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The causes and effects of racial profiling in law enforcement
Racial profiling in the United States
Racial profiling in the United States
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Chynna Wren
Hann
English
01 March 2017 Police Brutality Against Minorities According to to the New York Civil Liberties Union, African Americans and Hispanics are unjustifiably targeted for “stop and frisk” checks by eighty four percent from 2002 to 2016. Stop and Frisk is a non consensual detainment and pat down on someone who appears to be armed or dangerous without arrest (Henderson). Research shows that police brutality against a select group of minorities of African Americans and Hispanics has escalated noticeably since the 1990s. Although the police has a sworn duty to protect, defend, and uphold the law, a surge in police brutality is a growing problem in society because of racial bias, racial profiling, and politics.
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Recent observations were made with African Americans and Hispanics implying they have little to no confidence in law enforcement (Wihbey). Individuals polled in this study believe law enforcement professionals will use unnecessary force against them (Wihbey). Minorities within the above mentioned communities exercise poor judgement by taking matters in their own hands instead of properly alerting law enforcement. “In a number of closely watched cases involving the deaths of young black men police have been acquitted, generating uproar and concerns about justice for all” (Wihbey). When individuals feel they are disenfranchised, their response to racial bias, racial profiling, and politics is impaired. Ultimately, racial bias has a major impact on police brutality against minorities because of the swayed results of how people view a specific
The judicial system in America has always endured much skepticism as to whether or not there is racial profiling amongst arrests. The stop and frisk policy of the NYPD has caused much controversy and publicity since being applied because of the clear racial disparity in stops. Now the question remains; Are cops being racially biased when choosing whom to stop or are they just targeting “high crime” neighborhoods, thus choosing minorities by default? This paper will examine the history behind stop and frisk policies. Along with referenced facts about the Stop and Frisk Policy, this paper will include and discuss methods and findings of my own personal field research.
...ack and Latino communities remain to be the overwhelming aim of these procedures. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports. Linking police stops to violent crime suspects is a bad calculation. Only 11 percent of stops in 2011 were founded to be on an account of a felony suspect and from 2002 to 2011, black and Latino citizens made up close to 90 percent of individuals stopped, and about 88 percent of stops, more than 3 million, were innocent New Yorkers. Even in areas that are mostly white, black and Latino New Yorkers face the inconsistent burden. For instance, in 2011, African American citizens and Latino New Yorkers made up over 24 percent of the residents of Park Slope, but they also made up 79 percent of all the stops made by the NYPD. Making Stop-and-Frisk clearly discriminatory.
Stop and Frisk is a procedure put into use by the New York Police Department that allows an officer to stop and search a “suspicious character” if they consider her or him to be. The NYPD don’t need a warrant, or see you commit a crime. Officers solely need to regard you as “suspicious” to violate your fourth amendment rights without consequences. Since its Beginning, New York City’s stop and frisk program has brought in much controversy originating from the excessive rate of arrest. While the argument that Stop and Frisk violates an individual’s fourth amendment rights of protection from unreasonable search and seizure could definitely be said, that argument it’s similar to the argument of discrimination. An unfair number of Hispanics and
“From 2005 to mid-2008, approximately eighty percent of total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who comprise twenty-five percent and twenty-eight percent of New York City’s total population, respectively. During this same time period, only about ten percent of stops were of Whites, who comprise forty-four percent of the city’s population” (“Restoring a National Consensus”). Ray Kelly, appointed Police Commissioner by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of New York in 2013, has not only accepted stop-and-frisk, a program that allows law enforcers to stop individuals and search them, but has multiplied its use. Kelly argued that New Yorkers of color, who have been unevenly targeted un...
One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling. This is the police practice of stopping, questioning, and searching potential criminal suspects in vehicles or on the street based solely on their racial appearance (Human Rights Watch, 2000). This type of profiling has contributed to racially disproportionate drug arrests, as well as, arrests for other crimes. It makes sense that the more individuals police stop, question and search, the more people they will find with reason for arrest. So, if the majority of these types of stop and frisk searches are done on a certain race then it makes sense that tha...
In 2014, the death of Eric Garner in New York City raised controversial conversations and highlighted the issues of race, crime, and policing in neighborhoods that tend to be poor and racially isolated. Garner, an unarmed black man, was killed after being tackled and held in a “chokehold.” According to the AP Polls in December 2014, “Police killings of unarmed blacks were the most important news stories of 2014.” The problem is that young black men are targeted by police officers in which they have responded with the misuse of force and policy brutality. It is evident that this issue affects many people nationwide. The civilians do not trust the police department and the justice system because they hold the perceptions that police officers are immune from prosecution despite their actions. In particular, black individuals, specifically black males, do not feel safe in the presence of police officers because they are not held accountable for their mistakes.
