by American Civil Liberties Union

About the author: The American Civil Liberties Union is a national organization that works to defend civil rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The following viewpoint is excerpted from their publication Fighting Police Abuse: A Community Action Manual.

The bad news is... police abuse is a serious problem. It has a long history, and it seems to defy all attempts at eradication.

The problem is national; no police department in the country is known to be completely free of misconduct. Yet it must be fought locally; the nation’s 19,000 law enforcement agencies are essentially independent. While some federal statutes specify criminal penalties for willful violations of civil rights and conspiracies to violate civil rights, the United States Department of Justice has been insufficiently aggressive in prosecuting cases of...