“Unlawful homicide is a social construct”
In the United Kingdom (UK) homicide is a serious offence (Ioannou and Hammond, 2015), and have risen by 24 percent in 2014/15 (ONS, 2016). According to Ioannou and Hammond (2015), homicide is a violent crime when one human ends another’s life and can be seen as lawful, where state justifies killings, and unlawful, where killings are criminalised. Unlawful killing can divided into murder, infanticide and manslaughter (Ioannou and Hammond, 2015). Manslaughter is categories into voluntary, where an offender knowingly causing a death to another human being, and involuntary, when death occur as an accident or as a result of recklessness (Ioannou and Hammond, 2015). However, it has to be pointed out that …show more content…
This effectively made the state concentrate on the crime control by criminalising some behaviours (Williams, 2012), that led to construction of legal acts and legislations (Haralambos et al, 2008), which help to maintain cultural biases or social prejudice (Polizzi, 2016). Agreeably, Durkheim argues that in order to keep people protected society holds social bonds that unites one with other through labour or in many different forms (Cavadino et al., 2013), arguably making the police is seen as one of the important bonds in the society (Council of Europe, 1997). Indeed, the Council of Europe (1997), stating that actions of the police are directed to protect society’s interests which have been performed by …show more content…
In the inquest of Ian Tomlinson’s death the police officer claimed that his actions were in self-defence and he genuinely believed that the victim, who was walking away with his hands in pockets, was posing “risk or unknown risk” (IPCC, 2010, p. 104), by displaying hostility and refusing to move away. As a result the police officer felt the need to inflict force on the victim which was justified by claiming that it was “a mere gesture” (p.108), reasonable and not unjust (IPCC, 2010). However, the inquest into Ian Tomlinson death disputed this clam (IPCC, 2010). According to independent valuation of the force that have been inflicted by the police officer on Ian Tomlinson it have been stated that police officer’s both hills were raised from the ground and the push was with all his body weight that is was forceful and unjust (IPCC, 2010). Furthermore, it have been pointed out that police officer did not assessed or search Ian Tomlinson to establish the presumed risk and that the victim was walking away from the cordon tactics with his back turned to the police officer which indicated that he already complied with the order to keep moving (IPCC, 2010), therefore not posing any threat. This arguably demonstrates that police officer did not have a genuine believe of imminent threat that could justify his force in self-defence that led to death of the victim (CJIA,
In the United Kingdom (UK) homicide is a serious offence (Ioannou and Hammond, 2015), and have risen by 24 percent in 2014/15 (ONS, 2016). According to Ioannou and Hammond (2015), homicide is a violent crime when one human ends another’s life and can be seen as lawful, where state justifies killings, and unlawful, where killings are criminalised. Unlawful killing can divided into murder, infanticide and manslaughter (Ioannou and Hammond, 2015). Manslaughter is categories into voluntary, where an offender knowingly causing a death to another human being, and involuntary, when death occur as an accident or as a result of recklessness (Ioannou and Hammond, 2015). However, it has to be pointed out that …show more content…
This effectively made the state concentrate on the crime control by criminalising some behaviours (Williams, 2012), that led to construction of legal acts and legislations (Haralambos et al, 2008), which help to maintain cultural biases or social prejudice (Polizzi, 2016). Agreeably, Durkheim argues that in order to keep people protected society holds social bonds that unites one with other through labour or in many different forms (Cavadino et al., 2013), arguably making the police is seen as one of the important bonds in the society (Council of Europe, 1997). Indeed, the Council of Europe (1997), stating that actions of the police are directed to protect society’s interests which have been performed by …show more content…
In the inquest of Ian Tomlinson’s death the police officer claimed that his actions were in self-defence and he genuinely believed that the victim, who was walking away with his hands in pockets, was posing “risk or unknown risk” (IPCC, 2010, p. 104), by displaying hostility and refusing to move away. As a result the police officer felt the need to inflict force on the victim which was justified by claiming that it was “a mere gesture” (p.108), reasonable and not unjust (IPCC, 2010). However, the inquest into Ian Tomlinson death disputed this clam (IPCC, 2010). According to independent valuation of the force that have been inflicted by the police officer on Ian Tomlinson it have been stated that police officer’s both hills were raised from the ground and the push was with all his body weight that is was forceful and unjust (IPCC, 2010). Furthermore, it have been pointed out that police officer did not assessed or search Ian Tomlinson to establish the presumed risk and that the victim was walking away from the cordon tactics with his back turned to the police officer which indicated that he already complied with the order to keep moving (IPCC, 2010), therefore not posing any threat. This arguably demonstrates that police officer did not have a genuine believe of imminent threat that could justify his force in self-defence that led to death of the victim (CJIA,