Police violence and health
The year 2020 has been quite heavy on all of us. During a pandemic, many took to the streets to exercise their rights and raise their voices against police violence and brutality. We often speak about police brutality as a problem in the United States, but countless evidence has shown that police violence is evident here in the UK and across the world. The protested were ignited by the unlawful murder of George Floyd, communities and countries came together to support the cause and it also helped highlight many injustices we deal with as a society. It also helped others to start speaking out against the injustice they face too. In Uganda, Namibia and Nigeria, young people took to the street to voice their fatigue at the improper treatment of civilians by authorities meant to protect.
The Nigerian #EndSARS movement rippled globally. The movement began as a protest against the country’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad founded in 1992 to tackle crimes associated with robberies, firearms and kidnappings. However, the squad quickly began to abuse their authority and have been linked to the very crimes they were set to prevent. On the 20th of October, peaceful protestors were met with violence by the police at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos state, a moment now known as the Lekki Massacre. These events have highlighted that violence perpetrated by police is a public health issue. Experiences of police brutality effects people’s lives negatively, both directly and indirectly. Police brutality is often correlated to excessive force used by police to inflict harm on individuals, but brutality goes beyond the use of force. It includes emotional assault, verbal abuse, intimidation, discrimination, bribery, kidnaping and in some cases, sexual violence. Everyone can be subject to police brutality, especially in places like Nigeria where the majority of the population is stratified into ethnic groups or tribes as oppose to race. However, there are some people who are more at risk of violence at the hands of police. Marginalised groups like people with mental health problems, LGBTQI individual, people with low income and sex workers are impacted at a much higher rate.
The most direct pathway between police violence and health is death. Police violence kills people, and often without much repercussion. Life expectancy is an important measure of population health, and police violence reduces life expectancy of a population and increases death rates. In the United States, 1 in 1000 Black men will die at the hands of police, making it the leading cause of death for Black men aged 25–29. For Black women, they are 2.5 times more likely to die due to police violence than White women. Nigerian police have been found to have routinely engaged in shootings, beatings, and assaults leading to death and disappearance. For some victims of police violence, death results from injury whilst in police custody. The injuries sustained can be long-lasting and reduce individuals and family’s quality of life. There are many accounts of police brutality that have left victims paralysed, made them amputees, blind and the like. These injuries add a financial burden to families paying out of pocket for hospital visits and treatment. They also pose as an added burden to the health system; these types of injuries are preventable and thus essentially take resources from those who would need it for other types of illnesses.
Every instance of police brutality has emotional and psychological affects on individuals, families and their communities. Witnessing, experiencing, hearing stories of friends, family or people who look like you and having to worry about being a victim yourself all add to a person’s level of stress. Recurring and persistent stress levels can have negative consequences on physiological processes in the body. It subjects the body to higher risks of diseases such as diabetes, stroke, cognitive impairment and premature death. Police harassment affects the health of entire communities, it creates a ripple affect whereby seeing a person brutalised by police takes a psychological toll on an individual. It is more than just feeling melancholic at the injustice of another person, it is the worry that it could happen to someone you know, it could also happen to you. In the case of the SARS movement, the social unrest was felt by Nigerian and non-Nigerian people worldwide. It sparked a conversation that we are all familiar with, creating an added burden for those experiencing it first-hand in the country and to those of the diaspora. It creates a devaluation of lives and adds to the collective anxiety felt by Black people everywhere.
The heavy load carried by those who experience police brutality either directly or indirectly have been a leading factor in people protesting during a pandemic. A colleague questioned why people would risk their lives to attend a protest at a time when we are encouraged to stay home and social distance. What the colleague failed to understand is that Black lives are in danger by institutions like police, pandemic or no pandemic.
The impact of police brutality is bigger than just those it affects. It highlights the imbalance of power experienced by everyday people. It breeds mistrust in institutions set to protect civilians. People do not trust police, so they will probably not call for help when they are in danger, which can affect effective police work, making communities less safe leading to more public health threats. Also, mistrust in one institution can be carried into others. Lack of trust in police has a direct effect on public health as healthcare is another institution. Healthcare is meant to keep people safe, but it is due to abusive systematic powers that people may believe that medical institution does not have their best interests at heart.
Police brutality is a public health issue. One of the main objectives of public health is to reduce preventable causes of death, disease and illness. Police brutality does not have a stand-alone effect, it creates societal implication for health and wellbeing, for individuals, families and communities. There is limited evidence on the extent of the issue in African countries as they are not as research led as the west. One thing for certain is that the Nigerian youth have called for the abolishment of SARS as a task force, and for officers to be held accountable for the injustices they have caused. This solution is not just one that will reduce police violence and brutality but can lead to increased life expectancy, quality of life and reduced stress for the Nigerian population.
