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The truth on minorities and police violence
Racial profiling and its effects on society
Racial Discrimination in the Movies
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Tracy in Se7en can be used as an example as a member of society who believes there is much more crime taking place in the unnamed city than their actually is because she questions Somerset of whether or not it’s a safe city one morning when they met for coffee and states that she, “Hates this city” because she believes it truly is a terrible place full of crime and uncertainty.
Race and Policing Typically, many people would not picture a man of colour in a police officer role and would imagine them on the opposite side of the law because of stereotypes in our society that make citizens believe people of colour are more likely to commit crime. Furthermore, as Leitzel (2001) states that “young black males, tend to have much worse experience with police” such as frequent traffic stops and the use of
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The portrayal of solely white officers continued for much of the early cop films and if there by chance has a nonwhite officer they were always displayed as less competent and never the one capable of catching their suspect. This was seen until the film Se7en was released as Morgan Freeman was the first African American to be the lead detective and better officer in a film. This began to be possible because of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s which wanted to end segregation within society. African Americans banned together with some white radicals to try to gain rights for all citizens become one society (Boyle, 2005). Through the many years of struggle until 1968 at the end of the Civil Rights Movement African American have gained many rights they deserve and even many years after the movement are still fighting for the respect that they merit. Even though, situations for African American citizens still have much
Do the institution and also those officers serve it act discriminately to different race group? On the one hand, it has to be admitted that some actions taken by the police are leading to the greater involvement of young black people in the criminal justice system but they cannot be recognised as discriminative behaviours. For example, the police tend to give priority and more effort into certain crime categories and some deprived areas, depending on local and central first concern. As a consequence, some criminals of ethnic groups and ethnic minority residences living in certain areas are inevitably more likely to come into contact with the
law enforcement agencies. The underrepresentation of Asian-American officers will affect how the Asian community view law enforcement in terms of building credibility and improving community relations (Dempsey & Frost, 2015). As previously stated, the cause of such underrepresentation is due to the fact that law enforcement agencies do not understand the cultural and historical distrust, which Asian immigrants have with law enforcement back in their native countries and here in the United States (Zhao et al., 2013). Underrepresentation of Asian police officers will create conflicts between police and Asian communities (White et al., 2010). The lack of diversity in police departments will also show Asian communities that a police organization does not reflect its community racial
Once I researched the history of the LAPD, I found that race could factor into officer’s decisions to stop people, but also to frisk, search, cite, or arrest them once they have been stopped. When a traffic stop has been made, the officer will write a citation lower for black individuals than for white individuals. In addition, black police officers will show much less disparity in citation rates for black individuals. As a result, the black officer is less likely to stop black subjects who have not committed any offense. The movie portrays that when an individual is a suspect and another ethnicity besides white. I think officers will receive more respect and can make suspects or victims more cooperative in solving a crime.
Minorities and Policing: Unfairly Treated If we look at the past, we can see that there is no warm tradition of community cooperation between the African-American community and law enforcement. Minorities and Policing is an important topic because it deals with issues pertaining to how minorities are treated by the police. Racial profiling and social injustice are important areas when dealing with unfair treatment of minorities. 1.
In the line of police force it is imperative to think outside of the box. Many people confuse a police officer’s curiosity as racial profiling and racism. However, this is how a police officer often finds the majority of their evidence. In many neighborhoods, there a dominant races that live within the community. For example, if a wealthy white man was driving around a predominantly minority-based community, it would be acceptable for a police officer to grow skeptical at this situation. It is obvious that man is out of place, and it is the police officer 's duty to further investigate the
Many people claim that racism no longer exists; however, the minorities’ struggle with injustice is ubiquitous. Since there is a mass incarceration of African Americans, it is believed that African Americans are the cause of the severe increase of crimes. This belief has been sent out implicitly by the ruling class through the media. The media send out coded messages that are framed in abstract neutral language that play on white resentment that targets minorities. Disproportionate arrest is the result of racial disparities in the criminal justice system rather than disproportion in offenders. The disparities in the sentencing procedure are ascribed to racial discrimination. Because police officers are also biased, people of color are more likely to be investigated than whites. Police officers practice racial profiling to arrest African Americans under situations when they would not arrest white suspects, and they are more likely to stop African Americans and see them as suspicious (Alexander 150-176). In the “Anything Can Happen With Police Around”: Urban Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Michelle Fine and her comrades were inspired to conduct a survey over one of the major social issues - how authority figures use a person’s racial identity as a key factor in determining how to enforce laws and how the surveillance is problematic in public space. Fine believes it is critical to draw attention to the reality in why African Americans are being arrested at a much higher rate. This article reflects the ongoing racial issue by focusing on the injustice in treatment by police officers and the youth of color who are victims. This article is successful in being persuasive about the ongoing racial iss...
