyd and Chauvin as well as the other three police officers is that a breakdown of communication before and during the arrest led to the escalation.
• George Floyd’s Speech on Police Abuse I could do nothing but shout everything that was coming into my head, and the main thing that I was trying to deliver is that I was hurt, that I am not a bad man, […]
• COMPSTAT Police Management System Still, the original objective of this management system was to eliminate the numbers game in police departments. To summarize, COMPSTAT is a management system that can elevate the effectiveness of police departments.
• Police Departments in Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta The Knapp Commission was a major investigation of corruption within the New York Police Department in the 1970s. It was influential as it uncovered a massive and deliberate system of chain corruption that pulled in […]
• Police Use of Force: An Examination of the Minority Threat Perspective The authors are intended to explore whether gender and sex are influential in the context of criminal justice. It is essential to adjust to the modern changes of self-identification and respect people in their self-representation.
• The UN as a Global Police Force and Negotiation Facilitator The purpose of the paper is to address the failures and successes of the organization’s peace initiatives in an effort to evaluate its ability to ensure greater global security.
• The Problem of Racism in the Police Force Atiba argues that the problem of racism, especially in the police force, is solvable. In most of the cases, it is often interpreted as lack of love and compassion towards people of the other race.
• Police Encounters With Suspects and Evidence Officer Taylor also had reasonable suspicion to make the driver stop the care as it had similar characteristics to the vehicle involved in a road-side killing of a police officer.
• Police Relations With African American Citizens The problem of police brutality and unfair treatment of people is often raised in the media and provokes protests among citizens.
• The Sexual Harassment Suit: Pennsylvania State Police vs. Suders The purpose of this paper is to present the cause of the suit, analyze the results of the case, and propose possible actions and procedures to prevent the problem.
• Illegal Police Actions. Fourth Amendments. There are many loopholes used to evade the jurisdiction of the fourth amendment thus it can be argued that it does not provide sufficient protection to U.S.citizens. It is a big problem when police officers […]
• Stress Patterns in Police Work: A Longitudinal Study The research problem identified by the investigator relates to the prevalence of distress in the police occupation. The primary variable of the study was the mean stress measure, which was derived from the Langner-22 list […]
• Training Police Officers. Obtaining Data From Digital Devices In the context of present-day developments, figures saved and produced via modern gadgets and devices, may contribute to the clarification of the happening in the process of investigation.
• Instruction for a Police Officer in Curaçao Hence, the first crucial aspect of the instruction is to convey to Curacao citizens the idea that the police protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, especially human life, preventing and solving crimes, […]
• History of Police Brutality: The Murder of George Floyd Police officers strive to maintain order and ensure adherence to the laws of the state. The standards observed the right to democracy and addressed the need for representation.
• Researching of Police Shift Work The video by The Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy offers the study results regarding the influence of 8-, 10-, and 12-hour shifts on police officers.
• Police Technology Risks Regarding Personal Privacy Nevertheless, some of the technologies used by police and other agencies have raised concerns of the public over the threat to citizens’ rights and freedoms.
• Ambivalence on Part of the Police in Response to Domestic Violence The police have been accused of ambivalence by their dismissive attitudes and through sexism and empathy towards perpetrators of violence against women.
• Agency Interaction and Police Corruption One of the officers told me that I do not need to pay for my food at this restaurant because the owners give it free to the police officers.
• Public Concern on Police Service’s Poor Morale To show the City Council that this is a problem, the study set up should defeat the null hypothesis that the negative job satisfaction of police in the city council has no effect on job […]
• High-Speed Police Pursuits & Restrictions in the US The research methodology proposed in the paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the restrictive policies applied to police pursuits. How did the numbers of police pursuits change in correlation with the implemented policies?
• In-House Communications Training for Police Officers Following the onset of the demonstrations related to George Floyd’s incident, the Dallas Police Department released a report that its officers struggled to communicate with the public and act as a unified force.
• Data-Based Analysis Approach in Preventing Crime at Dallas Police Department The main objective of the proposed approach, in contrast, is to enhance the effectiveness of the analysis and research functions within the Intelligence Led Policing Division. It would allow to change the existing system of […]
• Replacing the Police Chief: Spanning’s Recruitment Plan Thirdly, due to the political and non-reforming nature of some of the council members, Spanning had another advantage of performing proper background vetting and presentation of the appointee to the council.
• The Police in the 2005 Urban Uprising in Toledo The 2005 Toledo Riot is an event that fulfilled the seven attributes of modern city rebellions while at the same time painting a true image of race relations, inequality, and crime in the United States. […]
• Friendship Police Department Organizational Change The one that is going to challenge the efforts, which will be aimed at rectifying the situation, is the lack of trust that the employees have for the new leader who they expect to become […]
• Body-Worn Cameras Against Police Brutality in New York There is often a legal foundation to such a privileged position; the laws control the oppressed class and mitigate threats to the power of the ruling class.
• Criticism of the Police Recruitment Method This paper will criticise the police recruitment process and the criteria used in the selection of police officers, particularly the use of background investigation to determine a participant’s integrity and personality testing using psychological tests, […]
• Police Activities and Lessons Learned From the Attacks Thus, the research aims to discuss and analyze the police reaction to the accident and the effectiveness of the realized operations as well as the importance of the lessons learnt for the further development of […]
• Police Pursuits Overview and Analysis Whenever a police tries to stop a motorist and the motorist decides to disobey the order of the police officer and evades, the police can initiate a pursuit.
• Professional Development of Police Officers: Grant Proposal and Presentation Therefore, the department needs to train its officers to help them analyze what causes of violence in the area. Therefore, the department will train some of its officers to help them rehabilitate juvenile offenders in […]
• Police Corruption, Misconduct and Brutality: When a Good-Cop-Bad-Cop Routine Goes Wrong The given cases show that, sadly enough, power abuse among the members of the police department is still an issue, and it is probably going to be as long as the means to coordinate the […]
• Conflicts of Police Officers With the Members of the Minority Groups This question is discussed by a lot of researchers according to a variety of social aspects such as the relations of majority and minority groups, the rate of crimes according to the racial characteristic, the […]
• Impacts of Terrorism on Police Mission in the U.S. The incidence of September 11 2001 has remarkably transformed the police force in the U.S. There is an increase in the level of monitoring of international travels and boundaries by the police force.
• Law Enforcement: Police Misconduct and Police Violence The article further points out the need to have better guidelines to govern the police on the use of Tasers. This has led to the loosening of the bond between the police and society.
• Burglary Under Greenfield Police Department Investigation The principal in particular can provide the record of the students who are usually absent from the school at the time the burglaries occur.
• Police Action in Times of Public Crisis At other times, the police will tend to go against the law and do things, which are not acceptable, not only by the law of the country but also to the social ethics of citizens.
• “Understanding Police Use of Force” by Klahm, C & Tillyer, R. To effectively bring out the correlates of police use of force and the varied reaction this is likely to amass from the general public, the writers of this article have borrowed from a number of […]
• The Police Mission, Operational Strategies, Styles of Policing Today Besides enforcing the order, the mission of policing is to investigate activities suspected as criminal and refer the outcome to the court of law.
• Police Performance and Measurement The diverse array of citizens requires police to be constantly trained on how to handle the individuals in the society. Lastly, the unclear mandate of the police has been an impediment to the work done […]
• Cops Count, Police Matter: Of Tactics and Strategy In ensuring the police play an active role in crime control, the authors take note of the flawed argument suggesting that acts of crime are caused by poverty, the economy, demographics, racism and social injustice, […]
• Intimate Partner Violence Against Police Officers The main goal is to make it known that the problem is extreme in the rural areas and urge the law enforcement agencies to utilize the existing law to solve the problem.
• Racial Profiling by Police: Effects and Possible Remedies When the police engage in racial profiling mistrust between the public and the police arises. The causes of such mistrust may be due to poor communication between law enforcement individuals and community members due to […]
• Discretion of Police in Traffic Stops The police should then have called the parents to inform them of the incident and charge the boy for disobeying the law.
• Ethical Decision-Making Among Police Officers It is the success of the institution in protecting the law that must be the highest motivation for a police officer to regulate his actions.
• Behavior of a Police Officer Within an Ethical Dilemma First and foremost, one should note that one of the most typical ethical concerns in the relevant field is the cases of discrimination on the ground of the national origin.
• Ethical Observations: Sexual Misconduct of Police The first issue to pay attention to is the sexual misconduct involving the police officer and the crime victim. Two internal investigations were initiated to determine whether the sexual misconduct was observed in relation to […]
• Police Recruiting and Hiring in Jurkanin’s Article He likens police work to sports because it requires officers to be highly dedicated to their duties. Police officers need to acquire advanced skills to help them deal with different crimes that happen in areas […]
• Key Issues That Influence Police Behavior The role of the police in the society is central when it comes to ensuring law and order. The policing task is the most prominent manifestation of the government and is easily recognizable by members […]
• Domestic Violence Factors Among Police Officers The objective of this research is to establish the level of domestic violence among police officers and relative the behavior to stress, divorce, police subculture, and child mistreatment.
• Evaluating Productivity Metrics: Police Effectiveness Overall, the use of multiple criteria is partly based on the premise that police officers should be empowered by the administrators of law-enforcement agencies. This is one of the details that should be singled out.
• Police Effectiveness Analysis At that, effectiveness is the ability to achieve the goal set whereas efficiency is the ability to accomplish certain tasks in the shortest time and with the use of minimum effort, funds, and so on.
• Discipline of Police Force Affects Trust in Public All the police personnel have the right of legitimate use of force when carrying out their duty of enforcing the law.
• Academy Program for Police Recruits Learning academies provide the foundation and therefore they cannot be eliminated in training force for the sake of police officers to be.
• The 1919 Boston Police Strike In August 1919, the Boston police strike started when the police service attempted to seek unionization in the American Federation of Labor. Administratively, the structure of the police force also contributed to the grievances of […]
• Instances That May Result to Police Liability One common thing, however, is that in all the countries of the world, the body that concerns itself with the responsibility of enforcing the governing laws is the police.
• Police, Justice and Law: Knights in Shining Armor Therefore, the legitimacy of the comparison of police to warriors depends on the concept that the person making the comparison has of a warrior.
• Dallas Police Department: Training Techniques Changes The author of this paper identifies the problem to be a lack of proper training and the use of outdated modes of instruction.
• Police Suicide: Causes, Prevention, Impacts As much as the media and the general population assume police officers are less susceptible to stress and depression due to long exposure to the life stressors, research indicates otherwise.
• The Police Operation and Entrapment: A Case Stude After Bob took the bomb to Carl’s house and placed it on Carl’s automobile, the police had all the evidence they needed that Bob was attempting to murder Carl. Here, the police observed Bob strapping […]
• Excessive Force and Brutality in Police There are several policies and precedence cases that guide the concept of the use of force in the police force. To avoid such cases in the future, there should be new policies that guide the […]
