Based on the statistics I identified in questions # 3 and 4 of my blog, I believed many law enforcement have a legitimate reason in its use of aggressive, racial profiling of minority populations. There are cruel consequences of race-based policing. For example, racial profiling does not reduce crime. It causes tremendous harm to individuals, the criminal justice system and to the social fabric of the society. Many law enforcement officers trust the idea that statistical data are exceptional guide in guessing who might be a criminal. Since statistics demonstrates that African-Americans and Latinos set up the majority of gang members, law enforcement officers will have the intensity to investigate and arrest these individuals. Moreover, it leads
While police see the action of racial profiling as a normal police tactic, minority groups see the actions as racist (Young, 2011).
In 1994 Polly Klaas was kidnapped from a slumber party at her home in California and later murdered by Richard Allen Davis who already had 2 prior convictions for kidnapping on his record. The public was outraged that a repeat offender was able to attack again. Politicians catered to this outrage and sold the public on a bill that would repeat offenders off the streets for good with the three strikes and you’re out legislation.
What is racism? Racism is defined as discrimination toward someone’s race or religion etc. As we know today, this is a big issue, especially in United State. This is important to me because it does not matter what skin color you have or what religion you believe in. All that matters are that a person follows the law. Police officers, for example, they are supposed to use the power that they have for the bad people, people that do crimes and our threat to our society. Using violence against people that haven't done any threat to our society is wrong. In Sweden there is some racism, but not to the extent that black people will get harassed because of their skin color. In Sweden, the law is for everyone and whoever breaks the law will get the punishment they deserve. We all know that it is always two side of a story for example what happened to Michael Brown on August 9, 2014. Michael Brown was robbing a grocery store. The police officer stated that “He shot Brown after the teen attacked him”, While brown’s family said, “Brown was surrendering when he was shot dead.” You are always going to hear two different sides but the justice will find out who is the guilty one and who is the victim.
According to the 11 Facts about Racial Discrimination, “The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded that an African American male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of going to jail in his lifetime, while a Latino male has a 17% chance, and a white male only has a 6% chance” (11 Facts about Racial Discrimination 1). Racial profiling, or discriminating against a whole group of people based on their race, is an unjust act and a big problem in our society today. Arresting people because of how they look like, or what they believe in is absurd. According to ACLU, “Racial Profiling refers to the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual 's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin” (ACLU 1). Although law enforcement assumes they are doing their job, they need to remain objective and fair in all situations, because they are violating rights, lacking protection and risking lives.
In relation to the debate of ‘racial profiling,’ Taylor and Whitney define racial profiling as “the practice of questioning blacks in disproportionate numbers in expectation that they are more likely than people of other races to be criminals” (Taylor & Whitney, 2002). Statistics show that African-Americans and Hispanics commit more crime than Caucasians, with 90% of the 1.7 million interracial crimes stemming from the hands of African-American men. Even looking at these numbers, does that make it okay for the police to arrest and interrogate these racial minorities at such a high frequency? Where are these statistics coming from? How accurate are they? Does the media provide a skewed analysis of these findings? These are the types of questions that need to be addressed in regard to evaluating the validity of racial profiling.
In New York City’s police department report in December 1999, the stop and frisk practices showed to be greatly based on race. In NYC, blacks make up 25.6% of the city’s population, Hispanics 23.7% and whites are 43.4% of NYC population. However, according to the report, 50.6% of all persons stopped were black, 33% were Hispanic, and only 12.9% were white. As you can see, more than half of the individuals who were stopped were black, 62.7% to be exact (ACLU, 2013). In Orange County, California Latinos, Asians and African Americans were more than 90% of the 20,221 men and women in the Gang Reporting Evaluation and Tracking System (ACLU, 2013). Clearly this database record shows racial profiling occurred when the total population in the database made up less than half of Orange County’s population. This is when the California Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the ACLU stepped in. One other instance of racial profiling I’d like to discuss occurred in Maricopa County, Arizona. A court ruled in May 2013 that “sheriff Joe Arpaio’s routine handling of people of Latino descent amounted to racial and ethnic profiling”; according to CNN, the sheriff’s office had a history of targeting vehicles with those having darker skin, examining them more strictly and taking them into custody more often than others (CNN, 2014). Judge Murray Snow ordered a monitor to oversee retraining in this
With blacks being stopped more than half of the time, and Latinos being stopped around 30 percent, its clear why these groups along with other minority groups feel they are being singled out and picked on; in fact, Mayor Bill de Blasio even made a public apology for the policy’s negative impact after the New York Times (2014) claimed that Judge Shira A. Scheindlin described it as “a policy of indirect racial profiling.” It’s reasons like these that encourage people to believe this tactic is inherently corrupt. If police officers are not using clear logic and reasonable suspicion when stopping individuals, it can create a major separation between our law enforcement agents and society and allow for noble cause corruption. While this policy has the ability to create major distrust and dislike for the cops, however, it can also have a very positive impact as well. For example, if officers continue to improve the accuracy of their stops and become more successful in taking weapons off the streets and deterring crime, their communities should begin to back them and also this
