Police officers are always looking for a target and they end up finding the perfect person to penalize. For example, many people are usually shocked when they find out that the reason they were pulled over was not, in fact, against the law, and end up penalized. In my opinion police officers should really focus on stopping crimes such as rapes, robbery, murders etc. Those crimes should have high penalties, but crimes such as speeding, driving without a license, carrying a small amount of drug should not equal the same prison time for a major crime for ethnic minorities. Therefore, unreasonable suspicions, pre-texts used by officers and jail time are things that play a huge role regarding the criminal justice system that affects the way ethnic minorities are
African Americans are more likely to be searched than a Caucasia due to racial bias from Caucasian officers. To most officers, a Caucasian does not look as suspicious as an African American which makes them more susceptible to searches. Even if a Caucasian is searched and caught for having illegal drugs, the consequences are usually not as bad for them. In fact, in Chicago alone, “White drug offenders are rarely arrested” and when they are caught and brought to court “they are treated more favorably at every stage of the criminal justice process” (189). All across the nation, African Americans are filling up our county jails at a higher rate than any other race in the United States, which is better known as mass incarceration.
Race and inequality are as much a problem today as they were in the Hoover administration. While each task force and commision faced their own unique challenges, Obama with public relations and policing, Kerner with white privelage and welfare reform, and finally Wickersham with public crime and prohibition you can come to the same conclusion time and time again, the criminal justice system and the polcies we have in place are inadequate in delaing with our current economically challenged
An institutional racism still faced both past and present can be found in incarceration and racial profiling. Our prison populations have skyrocketed since the 80 's and there is a disproportionate amount of black and Latino individuals who are incarcerated. Between New York’s stop and frisk policies and the insurmountable amounts of unarmed black and Latino men who are shot by police the discrimination by the police and law enforcement is clearly evident. Although black and Latino drivers are less likely than white to be carrying drug and other contraband the majority of car pulled over are the cars of black and Latino divers. The racial profiling is just one reason for the disproportionate black and Latino prison population.
The abuse of various ethnicities and groups has taken action in the enforcers of the law, the policemen. These forms of government has taken the control of criminals and placed it races outside the white barrier. Though Civil Rights Movements and other
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, departments that serve less than 2,500 people are 84.4% white and departments that serve millions are 53.4% white (as cited in Fifield, 2016). Notably, Over the years, a lack of diversity within law enforcement has become a pertinent issue. Notably, the underrepresentation of minorities within law enforcement influences the relationship between communities and law enforcement by engendering distrust with law enforcement. To say nothing of, underrepresentation of minorities have had many people question whether departments mirror a diverse community. Nevertheless, with that being said, underrepresentation of minorities have generated tension and distrust between communities and law enforcement and many believe that police department need to mirror the race composition within their cities.
Brianna Marquez English III - 5th period May 22, 2018 Being bad & getting exposed Police brutality and the system being corrupt has always been an issue in America, but lately it’s been brought up more and more in the media. The system hasn 't always revealed the full truth about stories, but now with technology it has become a concern that the police are covering up things that we should know. Recently there have been more protests and riots about officers not doing their jobs and they are going out of there way to hurt victims.
Only one officer is charged for every one thousand people killed (“5 Facts”). People would think, a murder is a murder, therefore all cops should be charged just like any civilian would be charged. There has been many cases here in the United States, where a white police officer shoots and kills a minority, but never gets charged with it. Knowing police officers never get charged or into trouble, minorities start feeling police officers will do what they want since they know they will not get into trouble. This starts making people feel law enforcement is racist and unfair, making minorities not be able to trust them.
There have been numerous attempts at lessening racially biased policing, but it still exist and is a very big social problem. The extremity of racial biased policing is upsetting for me being an African American mother of two males, who have already experience this at a young age of nine and eleven. The misconduct that authority have for poor and color people is life or death, times have not change. People of color and poverty are still fighting for equality and change is overdue. I am here to take a stand and not allow racially biased policing corrupt my family lives or my life.
This problem has costs to the individual and society. Individually, this unfair treatment of minorities promotes psychological and legal problems. It also has many costs to society, such as financial loss. Most of this problem relates to the abuse of racial profiling as a scientific tool. Racial profiling should not even exist as far as I am concerned because it strictly promotes labeling among minorities.
One of the greatest challenges law enforcement are facing is providing effective policing for minority communities. Some factors that prevent minorities from gaining access to justice or being taken advantage of certain criminal justice services are language barriers, racial stereotyping, and cultural differences. Since the 30 's and 40 's, and even during the 60 's, civil rights activists damaged the police-minority relations in the United States, believing that police only interest are protecting white communities. A big explanation of why there 's a poor police-minority relations in the United States is racism on the part of the individual officers. Many minorities in the United States have continued to complain about being treated more harshly than whites and the Department of Justice believes that racial profiling and police discrimination will continue to be a big problem.
Police corruption has been the largest ongoing problem in the United States criminal justice system. In the documentary, “The Seven Five” directed by Tiller Russell, he sheds light onto the story of former NYPD officer Michael Dowd and how he and his prescient were involved in committing numerous crimes, including running their own cocaine ring while on the job in the 1980’s, early 90’s. Per the Criminal Law- Lawyer Source, police corruption is defined as “the abuse of police authority for personal gain or to gain advantage for the police organization. Police corruption can take the form of a variety of criminal activities ranging from actual commission of serious criminal (i.e. drug trafficking and money laundering) to the instances where
There are numerous issues that deal with the American criminal justice system, but the two I found most prominant that occur on a daily basis is the abuse from police officers and clear racism shown by the American criminal justice system. To begin, racism as we know is a prejudice directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. In the criminal justice system African Americans are directly targeted and punished in a higher more aggressive way, than say someone who is caucasian and committed the same exact crime. Racism is more often than not, the motive for official misconduct. There are examples of racism from every known region in the United States, spanning across centuries from slavery to
It is ironic that in the country that was founded on immigrants from every corner of the world can have people that discriminate against those that are from different ethnicities than them. There is a significant
Corruption is a type of misconduct and offense in which the police break their contract and oath by abusing their power for personal gain or even for departmental gain. Examples of types of police corruption a. Bribery- police officer receives bribes so that they cannot write tickets for people who have gone against the law for example, from prostitutes and gambling, bribery does not only affect the united states but its world spread, examples of other countries with highest percentage of bribery are Pakistan and France. b. Assault on suspects- police officers use excessive force on suspects leading to injuries and at times suspects end up dying in their custody. Some police officers have been charged with murder of suspects in their custody.