• Los Angeles Police Department’s Organizational Climate Bureaucracies and red tapes, the nature of leadership and generally the organization culture are among the key elements that determine the organizational climate.
• Motivation in Police Department This is because most of the time those in supervisory levels in the various workplaces do not know how to effectively communicate with their employees, intending to encourage them to work to reach the goals […]
• Police Approach of Security Depends on Skin Color and the Accent of the Tongue The consequences of this trend by the police are highlighted by the paper just as much as statistics that indicate the presence of discrimination by the police.
• Job Description of a Police Officer Police officers are members of the police force and go by different names according to their ranking within the police force.
• Police Personality Position Overview On the other hand, work-related personality, also referred to as socialization and experience point of view, suggest that most of their individuality traits are acquired in the course of their police work.
• Portland Police Community Officer Core Obligations A police officer is expected to monitor violations of the law and regulations in the respective area of jurisdiction. In cases of casualties for example in an accident scene a police officer is expected to […]
• Police Accountability Analysis The policing strategies are supposed to agree with the expectations of the society in order to make both the police work effective as well as to enhance the relationship between the police and the community.
• Criminal Violations Committed By Police/Correction Any show of disrespect for police authority is a matter of great concern, and as such, the person responsible is likely to be punished by arrest or use of force.
• The Los Angeles Police Department Los Angeles Police Department is the police department for the city of Los Angeles. It is the mission of the Los Angeles Police Department to safeguard the lives and property of the people we serve, […]
• The Use of Discretion in Police Work This is a reasonable discretion and the police officer is free to make any decision. In such a situation, a police officer is free to make any of the two decisions.
• Police Role Description in the Media Secondly, the police’s role as crime fighters is depicted by the arrest of the teenagers as well as the collection of the evidence.
• Police and Racial and Ethnic Minorities The view is that profiling is not only limited to what the police are engaged in towards the blacks but that the whole prosecutorial system is compromised.
• Police Search and Law Procedure Although they fled from the place, the police could reach them with the help of the evidence. According to the Fourth Amendment, the authority should have a warrant if they have to arrest a person […]
• Desdemona and Vince: Legal Issues in Police Conduct The legal issues that can be mentioned in the case of Desdemona and Vince include the aspects of the whole procedure of arrest as well as the process of questioning.
• Police and Policing – Change in Police Role The new implementation of the act was encountered by public fears as the members of the public were not comfortable with the militaries that were deployed in mater to do with domestic affairs, as they […]
• The Issues of Police Violence Analysis Social skills and the norms of society are learned in this process, allowing children to better develop in the future. Because of their inability to concentrate or catch up with others in terms of basic […]
• Trends in Police Recorded Crime in Northern Ireland Michael O’Sullivan notes, “according to the PSNI, the number of violent crimes has doubled in the past year, and the number of cases of violence without injuries has increased by 80%”.
• The Legality of the Use of Force by the Police Often, the protection of the rights of the majority is carried out through the use of physical force against a perpetrator.
• Ethical Police Problems The police is the guardian of society and should uphold the rights of people. It is necessary to reorganize the outdated structure of the police department by retraining or replacing officers.
• The Role of Fusion Centers in Affecting the Work of Police
• San Diego Police Officers Asscociation
• Police Brutality: Social Issue
• Victims’ Assistance: Maryland Police Departments Websites Analysis
• Risk Management in Police Force Institutions
• Gender and Perception of Police Work
• LAPD and Cultural Awareness Courses to Police Officers
• Handling the Case of Police Officer Tom Delany
• Police Corruption in “The Detonator” by Wesley Snipes
• Police Officers Working With Diverse Population. Challenges and Solutions
• Cross-Cultural Contact by Police and Civilians
• Police Department Administration in Abilene
• Abu Dhabi Police Department’s Total Quality Management
• Abu Dhabi Police Department Innovations
• The Use of Force by the Police: A Perspective
• Police Officer Job Analysis
• Police Psychologist Interpretation
• Arming Police Assault Rifles
• Top Court Rules Against Police in Search Case
• Shortfalls in Recruiting and Retention: New York Police
• Police Officer Pushed a Cyclist: Media Coverage
• Organizational Structure in American Police Analysis
• Police Dogs Usage Analysis
• Stress of Police Officers and How They Cope With It
• Police Functions: Forensic Science and Fingerprinting
• Police Administration Structures in America
• Police Interrogation: Legal Issues and Limitations
• Police Investigative Questioning and Techniques
• The Job of Police Detective
• Training Theories for New Police Recruits Review
• Waterloo Regional Police’s Centralised Information System
• Setting Up of a Behavioral Science Unit in a Police Department
• Police Liability Issues and High Speed Pursuits
• The Police Tapes by Alan and Susan Raymonds Review
• Policing: CompStat and San Diego Police Department
• The New York Police Department’s Policing Style
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police vs. Software Piracy
• Strategies of Police Organization
• Police Reform in Russia: Evaluation of Police Corruption
• Police Corruption in Russia: Determinants and Future Policy Implications
• Walker’s New Framework for Police Accountability
• Police Support for Community Problem-Solving and Broken Windows Policing
• The New York City Police Department and Society
• Police Departments and Accreditation
• Small Police Departments’ Organizational Analysis
• The Case of Terryl Smith, the Oakland Police Officer
• The Los Angeles Police Department Program Initiative
• Police Brutality as a Law Enforcement Challenge
• Social Psychology: Police Brutality
• Technology Influences on Police Brutality
• The Job of Police Officers
• Police Misconduct and Addressing Recommendations
• False Confessions and Unethical Police Behavior
• Individual Liberties: Police Searches Without a Warrant
• Dubai Police and Cooperation With Media
• Police Stereotyping in a Multicultural Society
• Manners of Death in Police
• Los Angeles Police Department’s Use of Force Policy
• Designing a Recruitment Program for the WA Police
• Criminal Law: Racial Profiling by Police
• Hiring Police Officers in Five Steps
• Police Officers’ Bias Against Black Men
• Police Officer’s Career Research
• The New World of Police Accountability
• How Can Police Develop Trust Among the People?
• Student Police Officer’s Decision-Making in Campus
• Criminal Justice Administration and Police Functions
• Police Psychologist’s Role in Homicide Investigation
• Police Officer Situational Analysis
• Police Corruption and Citizen’s Ethical Dilemma
• Police Force in Interactions With Mentally Ill
• Abu Dhabi Police Self-Assessment
• Police Accountability and Public Information Access
• Police Accountability and Vollmer’s Reform
• Police Managing the Ambiguities of Gifts
• Dubai Police Applying Total Quality Management
• Police Misconduct and Forces of Deviance
• Police Accountability and Community Policing
• The Abu Dhabi Police Corporate Sustainability
• Police Officer’s Must-Have Characteristics
• American Police Corruption and Its Classification
• Police Departments: Defective Areas and Solutions
• Interrogation Techniques Used by the Police
• Police Communication Skills Importance
• Police Beliefs and Attitudes Towards Interrogating Minors
• Decision-Making Information System for Police Department
• Police Officers’ Attitudes to Mentally Ill Women
• Predictors of Job Satisfaction Among Police Officers
• Baltimore Maryland Police Department
• Ending Police Misconduct: Cleveland Police Department
• The Organizational Reasons Police Departments Don’t Change
• Justice Department Ends Era of Pushing Police Reform
• Police Misconduct and Civil Forfeiture Law
• Quarantine, Its Legal Process and Police Power
• Police Officer’s Power Abuse and Plain View Doctrine
• Police Shooting Behaviour, Memory, and Emotions
• Local Police Role in Homeland Security
• Police Patrol Presence in Crime “Hot Spots”
• Police Culture in “The Critical Criminology Companion”
• The Management of Police and Development of Law
• The Dubai City’s Governance and Economy
• White Police’s Discrimination Against Black People
• Homeland Security: Police and Profiling
• Corrupt Practices of the Police and Correctional Systems
• Police Stress Within Law Enforcement
• South African Police Service vs. Solidarity obo Barnard
• Organizational Culture in Police Department
• Black Panthers’ Violence Against Police Officers
• Police Officers’ White Lie in Criminal Investigation
• Power Abuse in Police Officer’s Actions
• American Police Officers’ Ethics and Professionalism
• Dubai Police and Expo 2020 Security Strategies
• Blue Wall of Silence in Police Subculture
• Police Issues and Practices Discussion
• Police Officers’ Morale and Resources Availability
• Police ‘Shooter Bias’ Against African-Americans
• Police Ethics and Misconduct
• Police’ Discretion: Definition, Examples and Rationality
• The English Influence on Modern Police
• Police Technology: Development and Progress
• Management and Philosophy for Police Departments
• Dubai Police Force Organizational Culture
• Police Violence as a Mutual Problem
• Abu Dhabi Police GHQ Management and Leadership
• Concept of Police Detective Job
• Knowledge Sharing in the Dubai Police Force
• Is Dubai Police Force a World Class Organization?
• Police Officer Job Requirements and Hiring Process
• Employees Management in the Police Department
• Corruption and Accountability of Police Work
• Police Supervisors’ Influence on Law Enforcement Changes
• Police Development Foundations and Functions
• Police and Corrections Officers’ Stress – Psychology
• American Police Community Relations
• Communication and Ethical Issues in Police
• Police, Courts and Corrections Management
• Police Poor Adherence to Established Codes of Conduct
• Abu Dhabi Police Organizational Change
• Police Authority or Brutality?
• Social Issues: Police Protection of the Ku Klux Klan
• Police Work in Community
• Police Abuse and Laws Against It
• The Abu Dhabi Police
• Police Suicide and Preventive Programs
• Public Administration Issue: Police Brutality
• Final Program Evaluation: Increasing Police Numbers to Reduce Juvenile Crime in the UAE
• Increase Police Numbers to Reduce UAE’s Juvenile Crime Rate
• Bangladesh Police Institution
• Police Service Transformation: A Critical Evaluation of Implementing Transformational Leadership in the Homicide Division
• The Royal Oman Police’ Traffic Safety
• Use of Social Media in The Police Force in Queensland
• Proposed Budget for an Additional Five Police Officers for the City Council
• Police Trauma: Paying the Ultimate Price to Protect and Serve
• New Technological Advances Within the Police Department
• The Decision-Making Process of the Police Service
• National Security Policies That Intersect/Conflict With Local Police Power
• Community Policing and Police Psychology
• The Role of Public Police in United States
• History of Police Psychology
• Police Misconduct: What Can Be Done?
• Organization Behavior: Steelhead Police Department
• Management of Police Department
• Virtual Police Department
• Contrast the Different Levels of Police Operations and Their Unique Operations
• Water Regional Police Services Project Implementation
• Police Response to the Ningbo Protest: Justified or Inappropriate?
• Police Minority Killings
• Corruption in Law Enforcement
• Police in Law Enforcement Misconduct
• Police Subculture: Culture’s Factors and Performance
• Greenfield Police Department’s Hiring Process
• DNA Definition and Its Use by the US Police
• How Police Conduct Towards Women of Color?
• Why Did the Police in 1888 Never Catch Jack the Ripper?
• How Police Access Data Obtain Criminal Information?
• How Female Police Officers Help Decease Police Violence?
• How Local Police Departments Handling Terrorism?
• How Can Police On-Body Cameras Be Useful?
• How Can the Police Secure Public Legitimacy?
• How Have the Police Departments Evolved Over the Last Thirty Years?
• Why Racism Among the Police Not Punished?
• How Can Technology Help Police and Government Officials Solve Crime?
• Why Police Prejudice Against Minorities?
• Why Do the Police Don’t Care About Computer Crime?
• How Could the Ethical Management of Health Data in the Medical Field Inform Police Use of DNA?
• How Police Effectively Cope With Stress Stemming From Work?
• Why Should All Police Officers Carry Tasers?
• How Are Computer Forensics Used in Police Investigations?
• Why Police Officers Engage in Corruption?
• Who Invented the Police Force?
• How Police Agencies Handle the Process of Interrogation?
• What Is Police Doing About Domestic Violence?
• How Does Media Affect the Public’s Perception of Police?
• How Might Police Officers Be Held Criminally Liable for Their Misconduct?
• What Are the Staff Positions in a Typical Police Department
• Are Offender Profiles Useful in Police Investigations?
• Why Do Police Officers Perceive Themselves as True Outsiders?
• What Are the Major Functions of the Police?
• How the Police Overstep Their Mandate When Searching People?
• How Police Have Used Crime Linkage?
• When Does Police Discretion Cross Boundaries?
• Why Are Police Called Bobbies?
• Black Lives Matter Topics
• Criminal Procedure Titles
• DNA Essay Ideas
• Gun Control Titles
• Organized Crime Titles
• Government Regulation Titles
• Prison Paper Topics
• Social Justice Essay Ideas
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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• Writing Guides

