Jennifer Cisneros Cardenas
Vasché
Expo. per 2
13 May 2016
Racial Profiling
Racial profiling has been a big issue in The United States for thousands of years. It is an idea or concept that targets minorities based off of their skin color or appearance. It is used in various ways, 2 major ways being: medicine and law enforcement. Our criminal justice system racially profiles, it is corrupt and racist.
Occasionally racial profiling is denied by police authorities. In an article in The Los Angeles Times titled, “California’s racial profiling law is ‘terrible’ legislation, police officials say” there is a quote from the president of the Long Beach police of officers, Lt. Steve James that claims; “There is no racial profiling. There just isn’t. There is criminal profiling that exists.” Some believe there is no way of proving racial profiling was the cause for questioning someone, unless the officer admits to it. In an article from The Washington Post Reddit Hudson, a former cop talks about his experiences of racial profiling through a cops point of view. He accompanied an officer on a call to a home, a teenage boy answered the door and was instantly accused of giving shelter to a robbery suspect. When the boy denied letting the officer in, he was yanked, punched and slammed. When Hudson arrived at the department and complained to the sergeant he was told to get back to work. Racial profile can’t be denied, it is a problem that needs to be resolved.
On the other hand Manhattan Institute wrote an article titled; “What looks like racial profiling might just be good policing.” It is believed that an officer 's decision to ask someone to step out of a vehicle ...
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...Matt Hamilton. “California’s racial profiling law is ‘terrible’ legislation, police officers say.” Los Angeles Times 4 Oct. 2015
Dutta, Sunil. “Criminal profiling vs. racial profiling.” Los Angeles Times 22 Nov. 2010
Golgowski, Nina. “ Florida police accused of racial profiling after stopping man 258 times, charging him with trespassing at work.” Daily News 22 Nov. 2013
Herbert, Bob. “Jim Crow policing.” New York Times 1 feb. 2010
Hudson, Reddit “Being a cop showed me just how racist and violent the police are. There’s only one fix.” The Washington Post 6 Dec. 2014
Mac Donald, Heather. “What looks like profiling might just be good policing.” Los Angeles
Times 19 Jan. 2003
Ranjana, Natarajan. “Racial profiling has destroyed public trust in police. Cops are exploiting our weak laws against it.” The Washington Post 15 Dec. 2014
In the United States of America today, racial profiling is a deeply troubling national problem. Many people, usually minorities, experience it every day, as they suffer the humiliation of being stopped by police while driving, flying, or even walking for no other reason than their color, religion, or ethnicity. Racial profiling is a law enforcement practice steeped in racial stereotypes and different assumptions about the inclination of African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American or Arab people to commit particular types of crimes. The idea that people stay silent because they live in fear of being judged based on their race, allows racial profiling to live on.
At the core of the stop and frisk policy as utilized by the New York Police Department is racial profiling. Racial profiling has a significant and often controversial place in the history of policing in the United States. Racial profiling can be loosely defined as the use of race as a key determinant in law enforcement decisions to stop, interrogate, and/or detain citizens (Weitzer & Tuch, 2002). Laws in the United States have helped to procure and ensure race based decisions in law enforcement. Historically, the Supreme Court has handed down decisions which increase the scope of discretion of a law enforcement officer. For example, traffic stops can be used to look for evidence even though the officer has not observed any criminal violation (Harris, 2003). Proponent's for racial profiling reason that racial profiling is a crime fighting tool that does treat racial/ethnic groups as potential criminal suspects based on the assumption that by doing so increases the chances of catching criminals (Harris, 2003). Also, it is important to note, law enforcement officers only need reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk, probable cause is not required as in other circumstances (Harris, 2003). It is because of this assumption that the New York Police Department’s stop and frisk policy is still a relevant issue.
Racial profiling is the tactic of stopping someone because of the color of his or her skin and a fleeting suspicion that the person is engaging in criminal behavior (Meeks, p. 4-5). This practice can be conducted with routine traffic stops, or can be completely random based on the car that is driven, the number of people in the car and the race of the driver and passengers. The practice of racial profiling may seem more prevalent in today’s society, but in reality has been a part of American culture since the days of slavery. According to Tracey Maclin, a professor at the Boston University School of Law, racial profiling is an old concept. The historical roots “can be traced to a time in early American society when court officials permitted constables and ordinary citizens the right to ‘take up’ all black persons seen ‘gadding abroad’ without their master’s permission” (Meeks, p. 5). Although slavery is long since gone, the frequency in which racial profiling takes place remains the same. However, because of our advanced electronic media, this issue has been brought to the American public’s attention.