The justice system is in place in America to protect its citizens, however in the case of blacks and some other minorities there are some practices that promote unfairness or wrongful doing towards these groups. Racial profiling is amongst these practices. In cases such as drug trafficking and other criminal acts, minorities have been picked out as the main culprits based off of skin color. In the article “Counterpoint: The Case Against Profiling” it recognizes racial profiling as a problem in America and states, “[In order to maintain national security] law-enforcement officers have detained members of minority groups in vehicles more than whites”…. “these officers assume that minorities commit more drug offenses, which is not the case” (Fauchon). In relationship to law enforcement there has also been many cases of police brutality leaving young blacks brutally injured, and even dead in recent years, cases such as Michael Brown, Dontre Hamilton, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Freddy Gray just to name a few. Many of these young men were unarmed, and the police involved had no good justification for such excess force. They were seen as threats primarily because of their skin color. Despite the fact this nation is trying to attain security, inversely they are weakening bonds between many of its
Research Paper Rough Draft: Police Brutality Police misconduct is as rampant as ever in America, and it has become a fixture of the news cycle. Police brutality is the use of any force exceeding that reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose. The media is inevitably drawn toward tales of conflict, hence why there are so many crime and police stories on the news. Despite the increasing frequency of misbehaving cops, many Americans still maintain a high respect for the man in uniform. Still, police misconduct is a systemic problem, not just an anecdotal one.
Despite the fact racism has been around for hundreds of years, upcoming generations are becoming more open minded and less likely to publicly berate minorities; racial profiling, however, is the one loophole of racism America overlooks. Police officials often use the practices of racial profiling to discretely single out minority races. A common approach to this is through traffic patrols. According to a statistic based in San Jose, CA, nearly 100,000 drivers were stopped; during the year ending in June 2000; and of these drivers less than 32% were white, the remaining 68% of drivers were a...
The Stop and Frisk program, set by Terry vs. Ohio, is presently being implemented by the New York Police Department. It grants police officers the ability to stop a person, ask them questions and frisk if necessary. The ruling has been a NYPD instrument for a long time. However, recently it has produced a lot of controversy regarding the exasperating rate in which minorities, who regularly fall under assault and are irritated by the police. The Stop, Question and Frisk ruling should be implemented correctly by following Terry’s vs. Ohio guidelines which include: reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to be committed, identifying himself as a police officer, and making reasonable inquiries.
In today’s society, police officers are very cautious on how much force they can use on a suspect due to the police brutality going on right now. Police brutality is defined as the use of force exceeding what is necessary, many people argue that there should be new policies to determine how much force a police officer can use and also have laws that will convict officers who have killed people by using too much force, so that there is less incidents in the future.
Most African Americans and Hispanics in certain part of the United States have been subject to some form of stop and frisk. Some stop and frisks are racially related and other are legit. For the ones that are not legit it seems that there is a particular ethic group that is the main focus of these stop and frisks, and they tend to be the African Americans. When we are stopped the term used with some LEOs and even non LEOs (regular citizens) is driving while black, especially if they are stopped on the highway (e.g., Lundman and Kaufman 2003 and Weitzer, 2000, Harris, 2002). Within this discussion, we will focus on stop and frisk, the distinction between the stop and the frisk, Terry v. Ohio, one or two examples where a stop and frisk would be justified, the length of time of the detention, could the subject be handcuffed during this stop, and the level of force that could be used to enforce the stop and frisk.
Racial profiling has been one of the main causes of the tensions in communities with their police. The officers they believed they once trusted in a community, far from a white police officer and black victim crime, they are now skeptical and thinking, “If they attacked a black/white guy for no reason they’ll attack me.” This type of crime also brings up different combinations of racial tensions that were thought to be left behind in history. Racial profiling, as well as profiling based on religion, ethnicity and origin, continues to plague our nation despite the constitutional guarantee of equality. Evidence of widespread racial profiling, shows that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be stopped and searched by police, even though they’re less likely to be found with illegal possessions or crimes. “Critics argue that under the sole-factor definition, a hypothetical officer who routinely stops African-Americans for rolling stops or obscured license plates but does not stop Whites for the same infractions is not technically engaging in racial profiling because a reason other than race can be used to justify the stops” (Protecting Civil Rights 159). Profiling undermines public safety and thins the police and community trust. When law enforcement officers target citizens based on race or religion rather than behavior, community distrust of police seems to increase. Although the perpetrator just may happen to be a minority depending on the diversity of the population. Minority communities that had been unfairly targeted in the past continue to experience greater mistrust and fear of police officers. But, this problem can go both ways. There are white communities who would see a black cop and automatically feel fear due to others in his race, and vice versa. In order to put a stop to the problem of racial profiling of and by police officers there must be trust instilled
Police brutality is one of the most serious human rights violations in the United States and it occurs everywhere. The reason why I chose this topic is because police brutality happens all the time in the United States and still remains unrecognized by many. Additionally, the public should be knowledgeable about this topic because of how serious this crime can be and the serious outcomes that police brutality can have on other police officers and the public. The job of police officers is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crimes. They are involved in very dangerous and stressful occupations that can involve violent situations that must be stopped and controlled by any means. In many confrontations with people, police may find it necessary to use excessive force to take control of a certain situation. Sometimes this makes an officer fight with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all cops in communities are great cops. At least once a year, the news covers a story about a person being beat by an officer. The article “Minority Threat and Police Brutality: Determinants of Civil Rights Criminal Complaints in U.S. Municipalities” by Malcolm D. Holmes from the University of Wyoming, uses the conflict theory to explain why officers go after minorities sometimes causing police brutality. It explains the police’s tension with African American and Latino males. Those minorities are the ones that retaliate more against police officers which causes the officer to use violent force to defend themselves.
Police brutality is an act that often goes unnoticed by the vast majority of white Americans. This is the intentional use of “excessive force by an authority figure, which oftentimes ends with bruises, broken bones, bloodshed, and sometimes even death” (Harmon). While law-abiding citizens worry about protecting themselves from criminals, it has now been revealed that they must also keep an eye on those who are supposed to protect and serve.