How To Write An Essay On Police Brutality

Table of Contents

• How to start
• First body paragraph
• Second body paragraph
• Third body paragraph

A good essay needs to be well structured, it should have three main parts, starting with:

• the introduction,
• and conclusion.

Topic actuality

When introducing the essay topic , the most important consideration is to attract the reader’s attention. The first part of the essay is the introduction . The introduction describes the topic of discussion  in summary using a   thesis statement . The thesis statement talks about  what the author intends to discuss. When introducing the topic, the author needs to mention how relevant is the topic and where the essay information can be used. In this case, the topic of discussion being on police brutality, the following example can be a good opening statement.

Introduction example

Police officers act as citizens protectors, police officers ensure everyone is safe by maintaining law and order. However, for the past years, many people have questioned the use of excessive force and other forms of misconducts among police officers. Even though most of them still maintain law and order, the biggest issue is the high rates of police brutality witnessed in America today.

How to write a body paragraphs

The body paragraph of an essay can be divided into three main paragraphs depending on how extensive the author wants to describe the problem.  The essay body needs to describe every detail concerning the topic of discussion.  The body also contains evidence supporting the thesis statement. In every body paragraph the first sentence should start with a topic on what the paragraph is to describe.

Body paragraph 1

The first body paragraph  should describe  police brutality, what can be considered as excessive force and laws against brutal actions. When describing police brutality, a brief definition should form the part of the first paragraph.

For example:

Police brutality can be described as the process of using physical force during arrests. Other forms of brutality can be in the form of racial profiling, police repression, false arrests and surveillance abuse.  Excessive force describes situations where police officers exceed their limits when diffusing violent incidences. Excessive force is common during military operations or when handling suspected criminals. When mentioning laws against police brutality the author can refer to the fourth amendments and eighth amendments. The fourth amendment talks about personal privacy and individual freedom versus government intrusion, especially when police arrests or searches one home and business without evidence. The eighth amendment applies to police brutality because of talks about human right violation among suspects during detention or arrest.

Body paragraph 2

In the second body paragraph, the author needs to describe what are the main causes for police brutality. In this paragraph the author can present study findings.

For example, he can state that:

Most police reform policies have little input from those who are expected to implement them. Factors like internal discipline need to be highlighted using statistics. For example, more than  51 percent of police officers are yet to face any disciplinary actions,  especially in where police brutality cases have been reported, like in New York, Fergusson, and Missouri where several killings of unarmed  teenagers have been reported.

Body Paragraph 3

In the third paragraph of the essay, the author needs to present facts, stating examples of police brutality from other states and cities with similar concerns.

For example , the author can state excessive force by the Cleveland police department to show how the culture of brutality is deeply embedded in the police force.

The final paragraph is the conclusion that summarizes the important points. A conclusion should restate the thesis statement to show the audience significance to the topic.  When concluding the essay on police brutality, the author should state how police brutality is a public issue affecting innocent individuals.  There is the need for corrective measures to be taken to portray a good picture of the police force.

Tips on final revision

After completing the first part of the essay, the author should take his mind off and relax before re-reading the paper again. The author needs to ensure that the essay arguments are logically arranged with supportive evidence. The paragraphs should be arranged in a clear sequence to enable readers to understand the main points without feeling lost.

When reviewing the essay, the author needs to look out for grammar mistakes. The author needs to review the sentence structure to ensure that the essay will make sense to the target audience.   When reviewing the research paper, the author should look out for any missing words or incomplete sentences and make adjustments before submitting the final paper. Before submitting the final paper, the author needs to ensure that the essay is structured according to the standards guidelines. After the concluding paragraph, a list of literature used in the essay need to be included for reference purposes. When quoting facts, the literature source should be cited, and all the reference literate needs to be arranged in an alphabetical order depending on the writing style one chooses to use.

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122 Police Brutality Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Police brutality is a serious issue that has been a topic of discussion and debate for many years. It refers to the excessive use of force by law enforcement officials against civilians, resulting in injury or death. This issue has sparked outrage and protests across the country, as people demand justice and accountability for those responsible.

If you are tasked with writing an essay on police brutality, it is important to choose a topic that is both relevant and engaging. To help you get started, here are 122 police brutality essay topic ideas and examples to consider:

• The history of police brutality in the United States
• The impact of police brutality on communities of color
• The role of race in police brutality cases
• The militarization of police forces
• The use of body cameras to prevent police brutality
• The role of social media in exposing police brutality
• The psychological effects of police brutality on victims
• The legal implications of police brutality cases
• The role of police unions in protecting officers accused of brutality
• The impact of police brutality on trust in law enforcement
• The use of excessive force in policing protests
• The role of systemic racism in police brutality
• The impact of police brutality on mental health
• The role of implicit bias in police interactions
• The impact of police brutality on community-police relations
• The role of technology in documenting police brutality incidents
• The impact of police brutality on victims' families
• The role of police training in preventing brutality
• The impact of police brutality on trust in the criminal justice system
• The use of force continuum in policing
• The impact of police brutality on police officers' mental health
• The role of political rhetoric in shaping attitudes towards police brutality
• The impact of police unions on accountability for police brutality
• The use of civil rights laws to address police brutality
• The impact of police brutality on the public perception of law enforcement
• The role of community policing in preventing police brutality
• The impact of police brutality on minority communities
• The role of federal oversight in addressing police brutality
• The impact of police brutality on the legitimacy of law enforcement
• The role of the media in shaping public perceptions of police brutality
• The impact of police brutality on the mental health of officers
• The role of police culture in perpetuating brutality
• The impact of police brutality on the criminal justice system
• The role of civilian oversight boards in addressing police brutality
• The impact of police brutality on the use of force policies
• The role of community activism in addressing police brutality
• The impact of police brutality on the trust between police and communities
• The role of police accountability in preventing brutality
• The impact of police brutality on the relationship between law enforcement and the public
• The role of police leadership in addressing brutality
• The impact of police brutality on officer training
• The role of legal reforms in addressing police brutality
• The role of community engagement in preventing police brutality
• The role of police unions in addressing brutality

These essay topics cover a wide range of issues related to police brutality, allowing you to explore different aspects of this complex and important topic. Whether you are writing a research paper, a persuasive essay, or a personal reflection on police brutality, these topic ideas can help you get started and develop a compelling argument or analysis. Remember to choose a topic that interests you and aligns with your goals for the essay, whether that be raising awareness, advocating for policy changes, or exploring the impact of police brutality on society.

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Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Community Policing — Societal impacts of police brutality on community cohesion

Societal Impacts of Police Brutality on Community Cohesion

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Published: Mar 25, 2024

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Introduction, trust erosion, social relationships and well-being, community policing and cooperation, political activism and mobilization, addressing police brutality for community cohesion.

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The 25 Photos That Defined the Modern Age

A group of experts met to discuss the images that have best captured — and changed — the world since 1955.

Supported by

By M.H. Miller ,  Brendan Embser ,  Emmanuel Iduma and Lucy McKeon

• June 3, 2024

This story contains graphic images of violence and death.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Of the dozens of photographers not represented here that a reasonable person might expect to have been included, the most conspicuous absentees include Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, Richard Avedon, Dawoud Bey, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Imogen Cunningham, Roy DeCarava, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Mapplethorpe, Helmut Newton and Irving Penn. Putting together a list of the 25 most significant photographs since 1955 — both fine art photos and reportage — proved a difficult task for the panelists (even the chosen time frame was controversial). They were: the Canadian conceptual photographer Stan Douglas , 63; the Vietnamese American photographer An-My Lê , 64; the acting chief curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, Roxana Marcoci, 66; the American documentary photographer Susan Meiselas , 75; the American photographer Shikeith , 35; and Nadia Vellam, 51, T’s photo and video director. Each participant (including myself, the moderator, 36) submitted up to seven possible nominees for the list. We gathered at The New York Times Building on a morning last February (with Shikeith joining on video from a shoot in Los Angeles) to begin our deliberations.

We chose judges from the realms of both fine art and reportage because, increasingly, the line between the two has collapsed. The modern age has been defined by photographs — images that began their lives in newspapers or magazines are repurposed as art; art has become a vehicle for information. Therefore, it was important to us and our jurors that we not draw boundaries between what was created as journalism and what was created as art. What was important was that the photographs we chose changed, in some way, how we see the world.