It is very easy some might even stay too easy to find evidence that minorities are targets to be racially profiled. Most videos,articles and other things you have seen on the news or the internet are mostly of minorities being victims and that’s a shame. Research continuously shows that minorities are more likely to get stopped or searched ….etc by police officers. You research racial profiling cases for yourself and tell me what you see. This exactly how I feel, i truly believe african-americans, and hispanic americans are born targets for racial profiling and are more likely to end up in jail or dead. It is not a way around something that can be proven so i say again racial profiling is prevalent in law enforcement, and i truly believe it started with racist people and now it is racist people and law enforcement together. “Racial profiling and excessive force by police are unconstitutional but they are still happening”. “There is overwhelming data that the police are pulling people over based on the person race”. In the year of 2012 in New york city approximately 90 percent of people who was arrested was minorities and I believe racial profiling has a very important role in this percentage being so high. The percentage being so high is a reason why I believe and still will continue to believe that racial profiling still
In this essay, I would like to explain the racial policing with the issue of discrimination and racism towards marginalized and the black people. The article describes the risk assessment strategies and legislative responses of policing to reduce racial policing. The article explains the racial policing through racialization and Canada is a country who receives immigrants from a different culture, ethnic, race, and color (Wortley and Akwasi 2011). Every year a large number of immigrants settle in Canada. Those who migrate from one country to Canada may face several challenges such as language barrier, discrimination, racism, and racial policing.
Honest conversation among the people, law enforcement officials, and policy makers is the key to a comprehensive policy reform that could end racial profiling. But unfortunately enough at our panel discussion what the panelists were doing is that they tried to mitigate and change the long held belief especially among the youths about the existence of racial profiling. They were saying that don't trust the statistics the main stream media tell you. Rather see the context. The video they showed us at the beginning claimed that while African American constitutes 13% of the US. population, they committed about 50% of the crime. They brought this statistics to support their position that what the law enforcement officials doing is right. In other words some racial profiling are justified. But at about the end of
In the aftermath of the Ferguson riots, FBI Director James Comey delivered a truly socially conscious speech, “The Hard Truths: Law Enforcement and Race.” Comey said, “At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups.” He pointed out that police vans are still referred to as “paddy wagons,” a direct and bigoted slight towards Irish Americans. “The Irish had tough times, but little compares to the experience on our soil of black Americans,” added Comey.
“One. The police stop blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than whites. In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked (Quigley, 2010).” Police stops are a very common effect on society. It isn’t fair that police don’t hold everyone accountable the same way. Not every cop is that way but there are that selected few who still have that racist mindset and hold it against innocent people. It’s no secret that in New York especially, there is a lot of crime and gang activity produced by different minority groups in the city. However, The facts does not provide a good reason that in routine stops are people of color targeted and frisked down compared to
The supporters of this debate believes “Racial profiling reduces crime and helps police protect society” while the opponents argue “Racial profiling can also have tragic consequences and lead to the deaths of innocent people” ("Is Racial Profiling a Necessary Police Practice?"). The article proceeds by outlining both the supporters and opponents foundational beliefs on this crucial topic. I find this source very comprehensive as it provides me with a lot of great examples of previous racially profiled incidents like Trayvon Martin and others that occurred in the past. Racial profiling and the incidents that recently went on with Trayvon, Eric Garner, and the Michael Brown/Ferguson tragedies spark my interest to do further research. I also I find this source to be very reliable in helping me get a better understanding of why police officers act unethically when dealing with racially tense
Benjamin Todd Jealous once said, “Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve.”(Jealous, 2015). I couldn’t agree more with him. In today’s society more and more Black men and women suffer from police bias. Police is a powerful organization that was meant to serve and protect. Enforce laws and keeping communities safe. The problem is we fail to acknowledge that police are humans with real life bias. The problem with police is how much racial profiling is going up,
Racial profiling in law enforcement is the criminal justice malfeasance I chose it is safe, it is a hotbed topic and in law enforcement we are walking down a very slippery slope in discussing it. As a law enforcement officer is it safe to say the preponderance of the officers are committed to protecting and severing others and for the most part are very noble and very ethical people. Many times I have read or saw stories about officers that feel like they are doing the public an extraordinary job in the area of drug interdiction, many are accused of profiling. There are officers from all across the nation that will make arguments that it is a good practice both ethically as well as morally, and they will have results to show for the stops as well as arrests. I will be in disagreement with that opinion, I feel like when you use tactics that cause a decrease in the public confidence, in which profiling does, it causes many complaints of racial profiling and has even turned good officers into bad ones, then it becomes not moral nor ethical. What affects one law enforcement agency affects all law enforcement agencies across this great