Racial Profiling In Criminal Justice

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Recommended: Racial discrimination in the criminal justice system

Travis Siska

Professor Fos

Alvin Community College

Racial Profiling in Criminal Justice

Racial Profiling in Criminal Justice

This paper will define the topic of racial profiling as well as the history, present day issues, how it may be dealt with in the future, and my opinion on the topic. Racial Profiling is the practice of targeting people of color or a certain ethnicity for investigation or arrest. History starts with the New Jersey State Police department of investigation of activities instituted the term racial profiling that we know today in order to raise awareness of the issue. Some of the current issues today with racial profiling have caused many problems for the criminal justice system entirely, hindering police efforts in communities and losing the reliability of the people. The future of racial profiling has been a debatable topic but though it may be impossible to get rid of entirely much progress has been made in controlling it. My opinion on the topic is that maybe more training in how to use discretion when making a gut feeling about a situation.

What is Racial Profiling?

Racial profiling involves anything an officer might do to single out an individual based entirely on their race. This debate of racial profiling has always been a main element in the affiliation between the police and colored communities. Racial profiling over the past twenty years have been elevated due to the increasing frequency of people of color began to form allegations that the police were in fact racial profiling. Throughout communities everywhere people are asking the question, how can their community find a way to address this controversy to make police work more efficient and effective when it comes to cr...

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...ve reason to believe that someone may be suspicious then they should act on those impulses. If the officer does find something wrong or illegal in the suspects possession then the person needs to have a punishment of some sort for breaking the law. Though for an officer that is responsible for the well being of our community to be singling out individuals for doing nothing wrong does seem to be unfair. One could look at this from a fact perspective that minorities do commit a higher amount of crime compared to whites or to see that everyone commits crimes despite their race. After all it is my opinion that race should not even be considered when evaluating a suspect or anybody. I do have faith in our local police a department believing what they do is right but perhaps with time the problems with racial stereotyping will end with a new generation of police officers.

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