The conversation naturally turned into a series of questions. Like how important was it for a photograph to have expanded the possibilities of the medium? And how much did it matter who took a photo and what their intentions were? The list that emerged is less concerned with a historical chronology or an accepted canon than it is with a set of themes that have been linked indelibly to the photographic medium since its inception: labor and activism; war; the self and the family. Intriguingly, beyond an image by Wolfgang Tillmans from the ’90s, fashion photography is largely absent. So, too, are many world historical events that have been captured in landmark photographs, including the assassination of JFK, the fall of the Berlin Wall and anything from the pandemic lockdown or the presidency of Donald Trump. There were just too many other photographs to consider.

The process of producing the final list was clearly not scientific. It was more of a debate among a certain group of people on a certain day and is best considered that way. At the end of nearly four hours, jittery from caffeine, the group stood before a pile of crumpled masterworks on the floor as we assembled our chosen 25 images on a conference table. Many of our questions weren’t resolved (indeed, are unresolvable), but the results — which aren’t ranked but rather presented in the order in which we discussed them — are nothing if not surprising. — M.H. Miller

The conversation has been edited and condensed.

M.H. Miller: I thought we should start by talking about the time frame we settled on, starting in 1955.

Stan Douglas: It’s an agenda.

Miller: A little bit. It certainly shows an American bias, so I apologize to our Canadian representative — 1955 is really the beginning of the American civil rights movement, an era from which a number of us nominated photographs, and photography was so important in just making people aware of what was going on in the country. An-My, you chose Robert Frank’s picture of a streetcar in New Orleans, taken that year.

1. Robert Frank, “Trolley — New Orleans,” 1955

Robert Frank used “Trolley — New Orleans” as the original cover of his influential photo book “The Americans,” first published in the United States in 1959. Frank, a Swiss émigré, spent two years traveling the States and capturing what he saw. In this photograph, two Black passengers sit at the rear of a New Orleans streetcar while four white passengers sit at the front; all look out from a row of windows, the mullions between them emphasizing their strict separation. At the time of its publication, “The Americans” was considered by several critics to be a pessimistic, angry portrait of the country. (The magazine Popular Photography famously called it a “warped” and “wart-covered” depiction “by a joyless man.”) Many more viewers and artists, however, found inspiration in the direct, unromantic style pioneered by Frank, whose outsider status likely let him view America’s contradictions from a clarifying distance. He had “sucked a sad poem out of America onto film,” as Jack Kerouac wrote in an introduction to the book. This image, shot in the months before the Montgomery bus boycotts made segregation a national debate, showed America to itself, as if for the first time. The faces in the photographs, Kerouac wrote, don’t “editorialize or criticize, or say anything but ‘this is the way we are in real life.’” — Emmanuel Iduma

An-My Lê: I tried to look for things that spoke to me, but also spoke to a generation.

Douglas: If I had to choose a civil rights image, I wouldn’t choose this one. Great photograph. But something happening on the street would be more appropriate, I think, like the dog attacking protesters , or the photo with the firemen .

Roxana Marcoci: But this was the cover of “The Americans,” and it does happen in the street, actually. I think that what you’re saying is, it’s not a photojournalistic image.

Douglas: The most important thing to me is: does a photograph reveal a new reality, or reveal something that’s been hidden previously? I think that’s a key criterion for making it significant. What impact on the world can that image have? A European might not have recognized that this was happening in the U.S. Maybe a lot of Americans in the North didn’t realize this was happening in the U.S. And I love this photograph, so I’m very happy to keep it.

2. David Jackson, Mamie Till and Gene Mobley Standing Before the Body of Emmett Till at a Chicago Funeral Home, 1955

Mamie Till fixes her eyes on her dead son, as her fiancé, Gene Mobley, holding her, stares at the viewer. Emmett Till , 14, is laid out on a cot in a Chicago funeral home, his face disfigured and bloated. His mother allowed the photojournalist David Jackson to take this picture in September 1955, a few days after two white men had abducted and murdered Till while he was visiting relatives in Mississippi. Quickly acquitted by an all-white jury, the men would go on to sell their confession to Look magazine for $4,000. When this photo was published, first in Jet magazine and then in The Chicago Defender and other Black newspapers, it incited an unprecedented level of outrage in America over racial violence; Jet had to reprint the Sept. 15, 1955, issue in which it appeared because of high demand. For the same reason Mamie Till let this picture be taken, she chose to keep her son’s coffin open during the funeral. “The murder of my son has shown me that what happens to any of us, anywhere in the world, had better be the business of us all,” she said. An estimated 100,000 people came to view his body. Jackson’s photograph was a call to action for many, including Rosa Parks, who said she thought of Till when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus later that same year. — E.I.

Miller: I feel like you can’t have this conversation, especially with the year we designated as the starting point, without talking about Emmett Till. There’s the devastating series of photographs of Till’s funeral. But there’s also the one from the trial — when Till’s great-uncle is identifying the men who murdered his nephew. The judge didn’t allow that photographer, Ernest C. Withers, to shoot in the courtroom. So it’s a miracle that the picture exists, and that it’s composed as well as it is when it had to be taken in secret. And it’s a moment where you saw a larger shift taking place. Up to that point in the South, a Black witness identifying white defendants in court was unheard-of.

Marcoci: The picture [of his body] was also about the power of the witness, right?

Susan Meiselas: Oh, for sure. Mamie Till and her insistence on an open coffin: how brave an act that was. And it ran in Jet and moved around the world.

Douglas: The issue for me with the trial picture is that it needs a paragraph to explain why we’re looking at it.

Marcoci: The courtroom was a travesty. They went free. But this, Mamie Till with her son, created a generation of Black activists.

Shikeith: I grew up in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Philadelphia, and when we were learning about Black history in the fourth or fifth grade, that picture was brazenly shared with students. It was probably the first time I learned how powerful a photograph can be in having real material change in the world. It’s an image that I’ve lived with my [whole] life, and that’s impacted how I viewed the world and racism and its violence. It scares me. But, you know, it’s the truth. The truth can be very scary for a lot of us.

Miller: Shikeith, you also selected this Gordon Parks photograph, which is one of two color images the group nominated from the 1950s and ’60s — and the second was taken from outer space.

3. Gordon Parks, “Department Store, Mobile, Alabama,” 1956

In 1956, Life magazine sent Gordon Parks to document the effects of Jim Crow segregation laws in the American South through the experiences of one extended family in Mobile, Ala. Parks was one of the few Black photojournalists to work for an establishment magazine at the time, and was known especially for his fashion photography, as is easily apparent from this image. For Life, he photographed everyday scenes — a church choir singing or children drinking from water fountains — intentionally capturing signs reading “White Only” or “ Lots for Colored .” “Department Store, Mobile, Alabama” (1956) was shot for the Life story, which ran at 12 pages under the title “The Restraints: Open and Hidden” but, for unknown reasons, it didn’t make the final edit, and it wasn’t published until 2012, when a five-volume collection of Parks’s photographs was released. “Department Store” has since become a belated icon, one of the most memorable images in a career that also includes directing the 1971 film “Shaft.” Notable most of all for its vivid color, a startling contrast to the predominantly black-and-white imagery from the civil rights era, the portrait depicts Joanne Thornton Wilson, then age 27, dressed in an ice-blue, A-line cocktail dress, with her young niece, Shirley Anne Kirksey, standing beneath the red neon “Colored Entrance” sign in front of a department store. Wilson’s upright posture and outward gaze — peering in the opposite direction of the sign’s blue arrow — subtly signify defiance. But there’s an intimacy and vulnerability in the picture, too. In 2013, Wilson, who went on to become a high school teacher, told the art historian Maurice Berger that she regretted that the strap of her slip had visibly fallen. “Dressing well made me feel first class,” she said. “I wanted to set an example.” She had set an example, of course, which Parks had recorded with such clarity: Wilson also told Berger that she refused to take her niece through the “colored” entrance. — Brendan Embser

Shikeith: I think what’s beautiful about this image is that it’s brilliantly composed — it uses beauty to draw you into a poignant moment in history, becoming a record of the Jim Crow laws in the Southern U.S. I tried to pick photographs that had an influence on me, and that I thought my mother would recognize, to indicate their influence on people who might operate outside of art history conversations. It [can be used as] a tool for educating even the youngest of minds about what marginalized communities went through.

Marcoci: I think that’s a great point: the pedagogical nature of photographs. In this picture, there’s the elegance and grace of these two figures, and then the ugliness of that “Colored Entrance” sign. There’s such a tension between them.

Nadia Vellam: You don’t immediately realize the context because you’re so attracted to the two people in the image. It asks you to spend more time looking.

Douglas: It’s quite an exquisite picture. It’s basically an X, which draws your eye into the center, which then takes you to that woman’s gaze outside the frame. Inside the frame, there’s something quite sweet. But outside — both beyond that door and out in the world that’s made that door — there’s something quite ugly.

4. Alberto Korda, “Guerrillero Heroico (Che Guevara),” 1960

Alberto Korda, a favored photographer of Fidel Castro, captured this image of a 31-year-old Che Guevara by chance during a funeral in Havana in 1960 to honor the victims of a freighter explosion. Guevara, at the time the president of the National Bank of Cuba, happened to move into Korda’s line of sight while Castro was giving a speech. His expression is one of restrained anger; the Cuban government accused the United States of being responsible for the tragedy, which it denied. Five years later, Guevara resigned from Castro’s cabinet and joined revolutionary causes abroad, including in Congo and Bolivia, where he led guerrillas in a failed coup attempt. Korda’s photo wasn’t widely published until after Guevara’s execution by Bolivian soldiers in 1967, when posters, murals and eventually T-shirts emblazoned with Guevara’s face began to appear around the world. In the original portrait, he is flanked by another man and some palm fronds, but the reproductions are cropped to show just Guevara’s head. Korda’s image made Guevara into something more than a man, or even a famous revolutionary; he became a symbol for revolution itself. — E.I.

Miller: We have two pictures of Che Guevara to consider. Stan, you picked Che following his execution , and Susan, you picked the more famous portrait of him by Alberto Korda. It’s in every college dorm.

Marcoci: It’s in every tattoo parlor.