Most people use second hand information as their core source of information about crime, this source of information usually being the media. When carrying out sample research in Birmingham, Susan Smith (1984) discovered that 52% of people obtained most of their information about crime from the media, 36% obtained it from hearsay or alleged experiences of friends and neighbours, 3% from their own experiences, and 1% from the police service themselves (cited in Jones, 2001; 8). However the media tend to exaggerate upon areas of criminal activity causing a moral panic. ‘A moral panic is a semi- spontaneous or media generated mass movement based on the perception that some individual or group, frequently a minority group or subculture, is dangerously deviant and poses menace to society. These panics are generally fuelled by the media, although not always caused by, media coverage of social issues… These panics can sometimes lead to mob violence… (newsfilter.co.uk).
These authors’ arguments are both well-articulated and comprehensive, addressing virtually every pertinent concept in the issue of explaining racially disparate arrest rates. In The Myth of a Racist Criminal Justice System, Wilbanks insists that racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is a fabrication, explaining the over-representation of African Americans in arrest numbers simply through higher incidence of crime. Walker, Spohn and DeLone’s The Color of Justice dissents that not only are African Americans not anywhere near the disproportionate level of crime that police statistics would indicate, they are also arrested more because they are policed discriminately. Walker, Spohn and DeLone addi...
Not always characteristic of police working in black and brown communities. It is not only white officers who abused their authority, and no matter what an officer has done to African-American or any race, those officers can always cover themselves in the running narrative of heroism, involving exposure to danger, and sacrifice. About 15 percent of the officers who regularly abuse their power: a major problem is the victims were electrically shocked suffocated, and beaten to death into false confessions in which many of them being convicted and serving time for crimes they didn’t commit. In the U.S. every police officers in the country should wear a body camera that remains on and activated throughout any interaction that they have with the public while they are on duty. There is no reasonable Expectation (which means something will happen in the future), of privacy for officers when they are on duty and in service to the public. Citizen also has the right to record police officers activities as they carry out their public service provided that there are at a safe distance. Because of this legacy of racism police abuse in black and brown communities is generations old. It’s nothing new. It has become more visible to social media like YouTube,
A police officer’s job is to protect civilians by keeping criminals off the streets. Without the use of force, this duty would become quite difficult. Some people try to turn the use of police force into a race issue when it has absolutely nothing to do with it. While some
In 2003, 36 black police officers were asked to recount their lived experiences with having been the subjects of racial profiling, and a majority indi- cated that they had been stopped and questioned by other police officers ‘‘for no other reason than the colour of their skin’’ (Tanovich 2006: 1–2).
Officers are trained and taught different polices that require them not to be biased towards any gender or race. Such officers include Sunil Dutta, if you don’t want to get shot, tasted pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.” (Dutta) uses policies to their advantage. Lack of African-American officers, mainly in communities with citizens of color, can lead to an inquiry that there is a bias in law enforcement agencies and their policies. With recent events in the news displaying the misconduct of officers in an African-American communities like, in July of 2014, where the death of Eric Garner because of “chokehold” by a police officer hit home for many African-Americans and made them question the legislative decisions on policies causing a distrust and lack of confidence within the police departments, shying away citizens from
Weitzer, Ronald, and Steven A. Tuch. "Race and Perceptions of Police Misconduct." JSTOR. Aug. 2004. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.
Have you ever been discriminated because of the race you are? Are you considered suspicious to the cops because of your race? Many people are oblivious to the fact that everyday a black person is being discriminated because of racist policemen. In general, today 's society treats blacks poorly and assumes that they are violent and always up to no good. It is not fair to them for not getting the same advantage in education as us because they don 't look like us. You can 't judge a person’s character by their race. Racial profiling is considered unconstitutional and has a huge impact on how white people interpret blacks actions. We should all be brought up equal and not stereotyped of the worst. If anything, whites should be supervised too because
Consider for once how lucky one is for not having the physical appearance of a criminal, and even tough such thing does not exist, America 's Police Department seem to have a pretty good idea of what a criminal should look like. As Benjamin Spock once said: "Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.” Thus, unfortunately, being victim of police 's power abuse is a reality that many people have been suffering from in the past years. The abuse of power by police officers is a known fact, and the government should address it by improving the selection processes of new officers, increasing monitorship, and implementing punishments.