“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...
"The Reality of Racial Profiling." CivilRights.org. The Leadership Conference, 22 08 2012. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. .
Racial profiling is the most idiotic and arrogant thing you can ever do as a person. Usually the people who are affected by racial profiling are minorities, however, any person can be a victim of racial profiling. Some may think that racial profiling is non-existent, however, I would like to bring the situation into focus and show that it is still in existence and has been observed in the past and now in the current year. Although, more than fifty percent of the time racial profiling is conducted it is against a man or woman of color; an African-American in other words. There are instances where a white person can be a victim as well. Trying not to say that there isn't any person out there that is exempted from racial profiling, because there isn't a single person who is just exempted from this cruel method of decision making. In my essay I will talk about racial profiling and what it is, however, you can't forget about where it happens and of course why. Several resolutions will be discussed in this essay to alleviate this problem.
Holbert, S., & Rose, L. (2006). It is difficult to establish whether racial profiling is occurring, In D. E. Nelson, Racial Profiling. Farmington Hills: Greenhaven Press.
The police are there to protect and serve the community. Racial profiling has prevented police from serving all the community, because in their minds it has been segregated. This has often been disregarded while in reality, racial profiling has corrupted society’s perception of groups of people, especially in law enforcement. On our nation's highways, police ostensibly looking for thugs and criminals routinely stop drivers based on the color of their skin. This practice is so common that the minority community has given it the derisive term, "driving while black" – a play on the real offense of "driving while intoxicated."
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...
Before any argument can be made against racial profiling, it is important to understand what racial profiling is. The American Civil Liberties Union, defines racial profiling as "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"(Racial Profiling: Definition). Using this definition we can determine that racial profiling excludes any evidence of wrong-doing and relies solely on the characteristics listed above. We can also see that racial profiling is different from criminal profiling, which uses evidence of wrong-doing and facts which can include information obtained from outside sources and evidence gathered from investigation. Based on these definitions, I will show that racial profiling is unfair and ineffective because it relies on stereotyping, encourages discrimination, and in many cases can be circumvented.
Every day you see and hear about minorities groups complain about cops and their tactics against them stopping them while in traffic taking them in to custody or even getting kill over nothing. Racial Profiling is a common thing in this community and it is causing a lot of trouble. According to Minnesota House of Representatives analyst Jim Cleary, "there appear to be at least two clearly distinguishable definitions of the term 'racial profiling ': a narrow definition and a broad definition... Under the narrow definition, racial profiling occurs when a police officer stops, questions, arrests, and/or searches someone solely on the basis of the person 's race or ethnicity... Some ways to stop it is find out who is guilty of it, look at their
Although some would believe that racial profiling does not occur and if it does it is used to keep the society safe, it is more correct to say that it disrespects and mistreats innocent citizens. More and more people are being stopped each year for crimes they did not commit and being singled out because of their race. Being racially profiled, harassed and mistreated is something that Latinos, Asians and African Americans go through every day. I believe that people should not be stopped and judged because of physical appearance. This is something that takes away ones individual’s rights and is very disrespectful.
Racial profiling has been a common controversy between law enforcement and communities, specifically those of a minority population. This activity has been ultimately allowed by federal and state governments as they benefit from the aid in pinpointing or otherwise targeting criminals or illegal aliens. Furthermore, racial profiling has become more of a commonly encountered practice especially after the September 11 attacks.
Racial profiling does indeed exist in America. This practice is especially damaging to African Americans, who are frequently shamed by society as criminals, drug addicts, or welfare abusers. This societal flaw is evidenced by recent injustices to both Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin. Years of abuse of power have brought this issue blazing to the forefront of hot topics in America.
This issue should be addressed among police agencies across the country in order to stop racial profiling. Racial profiling has its negative impacts that discomfort and humiliation of many minority citizens. There are many shameful cases that officers have been a part of in not a such good way. It has become such a huge problem. Racial profiling has to be stop in every way there is, is humiliating to see and is strongly unjust. Many innocent people in this nation are killed for crimes not even done by them but are killed or punished because of the race they appear to be. Unfortunately, being racially profiled in the United States is bound to happen to many minorities; however, that doesn 't allow the acceptance of people doing it. Everyone has different opinions on Racial Profiling, but it is something that should come to an end, and many should speak up about being racially