Douglas: They’re both propaganda images. One is the revolutionary looking to the future, which we’ve seen in everything from Soviet realist paintings to Obama posters. So, in many ways, a cliché, even though it’s had this huge impact. The image of Che dead [which was taken by the Bolivian photographer Freddy Alborta] is both iconic in that it’s like [an Andrea] Mantegna [1431-1506] painting of the dead Christ [“ Lamentation Over the Dead Christ ,” circa 1480], but also as evidence, on the part of the people who killed him, that the guy is dead. It’s just such a weird photograph: the officer on the right who’s poking at Che’s body to prove he’s just a human. Just mortal. And it somehow seemed like the end of the export of revolution from Cuba, which very much shut down after Che’s death.

Meiselas: And then he’s resurrected as a tattoo.

5. Diane Arbus, “Boy With a Straw Hat Waiting to March in a Pro-War Parade, N.Y.C., 1967”

The boy in “Boy With a Straw Hat” doesn’t look like a typical Arbus subject. Wearing a prim collared shirt, bow-tie and boater hat, with one American flag at his side and another, much smaller one twisted into a bow on his lapel, the thin-lipped paradegoer seems like the paragon of anodyne conservatism. He’s nothing like the cross-dressers, carnival entertainers, nudists and others relegated to the margins of society that fascinated Arbus, whose work prompted one of the more protracted debates on the ethics of photography, as her images were so often said to skirt the lines of voyeurism and exploitation. Yet his steady gaze prompts a similar sense of unease in the viewer, as does the small pin on his jacket that reads Bomb Hanoi. “Boy With a Straw Hat” was the cover image of Artforum’s May 1971 issue, published two months before Arbus’s death by suicide at age 48. In 1972, when her posthumous MoMA retrospective drew record crowds, the art critic Hilton Kramer refuted the idea that she was merely capturing her subjects for the sake of spectacle; he argued that she collaborated with the people she photographed, and that that act of participation provided dignity — or at least authenticity — especially for those individuals who are shunned or otherwise invisible. Arbus herself once said that the “best thing is the difference. I get to keep what nobody needs.” — B.E.

Miller: A number of us nominated Diane Arbus photos.

Douglas: [I picked] the sitting room in Levittown [“ Xmas Tree in a Living Room in Levittown, L.I., 1962 ”], which is one of those suburbs created in the postwar period that people could buy [homes in] with their G.I. Bill money, in which Black people couldn’t live. It’s a case of there [being] something outside the image, which is very powerful: The construction of this new suburban reality, while Emmett Till’s being killed.

Marcoci: I chose the “Giant” [“ A Jewish Giant at Home With His Parents in the Bronx, N.Y., 1970 .”], because this was one of the first pictures where I was really thinking, “Who is that person? What would it be like to be him?”

Meiselas: One of the things that photographs do is make us emotional. Some of Arbus’s most memorable pictures are the ones that make you feel more than think.

Vellam: I’d vote for “Giant” just because it spawned so many people’s idea of portraiture: Katy Grannan, Deana Lawson, Larry Sultan. Like this idea of going into a place — in her case, middle-class suburbia — that you may not even have spent any time in otherwise. I feel like that became its own genre: There’s so much photography that has come out of her idea of going into people’s homes.

Marcoci: If I were to choose just one Arbus, I’d probably choose “Boy With a Straw Hat”: A portrait of an individual that’s this very interesting collective portrait of America, too. There’s this tension between the innocent face and then those buttons: “God Bless America” and “Bomb Hanoi.”

Shikeith: He’s sort of the archetype for the Proud Boys. You can see that smirk on his face.

Meiselas: There were pictures from the R.N.C. [Republican National Convention] four years ago that looked so much like this.

Miller: Stan and An-My both nominated a very different kind of photograph from the Vietnam War era: Malcolm Browne’s picture of Thích Quảng Đức’s self-immolation.

6. Malcolm Browne, the Self-Immolation of the Buddhist Monk Thích Quảng Đức in Saigon, 1963

The AP reporter Malcolm Browne was among the only photojournalists on the scene when the monk Thích Quảng Đức set himself on fire in 1963 in Saigon as an act of protest against the South Vietnamese government’s persecution of the Buddhist majority. As flames engulfed Quảng Đức, hundreds of monks surrounded him, mourning while he burned. The photo, sent out as soon as possible on a commercial flight to reach the AP’s offices, was published on front pages internationally the following morning. When President John F. Kennedy saw it, he reportedly exclaimed, “Jesus Christ!” and then ordered a review of his administration’s Vietnam policy. (He would later say, “No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one.”) Browne won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for the photograph, which also contributed to the collapse of support for the South Vietnamese president Ngô Đình Diệm, who was assassinated in a coup that year. President Kennedy was assassinated just a few weeks later, and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, would escalate the war. Browne’s photograph, which is newly resonant today, enshrined the act of self-immolation as the most extreme form of protest. — Lucy McKeon

Lê: I think it’s one of the most incredible monuments that exists as a photograph. [It documents] an extraordinary act of sacrifice for a cause. These days, you see [some] people protesting, and it’s all about their egos. And here, there’s no ego. It’s one of the few pictures I know that’s so violent and peaceful at the same time.

Douglas: He was there for five minutes, apparently, burning, and just didn’t flinch, didn’t say a word. This is what you do when you have no other recourse, when you feel the suppression is so severe that this is the only way you can get your statement heard.

Meiselas: It makes me think of the Napalm Girl, as well [ Nick Ut’s 1972 image of Kim Phuc Phan Thi , age 9, fleeing a napalm attack in the village of Trảng Bàng]. That moment impacted a generation. The question is, which one mobilized us further?

Lê: The Napalm Girl picture, for me, represents the notion that all Vietnamese are victims of war. I started watching war movies in college, and every time the word “Vietnam” comes up, that is the image that people have in their mind. I think the monk speaks to [something] beyond himself. He’s not a victim.

7. NASA/William A. Anders, “Earthrise,” 1968

On Christmas Eve 1968, aboard Apollo 8 during its pioneering orbit of the moon, William A. Anders photographed the Earth “rising” above the lunar horizon. The picture was the first of its kind — and it was also unplanned. Anders, the youngest of the three astronauts on the spacecraft, had been tasked with taking photographs of the moon’s craters, mountains and other geological features. He spontaneously decided, however, to include Earth in the frame when he noticed how beautiful it was. “Here was this orb looking like a Christmas tree ornament, very fragile,” Anders would recall in a NASA oral history. “And yet it was our home.” His first shot was in black and white. For the next, he switched to color, which emphasized the contrast between the moon’s gray surface and the planet’s blue-green vibrancy. “Earthrise” was the first image most of humanity saw of the planet we live on, a nature photo like none before it and a reminder of how small our world really is, in comparison with the rest of the universe. As Joni Mitchell would sing of the image, on 1976’s “ Refuge of the Roads ”: “And you couldn’t see a city on that marbled bowling ball/Or a forest or a highway/Or me here least of all. …” — E.I.

Lê: “Earthrise” isn’t the first image of the Earth seen from space. There were earlier low-resolution ones in the ’40s , made from unmanned missiles or whatever. There was one made on Apollo 4, in 1967 . But I think this one, taken by a crew member on Apollo 8 the next year with a Hasselblad, is important because it’s humbling: seeing the Earth in relationship to the Moon, and thinking about us not being the only people on this Earth. Perhaps this is when we started thinking about how we should take care of our home.

Miller: Stan, you nominated a later photo, “ Sunset on Mars ” (2005).

Douglas: I’ve always had this knee-jerk response to Apollo being American propaganda somehow, part of the arms race — who’s going to get [to the Moon] first, the U.S. or the Russians? And once the U.S. got there, they lost interest. It wasn’t really about exploration, but dominance. This image on Mars is something quite extraordinary, because in effect, the camera is a prosthesis. It’s both a very artificial one and a human one. We actually extend our vision through it.

8. Ernest C. Withers, “I Am a Man: Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tennessee,” 1968

In the last weeks of his life, Martin Luther King Jr. took part in a protest of Black sanitation workers striking for safer conditions and decent wages in Memphis, Tenn. In a speech, King emphasized the connection between the United States’ civil rights battle and the struggles of poor and disenfranchised people worldwide, a message that resonated with the crowd. Their protest signs bore the phrase “I Am a Man,” a stark acknowledgment of all the ways this most basic fact was disrespected. “We were going to demand to have the same dignity and the same courtesy any other citizen of Memphis has,” one of the participants, James Douglas, recalled in a 1978 documentary titled “I Am a Man.” The defining photo of the strike was taken by the Black photojournalist Ernest C. Withers, a Memphis native who previously shot the trial of Emmett Till’s killers, and also made famous images of the Montgomery bus boycott , the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. Withers’s picture became the official record of King’s last major civil rights action. Years later, however, Withers’s own story was revealed to have been more complicated. Like King, the photographer drew the attention of the F.B.I. Unlike King, he became a paid informant. Yet he continued to produce some of the most iconic images of the movement: On April 4, 1968, less than a week after taking this photo, Withers was on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, photographing the blood stain at the scene of King’s assassination. — L.M.

Shikeith: I think I first saw this image around the time the Million Man March was happening [in 1995]. I have a greater understanding of manhood [now] and how much of it I want to align with, and how much I don’t. But I understand how vital the need to identify as a man was in that moment.

Meiselas: I love the contrast of “I am a man,” singular, and “I am a collective.” It’s just all there: perfect distance, perfect composition. Whether or not Withers was working for the F.B.I. …

Douglas: Was he?

Meiselas: Yeah.

Douglas: And his role was to just …

Meiselas: Report on his fellow men. They paid him to spy on his colleagues. It’s a dark story. But let’s not go there.

9. Blair Stapp, Huey Newton, Black Panther Minister of Defense, 1968

In the summer of 1968, outside of the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., where Huey P. Newton stood trial for the murder of a police officer, supporters held up posters of him that instantly became synonymous with the Black Panther Party. The year before, Newton, the party’s co-founder and Minister of Defense, had collaborated with fellow Panther Eldridge Cleaver and the photographer Blair Stapp to stage a portrait of himself in a black leather jacket and a tipped beret, holding a shotgun in one hand and a spear in the other. He’s seated on a rattan peacock chair that recalls chairs woven by inmates in the United States-colonized Philippines decades earlier. Its oval back piece frames Newton’s head like an oversize halo. Two Zulu warrior shields are propped against the wall. Stapp’s portrait and the peacock chair itself have since become an enduring symbol of Black Power. Michelle Obama sat in one for her 1982 prom portrait . Melvin Van Peebles recreated the photograph in his 1995 film “Panther.” The visual artist Sam Durant memorialized Newton in bronze in 2004 , and Henry Taylor painted it in 2007 . After two hung juries, the murder charges against Newton were dropped in 1971. For him, the struggle was about survival — or as he put it, “survival pending revolution.” — B.E.

