OUGD505 Studio Brief 1 Statement of Intent

Studio Brief 1 

Police Brutality 

Society grants police officers enormous power over citizens to enable them to keep the peace and to preserve social order. They are granted a great deal of freedom to use their judgment regarding which laws to enforce, when and against whom. This wide range of options and authority can lead to the abuse of their power. The average person knows very little concerning the officers’ limits of power, and upon being ordered to move on, often enforced by a push and the threat of arrest, seldom stops to question the legality of the action. This submissiveness on the part of the public has rendered the police, particularly in large cities, arrogant and brutal, these supposed conservators of the peace are in my view frequent law-breakers.

Approach

The direction I want to take this brief is to communicate a non-biased view on the issue as throughout my research I have discovered that there is always two sides to the stories, it also occurred to me that portraying police in a negative way is unfair as it is only a small percentage of them. I believe compiling each of the incidents will be shocking enough to show how often police brutality occurs.

I plan to create publication which acts as a collection of all the incidents of police brutality I have come across in my research. The publication will include images and text surrounding the incidents to show the reality of these crimes. The aesthetics and tone of voice will be serious, matter-of-fact and dark in order to generate a reaction in the audience, focusing on using images and quotes from the videos and news reports.