Police Stereotyping Research Paper

"Racial Profiling and Criminal Justice." The Journal of Ethics, vol. 15, no. 1-2, 2011. , pp. 79-88. Nclive, doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9098-3.

The authors suggest that interventions aimed at reducing implicit biases and racial anxiety may be effective in reducing the incidence of police use of force against minority groups. They also emphasize the importance of addressing the connections of race and other social identities in understanding police behavior. As the article that was previously mentioned research has discovered that people of color tend to be “stopped, searched, arrested, and convicted of crimes, even when controlling for factors such as crime rates and other demographic characteristics” more than white individuals (Spencer). This goes on to show the logical reasoning behind the existence and impact of racial profiling and discrimination in the criminal justice system. Much of this information is gathered from academic resources provided on the school library website or from other educational institutes.

Racism and racial discrimination has been a major issue in the U.S. since the colonial periods, where people have been treated differently only based upon their race. Although the civil rights movement opposed racial discrimination, the act of stereotyping individuals still continues till this day. Racial profiling by law enforcement is commonly defined as a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, religion or national origin. A recent case, involving a young black man named Michael Brown is an example of how a police officer may act differently when facing an African American. “Ferguson Grand Jury Evidence Reveals Mistakes, Holes In Investigation” is an article written by Jason Cherkis’s and published on November

Researchers and Black people are not the only ones who recognize that racial profiling is a problem — even some government organizations do. A page on the National Institute of Justice’s website admits, “people of color are more often stopped than whites” (National Institute of Justice). Clearly, racial profiling by police officers is an existing issue and something must be done to put an end to this horrible practice. Fortunately, there are several methods for how police departments can reduce racial profiling against Black

In his essay “Arrested Development: The Conservative Case Against Racial Profiling” published in the New Republic on September 10, 2001, professor James Forman Jr. illustrates his disagreement with racial profiling. Forman Jr. is a professor at Yale Law School. He teaches Constitutional Law and seminars on race and the criminal justice system. In his piece, Forman primary goal is to create understanding about the effectiveness of racial profiling and how this affects the black community especially youths. Forman achieves this by appealing to a liberal audience.

As a result police officers have become a major key in the arrests of many people of color. Alexander explains how police will stop and search people of color who are “suspected” of containing drugs or who look “suspicions.” Police officers are actually encouraged in their training to use racial profiling and when a person files a complaint the Courts always take the side of the police officer. As stated by Alexander, “The dirty little secret of policing is that the Supreme Court has actually granted the police license to discriminate” (130). Many would argue that police officers and the justice system are fair and that they don’t discriminate and that one does have a fair trial in court from all the lies the media and television shows feeds the people about the justice system and police force.

Racial profiling by law enforcement is an overwhelmingly useless and prevalent expression of hate and ignorance to this day. Internationally, a wide variation of races are unrightfully discriminated against by the enforcements who are supposedly there to protect them. Jim Crow policing is an issue that undoubtedly continues, no matter the amount of riots or unjustly arrested/ murdered civilians. Cases like Trayvon Martin, and Mike Brown, as well as Bob Herbert 's article Jim Crow Policing published in the New York Times, February 2nd 2010, explain first hand accounts and statistics to give examples of the fact that racial profiling from the police force consistently takes place.

Assurance in equal justice remains as an overwhelming political principle of American culture. Yet withstanding unbelief exists among numerous racial and ethnic minorities. Their doubt comes as no surprise, given a past filled with differential treatment in the arrangement of criminal equity, an issue particularly clear in police misconduct. Researchers have investigated police responses to racial and ethnic minorities for quite some time, offering sufficient confirmation of minority burden on account of police. These examinations raise doubt about different police techniques of coercive control, maybe none more so than police brutality.

In nearly nine out of 10 searches, police find nothing”. This proves racial profiling still exists in today’s legal system like in the 1930s because in the 21st century, as it shows in this study, people in law enforcement stop particularly African Americans and Latinos most of the time to check them because they have “suspicions” about them. Interestingly, most of the time the police don’t find anything. This is an example of racial profiling because law enforcers are using the race of a group as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed an offense. This is very similar to what Alabama citizens did to 9 African Americans, commonly known as the Scottsboro boys, on the train going from Chattanooga in the 1930s.

The Hive has collected 18 such findings below. This list is not exhaustive, and does not purport to comment on the work of all police officers. It is, rather, merely a digest of the information available at present. Sometimes, studies and investigations reveal evidence of intentional bias; other studies point to broader societal and institutional factors that lead to implicit bias. Taken together, the research paints a picture of a nation where a citizen’s race may well affect their experience with police—whether an encounter ends with a traffic stop, the use of police force, or a fatal

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.

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).

Racial profiling has always been an issue in the United States, although we as a society tend to ignore it, it is still occurring around us everyday. Data has proven that racial profiling is an issue, it shows that, “Racial profiling is real. Disparate treatment of black and brown men by police officers is real. Grotesquely disproportionate numbers of killings of black men by the police are real” (Blow). Blacks are the number one race that is being killed by police officers; the numbers of the killings are drastically high.

Throughout history, disputes and tensions between law enforcement officials and communities of minorities have endured hostility and violence between each other. Racial profiling has become a “hot topic” for researchers as well as for politicians and by now it is likely that most citizens are at least aware of the common accusations of racial bias pitted against law enforcement (Cochran & Warren, 2013). Communities of color are being discriminated against and racially profiled by white police officers for any suspicion of criminal activities. It has been widely assumed by policy makers and citizens alike that allegations of racial profiling are mostly associated with the policing practices of white officers and their treatment of racial and ethnic minorities (Cochran & Warren, 2013). Also, individuals of minority descent will certainly recognize that they are being racially profiled during a stop that is being conducted by a white police officer.

Random sample surveys were conducted in Seattle, Washington by telephone, which asked citizen’s various questions concerning their feelings towards police. These questions included their level of happiness in regards to police problem-solving, their views on police hassling citizens, and if they had ever experienced, or perceived to experience racial profiling or bias by law enforcement (Wu, 2014). Of all the citizens that took part in the survey, 64% of African Americans felt that racial profiling was a problem inside their neighborhoods, 28% of Asians, 20% of whites, and 34% of Hispanics agreed (Wu,