Shikeith: I was trying to think of images that my grandmothers revered in a way. I think this is one of those images that exists in a lot of Black domestic spaces as a symbol for strength and determination. And it has this royal demeanor that’s been continuously emulated in Black photographic practice, whether amateur or professional.

Marcoci: The beret is almost [like] Che’s.

Shikeith: You can see people replicating this pose on the wicker chair throughout Black portraiture in the ’80s and early ’90s. I’m really interested in photographs that’ve had a long-lasting effect on our daily lives.

10. W. Eugene Smith, “Tomoko in Her Bath,” 1972

In the Magnum photojournalist W. Eugene Smith’s picture of Tomoko Kamimura, 15, she is being bathed by her mother at their home, in Minamata, Japan. Kamimura had been born with a kind of mercury poisoning that would later come to be known as Minamata disease, caused by a chemical factory contaminating the city’s water and food supply for more than 30 years. Smith and his wife, the photographer and activist Aileen M. Smith, lived in Minamata in the early 1970s, taking thousands of photographs to document the toll of the disaster — 1,784 people died after contracting the disease and thousands were left with severe neurological and musculoskeletal disabilities. Images from the series were printed by Life magazine in 1972, and Kamimura’s portrait became, for a time, one of the most famous images in the world. Amid the public outcry, “rumors began to circulate through the neighborhood claiming that we were making money from the publicity,” Kamimura’s father, Yoshio, would later write, “but this was untrue — it had never entered our minds to profit from the photograph of Tomoko. We never dreamed that a photograph like that could be commercial.” The Chisso Corporation, which owned the factory, has paid damages to some 10,000 victims. Kamimura died in 1977, at the age of 21. Smith died the following year. Twenty years later, after a French TV network wanted to use the photograph, Aileen M. Smith transferred control of it to Kamimura’s family. They haven’t allowed the photograph to be reproduced since. — L.M.

Meiselas: Without this documentation by Eugene Smith, I don’t think Minamata and the mercury poisoning would ever have been confronted. So when you do choose to represent a victim, I hope it’s purposeful.

Douglas: I heartily agree. And it’s a beautiful image of a loving relationship between mother and daughter.

Vellam: Smith documented people, but he was also very conscious of what he was doing while he was documenting them. I think he took a very long time after he shot everyone to figure out what he even wanted to show from them.

Meiselas: He believed that they should be better understood.

11. Photo Archive Group, “Photographs From S-21: 1975-79”

Some photographs, taken in the darkest moments of history, end up saying very different things from what their creators intended — like the images that Stalin’s secret police took during the Great Purge, or the ones white spectators took of lynchings in the United States. One of the more extensive photographic records of an authoritarian regime comes from the Khmer Rouge army, which controlled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979 and whose genocidal purges of minority groups and political opponents led to the murder of almost a quarter of the country’s population. Before killing most of its victims, the army took their portraits, in part to prove to leaders that the supposed enemies of the state were indeed being executed. Of the nearly 20,000 people sent between 1975 and 1979 to what was known as the S-21 death camp, the Khmer Rouge’s most notorious torture center, only about a dozen survived. In 1994, the American nonprofit organization Photo Archive Group cleaned and cataloged more than 5,000 photographs taken of prisoners before their executions. A selection of the images, known as “Photographs from S-21: 1975-79,” was published as a book called “The Killing Fields” in 1996 and shown at MoMA the following year. Who was the girl pictured here? What had she seen? It’s impossible to know. And yet the regime’s photographic record offers a way into humanizing and remembering the victims of one of the most ruthless atrocities of the 20th century. S-21 is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where a number of the images from “Photographs From S-21: 1975-1979” are on permanent display. — L.M.

Lê: So these pictures were found in an archive in Cambodia [in 1993]. After the Khmer Rouge took over [in 1975], they went on a rampage, killing teachers and anyone who they felt wasn’t one of theirs. The bodies were buried in different locations. But they photographed these people before killing them. There were thousands of these pictures.

Douglas: If you want to make them disappear, why do you document them?

Lê: But that’s the thing. It’s the banality of evil. It’s unconscionable, right? Civilians being just collateral damage in war. Perhaps there are other ways to speak about violence, and I think this [set of photographs] certainly does.

12. Cindy Sherman, “Untitled Film Stills,” 1977-80

Cindy Sherman was 23 when she began making her “Untitled Film Stills,” a series of 70 black-and-white staged self-portraits that explore stereotypes of women in film and mass media. As a student at Buffalo State College, where she originally studied painting, she became fascinated by performers such as Vito Acconci and Chris Burden, artists who put their own bodies center stage. Sherman also liked to dress up as stock characters for parties, purchasing clothes from flea markets and experimenting with cosmetics. In “Untitled Film Stills,” she plays the career girl, ingénue, librarian , mistress, femme fatale and runaway , alternately heartbroken, hung over, daydreaming or determined to escape a predator as though trapped in some film noir. But which film? That feeling of vague recognition was Sherman’s point, as well as that of other artists of the era experimenting with pictures from mass media, who would eventually be called the Pictures Generation, a name based on a 1977 exhibition curated by Douglas Crimp . They wanted viewers to almost recognize the images, so as to heighten the uncanny nature of their work. Sherman initially sold eight-by-ten prints from “Untitled Film Stills” for $50 out of a binder from her desk at her day job as a receptionist at the nonprofit gallery Artists Space in New York. Douglas Eklund, who organized a Pictures Generation exhibition in 2009, noted that the series “never ceases to astonish, as if Sherman knew how to operate all of the machinery of mass-cultural representation with one hand tied behind her back.” Her intuitive grasp of the self-portrait’s theatrical appeal, especially when that self could be manipulated — decades before anyone could have imagined camera filters on an iPhone — has kept “Untitled Film Stills” relevant ever since. — B.E.

Marcoci: There’s something about the “Untitled Film Stills.” It’s this relationship between still and moving images. Cindy Sherman has the capacity to encapsulate, in a single [work], a narrative. She calls on this pantheon of women’s roles from movies that we think we’ve seen, but none of them are based on an actual film still. There’s one [“Untitled Film Still #13,” 1978] where she looks like Brigitte Bardot in a head scarf from Jean-Luc Godard’s “Contempt” (1963), but she’s a librarian. She’s reaching for a book. She makes the Bardot type into an intellectual, which is [an agency] that most male Hollywood filmmakers of the time, or even a filmmaker like Godard, would not have given the real Bardot. She was able to see something about how we engage with mass media and tweak it.

Douglas: I’m not convinced about Sherman. [There’s] an art-world canonization of the work. How important was it? How influential? I don’t think it was that important or influential outside of a very small area.

Marcoci: On the other hand, if you ask people if they know about Sherman, they probably do.

Lê: They do. Many young women find Sherman’s work empowering.

Marcoci: I never thought that we would just be considering photojournalism.

Meiselas: No.

Douglas: I mean, looking at the art world, I would include Ed Ruscha’s “Every Building on the Sunset Strip” [1966].

13. Ed Ruscha, “Every Building on the Sunset Strip,” 1966

As a teenager in Oklahoma City in the 1950s, Ed Ruscha delivered newspapers by bicycle daily along a two-mile route. He dreamed about making a model of all the buildings on his circuit, he later recalled in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, “like an architect standing over a table and plotting out a city.” After moving to Los Angeles for art school in 1956, Ruscha became obsessed with the city’s architecture, particularly on the Sunset Strip, that part of Sunset Boulevard that stretches for about two miles, like his old paper route, across West Hollywood. In 1966, Ruscha photographed both sides of the Strip by securing a motorized camera to the bed of a pickup truck. The result was “Every Building on the Sunset Strip,” a nearly 25-foot accordion-fold, self-published artist’s book. Today, Ruscha is most famous for his text-based paintings, many of which reference corporate logos and advertising slogans, for which he is widely celebrated as postwar America’s answer to the Dadaist nonsense movement. But his photography shares with the paintings a repetitive, deadpan humor. In addition to the Sunset Strip, Ruscha photographed swimming pools, gas stations, parking lots and apartments, and collected the images into small books that provoked the ire of critics — and fellow photographers — who deemed the work lacking in style and meaning. (“Only an idiot would take pictures of nothing but the filling stations,” the photographer Jeff Wall once complained.) But what he created was a kind of time travel, a meticulous, obsessive visual cartography of a long-lost Los Angeles. He and his brother, Paul, still make the trip to photograph the street every couple of years. — B.E.

Marcoci: I love [Ed] Ruscha, and I think we’ve barely touched on conceptual photography. Obviously superimportant, but is he really the photographer that did so much for photography through that series?

Meiselas: I know what you mean. Of course, because the photographs came way early, we rediscovered them after he became famous for painting.

Miller: Well, he’s certainly not as famous as a photographer as some people on this list, but I don’t know if we need to get hung up on that.

Douglas: I think “Sunset Strip” was extraordinary. Ruscha produces photographs governed by a hard-core conceptual procedure. In the case of “Every Building on the Sunset Strip,” the procedure is in the title and, in order to fulfill it, he had to make hundreds of stops along a Los Angeles street. But I also thought this was too inside the art world.

Miller: Maybe this is a good time to talk about Nan Goldin.

14. Nan Goldin, “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency,” 1979-2004

Nan Goldin originally presented “Ballad,” named after a song from Bertolt Brecht’s satirical musical “The Threepenny Opera,” as a series of 35-millimeter slides shown by a carousel projector in bars and nightclubs and backed by an eclectic soundtrack — from Dean Martin to the Velvet Underground. Goldin’s visual diary is itself a bohemian opera of New York’s downtown counterculture, a community freed from convention yet abandoned many times over by society; it documents sex, addiction, beauty, violence, powerful friendship, the AIDS crisis and the joyful struggle to live beyond the limits of the mainstream. Friends were photographed doing the twist at a party or preparing to inject heroin. In “Nan One Month After Being Battered” (1984), a portrait of domestic abuse, the artist’s bloodshot eye meets the lens head-on. Goldin’s “Ballad” has since been credited with inspiring everything from selfie culture to the raw, diaristic aesthetic and saturated color now commonplace across social media and in fine art. Over the years, Goldin would revise and update the series, presenting it with new images and a different soundtrack, and it would become an ubiquitous presence in galleries and museums. But because the work has so thoroughly permeated the culture, it’s easy to overlook just how radical it was when it debuted. In “ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed ,” Laura Poitras’s 2022 documentary about Goldin, the photographer describes a resistance to her art in the ’80s, “especially from male artists and gallerists who said ‘This isn’t photography. Nobody photographs their own life.’ It was still a kind of outlier act.” — L.M.

Marcoci: We’re talking about an artist who’s very much engaged with youth culture, with the cultures that transgress gender binaries. Also with the ravages of a generation that takes drugs, that loves, that dies young. “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” is a ballad. It shows this group of people as images set to music.

