Racism, discrimination, prejudice, and hatred are the things that stain law enforcement around the world. Blacks who are stopped by police fear that justice is never on their side. Racial profiling puts a dent in the trust between young black males and the police. Racial profiling is when an individual or group is treated a certain way because of the skin color. Researchers agree on the causes and perimeters, of racial profiling, there is no solution methods widely accepted. Young black men have been victimized for years because of their race and suspensions. Racial profiling is detrimental to the black community. Racial profiling by police makes it difficult for black drivers because of the bias that comes from being stopped by a white police …show more content…
According to Hudson, (2015, p.1) Palestine, Texas is making their officers strap themselves with body cameras and train their officers to recognize citizens are the ones to protect and serve. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, the police are in training to help them adopt ways to help them communicate with the citizens for a positive encounter which is called Contact Theory (p.1). The training will help them with being respectful, and with their body language on their approach of a citizen in hopes that this will improve relationships and eliminate subconscious …show more content…
civil rights movement, and beyond, all affected the mindset of black drivers (Bell, Hopson, Craig, & Robinson, 2014, p.39). The looting, vandalizing, and negative protest have cost this country tremendous amount of money to rebuild a community. Some citizens retaliated because they felt justice is not on their side. Research has shown that in the future laws will be put into place to protect minorities, but did not give an immediate solution to the
To stifle the spread of the ‘contagion,’ the article, “Four Students Spark Spreading Drive,”sites how the “good performance of the Southern police” is what “prevented chaos.” [v] By using a favorable term to describe the white institutions, the article works to label police as an admirable unit who selflessly suppressed anarchy. This is contrasted with the ‘chaos’ utilized to describe the sit-in protestors. In making this comment, the article implies that the protests harm society rather than help it. Moreover, words like “contagion” and “chaos” are also utilized to condemn the black’s entitlement to protests; once again, the media plays on white fears that whites might stand to lose their sense of entitlements if they allow minorities to have the same rights as they do. The diction used by the Chicago Defender’s article parallels the word choice of Harold L. Keith’s article, “Are White Supremacists Killing Labor?”, which is about the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Triggered by the arrest of Rosa Parks, the NAACP organized the Boycott to change segregation laws regarding bus seats and driver courtesy toward people of color. Emerging Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. was primarily responsible for coordinating the Bus boycott movement.[vii]. Keith’s article
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.
While the stop and frisk program ultimately seems like a great idea and that it will help residents of New York City feel safer while on the streets, there has been much controversy with this program. The issue of racial profiling is largely discussed when talking about NYPD’s stop and frisk program. Besides police officers targeting lower income neighborhoods, more stops are of African Americans or Latinos than of whites. These stops often end up with a higher arrest rate. Of the 685,784 stopped last year, 92% were male and 87% were African American or Latino (Devereaux, 2012).
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.
The prospect of a racially discriminatory process violates the ideals of equal treatment under the law under which the system is premised (Kansal, 2005). Law enforcement, as the frontline of the criminal justice system, has a great deal to do with who ends up being incarcerated. Law enforcement personnel are the initiating beings who start the path to incarceration for individuals they come in contact with. Their decision in terms of making a stop, making a report, making an arrest and so on determines if and how that individual will enter the criminal justice system. One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling.
For the past few years there has been an ongoing debate surrounding the issue of racial profiling. The act of racial profiling may rest on the assumption that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than any individual of other races or ethnicities. Both David Cole in the article "The Color of Justice" and William in the article "Road Rage" take stance on this issue and argue against it in order to make humanity aware of how erroneous it is to judge people without evidence. Although Cole and William were very successful in matters of showing situations and qualitative information about racial profiling in their articles, both of them fail at some points.
Racial profiling in the dictionary is “the assumption of criminality among ethnic groups: the alleged policy of some police to attribute criminal intentions to members of some ethnic groups and to stop and question them in disproportionate numbers without probable cause (“Racial Profiling”).” In other words racial profiling is making assumptions that certain individuals are more likely to be involved in misconduct or criminal activity based on that individual’s race or ethnicity. Racial profiling propels a brutalizing message to citizens of the United States that they are pre-judged by the color of their skin rather than who they are and this then leads to assumptions of ruthlessness inside the American criminal justice system. With race-based assumptions in the law enforcement system a “lose-lose” situation is created due to America’s diverse democracy and destroys the ability to keep the criminal justice system just and fair. Although most police officers perform their duties with fairness, honor, and dedication, the few officers who portray to be biased then harm the whole justice system resulting in the general public stereotyping every law enforcement officer as a racial profiler (Fact Sheet Racial Profiling). When thinking about racial profiling many people automatically think it happens only to blacks but sadly this is mistaken for far more ethnic groups and races such as Jews, Muslims, Mexicans, Native Americans, and many more are racially profiled on a day to day basis. Many people believe racial profiling to be a myth because they see it as police officers merely taking precautions of preventing a crime before it happens, but in reality racial profiling has just become an approved term for discrimination and unjust actio...
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."
Racial Profiling can happen to anyone, anywhere such as the streets, in the airports, or even just walking home. Racial profiling and the media influence an individual’s perspective on a trial. Racial Profiling is using someone’s race or ethnic background as suspicion for committing a crime. Evidence from past trials dating back to 1920s Sacco and Vanzetti trial to George Zimmerman’s trial in 2013 prove that racial profiling has existed for nearly a century. According to the article “The Quiet Racism in the Zimmerman Trial” by Steven Mazie, he states
Police officers should be required to wear body cameras because it will build a trust between law enforcement and the community, it will decrease the amount of complaints against police officers, and lastly it will decrease the amount of police abuse of authority. In addition, an officer is also more likely to behave in a more appropriate manner that follows standard operating procedures when encountering a civilian. “A 2013 report by the Department of Justice found that officers and civilians acted in a more positive manner when they were aware that a camera was present” (Griggs, Brandon). Critics claim that the use of body cameras is invasive of the officers and civilians privacy.
Racial tension has been a part of America ever since the Civil War. Today we have a different issue with race, which is called racial profiling. Over the years, the relationship between the police and community of color has gone bitterly racial profiling. America’s society today tends to be tainted by racial profiling and stereotypes. These issues can have great effects on our society.
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
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.
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...
In the past few years, racial profiling has become a very prominent issue in American society. In “Racial Profiling,” “Racial Profiling is a controversial and illegal discriminatory practice in which individuals are targeted for suspicion of crimes based on their ethnicity, race, or religion rather than on evidence-based suspicious behavior” (Para. 11). Many people are wronged because of this phenomenon and effects many of them in multiple ways. Racial profiling is effecting many people and it needs to be addressed.