Ghettoside Book Review

“...Much of the recent crime increase threatens the vitality of America’s cities–and thousands of lives–it is not, in itself, the greatest danger in today’s war on cops. The greatest danger lies, rather, in the delegitimation of law and order itself’ (Mac Donald). In the book “The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe,” published in the year of 2016, author Heather Mac Donald provides credible evidence to expand on her viewpoint of our country’s current criminal crisis. In addition to “The War on Cops, Mac Donald has written two other books. Her works “Are Cops Racist?”

For more than four decades Los Angeles has seen an increase in crime, drugs, guns and gangs. It is one of the largest cities in the United States with its population made up of mostly Latinos and African Americans. In the 1980’s LA’s epidemic of crime was due to crack cocaine; therefore, LAPD was very heavy handed in regards to dealing with crime in the 80’s; however, in the 90’s police brutality became rampant due to the massive increase of gangs, guns, drugs and violence, which turned Los Angeles into the murder capital of America. The Rampart Scandal and the Rodney King riot was a very dark period for LAPD in 90’s; for this reason LAPD lost all confidence and trust with their community.

People think that the cops are not racist but the stats are that the blacks commit more crimes. They are not wrong because it is a proven fact. Mac Donald interviewed several African American police officers who believe that the police are not racist. According to her, the police target blacks more than whites because more blacks commit crimes. The black officers said “that charges of racism undermine the good work of police departments across the nation.”

Several law enforcement agencies have gone through expensive litigation over civil rights concerns. Police-citizen relations in those communities have been strained, making policing more challenging. Most importantly, racial profiling is unlikely to be an effective policing strategy as criminals can simply shift their activities outside the profile (e.g., if racial profiling begins with police stopping black males in their teens and twenties for being drug carriers, criminals may start using other demographic groups — such as Hispanics, children or the elderly — to move drugs). Despite training to avoid discrimination, officers may still rely on cultural stereotypes and act on their perceptions of a person 's characteristics (such as age, race or gender)” (National Institute of Justice, 2013).

Police officer’s reputations are reduced and they lose the public’s trust as protectors. Specifically, society talks about the act of a white police officer savagely attacking a black citizen. The black population was enraged by this act and formed activist movements to prevent any police brutality brought upon them. As the controversy rise, society starts picking a side to defend. In this case, the nation is split into two sides.

An occurrence observed by the population of Los Angeles, California conveys the existence of racism and police brutality. According to The Polls-Trends: Racial Differences in Attitudes Toward the Police, “…three quarters of blacks, but only 38 percent of whites, continued to view police brutality as a common occurrence” (Tuch and Weitzer

Police violence on African American males in the U.S. has only seemed to have increased in the past years in this country and researchers wanted to see the type of impact it has had in these African American communities. The study mainly focused on the beating of Frank Jude in the Milwaukee area but also analyzed the impact of three other beatings and how phone calls to 911 were affected. If calls to 911 are suppressed because of these shootings in these communities then it is putting the entire public in danger. Throughout this paper I will being going over many different subjects such as how the experiment was set up, the effects on phone calls after the Frank Jude beating, and also the effect on phone calls in the other three cases as

It comes right out and states that police do use statistics that say which race is more likely to commit certain crimes, and they will look for those things when conducting traffic stops, which one black officer says he has no problem with. However, there's a point at which it becomes an abuse of power. Gail B Stewart, the author, received her undergraduate degree from Gustavus Adolphus College, and completed her

He makes the police officer fight crime. They are not health professionals, case-workers or teachers and they should not handle situations that require expertise in those fields. He reasoning behind this is that “why

Although we hope our Police force will use their powers for good, but sometimes police misconduct can occur. Often, the police are under great pressure to act as quick as possible, espcially in a murder case and if the murder victime is white, a child, police officer, or prominent. For example, In the 1990’s the case of Rodney King, that not only shows a racist issue within the criminal justice system, but also the issue with abuse from police officers, but changed the country’s views on the LA police force. Twenty- Seven years ago,Rodney King was brutally beaten by Los Angeles police officers.

The NYPD are not extinguishing crime, they are merely biding their time as authority figures, as New York’s crime rate remains stagnant. The Stop-and-Frisk Law is widely based on the foundation of assumptions and anonymous tip-offs (“Terry...Transcript)."). This matter leaves stop-and-frisk procedures vulnerable to exploitation and unreasonable suspicion. Without any solid evidence to function off of, the NYPD are deluded with the illusion that they are taking measures to stop

Policing in today’s society has been impacted through a multitude of influences including social, political, and economical to name a few. One factor that has, in more recent years, left its imprint within policing is race. Race, brings up the subtopics of ethics, corruption, accountability, and public views on policing. The following paper will discuss these subtopics to help further understand why and how race plays such a significant role in current day society and policing.

People have been recently protesting against Police Officers because of the excessive force people have seen them use recently in viral videos. Some Departments have been using body cams and have seen some significant results. “A year-long study in Orlando found use-of-force incidents dropped by 53 percent among officers wearing bodycams and civilian complaints also dropped 65 percent.” ( Should 2) These statistics show that the force by Police Officers decreased significantly for this one city.

Chicago and other major cities remain in the news, as they continue to struggle with high murder rates. In fact, the city of Chicago has witnessed a 50 percent increase in its murder rate in only a one year period, and this area is not alone. Thankfully, cities across America and noticing violent and property crime rates remain at historic lows. The new adminstration has noted the increase in murder rates, but needs to also consider that other crimes on are the decline, which is always a good thing.

News reporters and media outlets frequently paint a picture that portrays the decrease in crime due to an increase in stop-and-frisk procedures. According to Evans and Williams (2015), those who agree with stop-and-frisk feel that this policy helps police officers to prevent crime from occurring. Many believe that it is drastically decreasing the amount of illegal firearms, therefore making cities safer. However, this is not the case as many often perceive it. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union (2012), on average less than one of every 800 stop-and-frisk scenarios resulted in the confiscation of a firearm.