Meiselas: It was radical, it was very impactful to the photographic medium. But here’s my question: Would we be choosing either Nan [Goldin] or Cindy Sherman if we didn’t know their names?

Marcoci: Did you watch the “Ballad”?

Meiselas: Of course. I watched it in 1985.

Marcoci: How many times?

Meiselas: How many times has she changed it?

Marcoci: But even that I like. You don’t need to choose one picture. It’s interesting for me when photography is not just a moment that’s frozen in time, when it has the capacity to change.

15. Wolfgang Tillmans, “Lutz, Alex, Suzanne & Christoph on Beach (B/W),” 1993

A slightly different, color image of the same people in “Lutz, Alex, Suzanne & Christoph on Beach (B/W)” was first published by i-D magazine in 1993 for an unconventional fashion story about camouflage. The German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans staged the scene in Bournemouth, England, where he’d attended art school the previous year, and captured a whorl of bodies in military fatigues, each person clasping another’s arm, thigh or chest, and all wearing camouflage patterns from different countries — a post-Cold War utopia. The black-and-white version was printed on color paper, which accounts for the warmth of its tone. On the beach, Lutz, Alex, Suzanne and Christoph appear as if from a scene in Charles and Ray Eames’s 1977 short film “Powers of Ten,” which zooms out from a sunny picnic into the farthest reaches of the universe. Tillmans’s photograph “seems to model something like chosen family,” says the curator Phil Taylor, who edited a collection of the artist’s interviews. The way Tillmans envisions family in this early portrait — as a tight embrace amid the implied violence of the outside world — is emblematic of the way he would go on to depict men kissing at gay nightclubs or activists at antiwar demonstrations, each a picture of solidarity against the odds. — B.E.

Lê: I think Wolfgang [Tillmans] captured youth culture — in magazines like i-D and The Face — at a time [the early ’90s] when young people were being captured in a different way: It was very clinical and idealized, and he just came out with this very real [take on] youth culture. The pictures were a little more grainy, and I think it [changed] the way young people are seen. My students always bring up his work. I think it’s a way to photograph your family and friends and turn them into real protagonists. And I see that influence as very long-lasting.

Marcoci: What’s interesting in this image is [that] it’s four friends on a beach, dressed in camouflage. Camouflage immediately makes you think of military uniforms, of obedience, of listening to orders. But in the techno culture of these clubs in the 1990s, it had become a symbol of individuality and freedom: the exact opposite of what the uniform means.

Meiselas: This image, if I didn’t know his name, I would’ve just turned the page.

Lê: I think we need a picture that speaks about youth. And I think even though this picture was made in ’93 …

Miller: … That’s still how young people are photographed today.

16. Lee Friedlander, “Boston,” 1986, From the Series “At Work,” 1975-95

Lee Friedlander is best known for photographing America’s social landscape, from mundane street scenes in the Midwest to nudes of Madonna that were taken in the late 1970s. Between 1975 and 1995, he created six series of photographs depicting employees at different types of workplaces, including Rust Belt factories, a telemarketing call center and a New York investment firm. One of these series, commissioned by the M.I.T. Museum and produced between 1985 and 1986, looks at office workers in the Boston area who used desktop computers for their jobs. At the time, this was a fairly new development, but one that Friedlander presciently recognized would come to define not just corporate life but humanity itself. His subjects are often seemingly oblivious — or indifferent — to the presence of the camera. Likewise, his camera often omits the computers themselves, the ostensible subject of his images. Instead, the workers, sitting at brightly lit desks, are pictured from the chest up, their detached expressions familiar to any of us as they sit engrossed in (or bored by) screens just out of frame. With this series Friedlander had tapped into the dark comedy of the mundane. His influence can be seen in a generation of younger photographers who seek to question everyday life — from Alec Soth to LaToya Ruby Frazier — and whose images would mostly be viewed on screens. — E.I.

Marcoci: I love this series.

Douglas: I love it, too, but I put this in out of guilt for not having more art people in here. It’s images of these people just engaged in the world around them.

Meiselas: In autonomous labor. I remember when I first saw this series of white-collar workers in front of machines.

Lê: No one had done that before.

17. LaToya Ruby Frazier, “The Last Cruze,” 2019

LaToya Ruby Frazier’s series “The Last Cruze,” named after the compact car made by General Motors, follows the 2019 closure of an auto plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that had been open since 1966. Over nine months, Frazier documented the impact one corporation can have on a community, which lost thousands of jobs. The work was first presented as a multimedia installation: More than 60 portraits and video interviews with union workers and their families were mounted to orange metal trusses at the Renaissance Society in Chicago. In the accompanying monograph, Frazier included essays by artists and critics as well as members of the local chapter of the United Auto Workers union. On its cover is this photograph, which she shot from a helicopter, showing a group of workers and their families protesting the plant’s abrupt shuttering and requesting a new product to work on. Other images show Lordstown residents in various states of mourning — wiping away tears or proudly displaying union memorabilia. Born in a Pennsylvania steel manufacturing town, Frazier embedded herself with the Ohio workers, producing one of the most detailed records of the gutting of America’s working class. “‘The Last Cruze’ is a workers’ monument,” she has said. “It is half-holy, half-assembly line.” — L.M.

Marcoci: LaToya Ruby Frazier is a true artist-activist. These workers were losing their pension plans, their health benefits, you name it. It’s a work that includes more than 60 pictures of union workers along with their testimonies, because she also did these interviews with them.

Miller: I think “The Last Cruze” might be the only complete photographic record we have of the impact that corporate decision-making has on a work force. GM skipped town, cut their costs and the people of Lordstown were left holding the bag. We have another picture, nominated by Susan, that also documents labor.

18. Sebastião Salgado, “Serra Pelada Gold Mine, State of Pará, Brazil,” 1986

One of the most striking aspects of Sebastião Salgado’s photographs of an open-air gold mine in Brazil is the scale. Several thousand men — their bodies hunched and fragile — are rendered miniature against the backdrop of a massive pit in the earth. In the photos, most of the miners are climbing into or out of that pit, holding tools or ferrying sacks up and down narrow ladders and steep slopes. In several shots, Salgado chose not to include the horizon within the frame; the viewer can’t see where the workers’ dangerous journey ends. The photographer, who was born in the state of Minas Gerais (which means “general mines”) in Brazil, spent 35 days at Serra Pelada, living alongside the miners while he took these photographs. When they were published in 1987 in The New York Times Magazine, they revealed a late-20th-century gold rush and the appalling conditions facing those at the bottom of it. In the nearly four decades since, Salgado has gone on to capture the burning oil wells in Kuwait, the genocide in Rwanda and the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Some critics have labeled him an “aesthete of misery,” using the plight of the poor and disenfranchised to make visually striking pictures. When these images are exhibited in a fine art context, their size is so massive, the sheer aesthetics of the imagery threaten to eclipse the act of documentation. But in a profile in The Guardian this year marking his 80th birthday, Salgado responded, “I came from the third world. When I was born, Brazil was a developing country. The pictures I took, I took from my side, from my world, from where I come from. … The flaw my critics have, I don’t. It’s the feeling of guilt.” — E.I.

Meiselas: The scale of what he presented to us at the time was really quite amazing.

Douglas: It was like, “Holy moly, that’s still going on?”

Meiselas: Exactly.

19. Stuart Franklin, an Unidentified Man Blocking a Column of Tanks in Tiananmen Square, 1989

On June 4, 1989, as a column of tanks rolled into formation on Chang’an Avenue bordering Tiananmen Square, the Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin watched from the sixth-floor balcony of the nearby Beijing Hotel. He was holed up there with several other foreign correspondents, who were all covering the weekslong protests, led by hundreds of thousands of unarmed students, against the Chinese Community Party. The previous night, the People’s Liberation Army had cleared the area with force; that morning, they prevented parents from looking for students lost in the fray, and the soldiers fired live rounds even as medics attempted to rush the injured to safety. (Thousands are thought to have been killed in the protests, although an official death toll has never been released.) Suddenly, a young man in a white shirt and dark pants, holding shopping bags in his hands, approached the first tank. On the video footage, it attempts to maneuver around him. Like a matador taunting a bull, he flings his arms in fury and, when the tank turns back, the man jumps out again. Yet the dramatic photograph Franklin took, with five tanks and a destroyed bus in the frame, draws its power from its stillness, its potential energy. (Four other photographers are known to have captured the same scene, including Jeff Widener, whose tightly framed version for The Associated Press ran on the front page of The Times.) Authoritarian regimes cannot tolerate symbolic images of resistance and, while the Tank Man — whose identity has never been confirmed — became an inspiration for pro-democracy movements across the world, he was snuffed out from official Chinese memory. Today, image searches in China for “Tiananmen Square” only turn up cheerful pictures of a tourist destination. — B.E.

Douglas: Multiple photographers shot this image because they were all in the same corner of a hotel overlooking Tiananmen Square. They couldn’t really shoot anywhere else on the square. The first time I saw this scene, it was a video.

Meiselas: Right, there was a television camera. The stills are very different. And I don’t care whose image it is. I’m thinking about the man in front of the tank and what happens when one man stands up. And I love how this looks alongside Ernest Withers’s “I Am a Man.”

20. Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, “The Day Nobody Died,” 2008

In 2008, the artist duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin were embedded with the British Army in Afghanistan during a period that was, at the time, the deadliest week since the war began in 2001. They brought a lightproof box containing a roll of photographic paper, and, occasionally, exposed six-meter segments of the paper to the sun for 20 seconds at a time. They were creating photograms, which, as opposed to conventional war photographs, display the marks of their making but little else. The resulting works — 12 in total — set out “to create a kind of post-mortem of photojournalistic representation of conflict,” as the artists wrote when the work was first exhibited. They made these images on days when a BBC fixer was executed or a suicide attack killed nine Afghan soldiers. But they also made one on the day that the title refers to — a day with no fatalities. In a literal sense, there isn’t anything to see in the images except splashes of light as abstract as a blurry sonogram. When Broomberg and Chanarin arrived in Afghanistan, the war was in its seventh year and, by then, a surfeit of photographs depicting death and violence had long been circulating. There’s hardly consensus on what to leave out when depicting war, but there is some consensus on the need to bear witness. With their photograms, Broomberg and Chanarin found a new, unexpected, but no less emotional way of doing so. — E.I.

Miller: There were a lot of different kinds of images of war from the George W. Bush era. Nadia, you nominated Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin’s “The Day Nobody Died,” which is very abstract.

Douglas: What is it?

Vellam: They did this project in Afghanistan where they took rolls of photo paper and put them outside, exposing them to the sun or the weather. Whatever would happen while the photo paper was exposed was the work. It’s about a new idea of photography, about it not depicting something specific but creating a mood. And this one was taken, as the title says, on a day nobody died, which is such an interesting and different way to talk about a conflict.

21. Richard Drew, “Falling Man,” 2001

When it was first published by The Associated Press, the photojournalist Richard Drew’s image of a man falling to his death from the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, was denounced by many readers as exploitative. Several media outlets published the image once, on Sept. 12 — including The Times, on page A7 — but it then disappeared from circulation, confined to shock websites like rotten.com. There was no shortage of graphic images of 9/11, including footage of the planes flying into the buildings. But Drew’s photo was uniquely unsettling because of its uncomfortable elegance: a single victim, framed by both north and south towers, caught in a fragile stasis before death. The image eventually began a strange afterlife as “one of the most famous photographs in human history,” according to the journalist Tom Junod, who wrote a 2003 essay in Esquire in which he attempts to identify the falling man. He couldn’t — not definitively. No one has. Recalling war photography that valorizes the unknown soldier, “Falling Man” would go on to be one of the inspirations for a novel by Don DeLillo and an opera by Daniel Levy. Long after the dust settled on the former site of the World Trade Center, the photograph of the unnamed man remains, like “an unmarked grave,” in Junod’s words, merely asking that we look at it. — E.I.

Miller: I think “Falling Man” is the defining image from the most violent day in America since the Civil War.

Shikeith: I was in middle school when 9/11 happened. Images from that day seem to seep into you. You carry them for life and they dictate certain fears and anxieties.

Miller: And then there are all the images from what happened in the years to come. The pictures of soldiers torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib military prison are arguably the most famous photographs from the war on terror.

22. Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick II, Abu Ghraib Hooded Detainee, 2003

In early 2004, investigations into abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib detention facility had already been reported by news outlets including The New York Times and CNN. But the government had kept all photographs of torture out of view — until leaked images reached CBS. Even then, the news anchor Dan Rather would claim, the network’s executives only granted permission to show them when faced with the threat of a scoop by The New Yorker’s investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. (CBS executives justified holding the photos on various grounds, including the desire to avoid retaliation against American hostages.) The Abu Ghraib photos finally appeared in both outlets later that year. Their subject matter is brutal: men stripped naked and made to form a human pyramid with soldiers grinning behind them; a hooded man standing atop a box, hooked to electrical wires. The fact that American soldiers had recorded these scenes on their personal cameras only made them more disturbing. The photos significantly shifted American public opinion on the war on terror, further demonstrating the power of an image to alter a story. They also speak to a broader shift in news photography, in which everyone — no matter their intentions — is now a potential journalist. — L.M.

Shikeith: Both “Falling Man” and the hooded Iraqi detainee have a hard-core bodily effect on me. I think there was a sort of naïveté to the world I grew up in, just this idea that America is the greatest place on earth. For a moment there, we believed the myth. At least I did. When I started seeing these images, I developed a distrust in a lot of things. It only got worse. I have a very pessimistic outlook, but it sort of begins here, with these images.

23. Carrie Mae Weems, “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried,” 1995-96

Carrie Mae Weems’s “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” is a work of appropriation that brings together 34 photographs, many of them of Black Americans, dating from the mid-19th century to the late 1960s, which collectively form a lesson on the history of racism in America. At the heart of the work are four images of people who were enslaved in South Carolina — some of the earliest known images that exist of America’s original sin — taken by the photographer Joseph T. Zealy and commissioned in 1850 by the Harvard University biologist Louis Agassiz. Originally intended to illustrate Agassiz’s baseless phrenological theories of Black inferiority, the pictures were rescaled and reframed by Weems, who also tinted them blood-red, making explicit the violence that allowed for their creation. Stored in Harvard’s archives for more than a century, Zealy’s images fell into obscurity, only to be rediscovered in 1976. After Weems used them without permission, the school threatened her with a lawsuit. “I think that your suing me would be a really good thing,” she told the university, as she later recalled to the art historian Deborah Willis. “You should, and we should have this conversation in court.” Instead of proceeding with the suit, Harvard acquired the work, further complicating the idea of ownership that Weems investigates. — E.I.

Vellam: We should talk about Carrie [Mae Weems].

Meiselas: We should definitely talk about Carrie. There are two very different options [“ Kitchen Table Series ,” 1990, and “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried.”]

Lê: I chose the “Kitchen Table Series” [in which Weems poses as the matriarch in various domestic scenes she staged in a single room, containing little else but an overhead lamp and a table]. The kitchen table is symbolic — it’s the intimacy of the home. In a way I always felt these pictures were about people being able to be themselves, being open and visible in a way that they maybe can’t in public.

Marcoci: To me, the “Kitchen Table Series” is a true performance for the camera in a way that Cindy’s is in “Untitled Film Stills.” But “From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried” is an amazing work because it engages with race, with slavery, with colonialism, through an archive. The subjects here were really originally presented as specimens. But what Carrie does is give a voice back to these subjects, whose voices were completely muted. She enlarges the photographs. She tints them blood-red. The whole thing becomes a poem.

Shikeith: This particular work taught me how to use photographs to tell a story. And the fact that [Harvard threatened to sue her] introduces this whole other issue about who gets to tell what stories.

24. Deana Lawson, “Nation,” 2018

The idea for “Nation” came to Deana Lawson in a dream. She was haunted by a story that George Washington’s false teeth were made from the teeth of enslaved people . For months, she kept an image of Washington’s dentures — held in Mount Vernon’s collection — on the wall of her bedroom. Lawson dreamed about a person wearing a mouth guard and wondered if she might forge a connection between the majesty of gold — the jewelry of hip-hop and the regalia of the Ashanti Kingdom — and the fact that the first president of the United States could only speak the lofty words of liberty through teeth that once belonged to the oppressed. Lawson is known for portraits she stages in homes and other intimate spaces, often decorated with a large array of objects: family pictures, children’s toys, a Michael Jackson poster. In her images, Black men and women, their skin captured in color with meticulous attention to shade and tone, appear not as documentary subjects but as vessels. “Her people seem to occupy a higher plane, a kingdom of restored glory,” the novelist Zadie Smith has written of Lawson’s photography. At the photo shoot for “Nation,” Lawson offered three hip-hop artists a selection of jewelry and a mouth guard, typically worn during dental procedures, painted gold. “Someone said that I’m ruthless when it comes to what I want,” Lawson says in an interview in her self-titled 2018 monograph. “I have an image in mind that … burns so deeply that I have to make it, and I don’t care what people are going to think.” “Nation” presents an endless series of questions about Black lineage, going back centuries before the nation’s founding. Lawson later printed the picture of Washington’s teeth on a card and slipped it into the edge of the work’s golden frame. — B.E.

Miller: Deana Lawson seems to be doing something similar to Weems in “Nation.”

Marcoci: I think that’s an amazing image. It’s actually a collage, with the picture of George Washington’s dentures tucked into the top right corner. She’s said photography has the power to make history and the present speak to each other.

25. Carlijn Jacobs, “Renaissance,” 2022

On July 29, 2022, when Beyoncé released “Renaissance,” the first of what she’s envisioned as a three-act magnum opus (act two, “Cowboy Carter,” was released this March), the public was exhausted after two and a half years of pandemic restrictions and unprecedented change to their daily routines. They were stir-crazy and impatient for the dance floor. Beyoncé embraced the sounds of house music pioneered by Black and queer D.J.s, as well as the subversive, high-gloss styling of ballroom culture. The singer appears on the album’s cover in a Giannina Azar-designed silver rope dress, sitting astride a horse covered in mirrors. The image was taken by Carlijn Jacobs, a Dutch fashion photographer interested in the art of masquerade and maximalist glamour, and alludes to both rodeo and royalty. It also conjures a range of artistic references, including Kehinde Wiley’s painting “ Equestrian Portrait of Isabella of Bourbon ” (2016); Rose Hartman’s snapshots of Bianca Jagger on a white horse at Studio 54 in 1977; and John Collier’s 1890s painting of Lady Godiva, the 11th-century Englishwoman said to have rode her horse naked through the streets as a form of protest. — B.E.

Vellam: Does anybody else feel like we’re missing a pop-culture celebrity moment? If we’re talking about images that go everywhere, and that people who live in the middle of the country all are going to look at, I don’t feel we have that.

Douglas: I think it’s important to include the idea of celebrity culture in photography. I’m not quite sure what that would be.

Lê: There’s the [2017] picture of Beyoncé pregnant with all the flowers .

Miller: Initially, Shikeith had also picked Beyoncé from the album cover of “Dangerously in Love” (2003).

Marcoci: But sorry, why don’t we then just choose a [Richard] Avedon of a celebrity?

Vellam: Marilyn Monroe [from 1957]. But don’t we feel like we have plenty of photographs from the past? Don’t we want to think about what celebrity is now?

Miller: What’s the iconic pop culture image from the last five years?

Douglas: Is there a Kardashian image?

Vellam: I can’t, because I hate them so much. But yes, you want the thing of [Kim Kardashian] when she broke the internet with her butt [an image that ran on the cover of Paper magazine in 2014].

Douglas: I’m going back to Beyoncé, because [you want] an image of a celebrity who’s not a person but an image. She’s like a simulacrum somehow.

Vellam: With her “Renaissance” cover, suddenly she was plastered everywhere. It was all over the city.

Douglas: I’d buy that.

Shikeith: I think it’s very important that she released this album and highlighted Black queer contributions to music in the culture because, very frequently, those same contributions are erased or attributed to someone else. Especially in pop culture.

Marcoci: Can you hold it up on your phone?

Vellam: Yeah. I listen to it all the time.

Top: Gordon Parks, “Department Store, Mobile, Alabama” (1956) © the Gordon Parks Foundation; NASA/William A. Anders, “Earthrise” (1968); Alberto Korda, “Guerrillero Heroico (Che Guevara)” (1960) © Alberto Korda, courtesy of the Alberto Korda Estate; Stuart Franklin, an unidentified man blocking a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square (1989) © Stuart Franklin/Magnum Photos; Deana Lawson, “Nation” (2018) © Deana Lawson, courtesy of the artist and David Kordansky Gallery; LaToya Ruby Frazier, “United Auto Workers and Their Families Holding up ‘Drive It Home’ Campaign Signs Outside UAW Local 1112 Reuther Scandy Alli Union Hall, Lordstown, OH, 2019,” from the series “The Last Cruze” (2019) © LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery

M.H. Miller is a features director for T Magazine. More about M.H. Miller

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