Racially Biased Policing

Racial profiling occurs when law enforcement officials target individuals because of their race rather than because their behavior suggests they have broken or will break the law. Racial profiling can and does occur in a variety of different ways. Some forms of racial profiling most commonly discussed in the United States today include the practice of stopping African American drivers, singling out Latino/as for immigration checks and searching Arab Americans in airports. It can become a part of all types of decisions law enforcement officials must make, from deciding who to stop, who to arrest, on whom to use restraints and on whom to use lethal force.

This study examined the effects of abuse of discretion by law enforcement officers. I examined five articles from scholarly sources and also interviewed one law enforcement officer and an individual who had recently been party to an incident involving police discretion. Based on my research and the interviews I conducted, I determined that cultural conditioning, race and class play a significant role in how a police officer uses his or her discretion. The basic question at hand is not whether an officer believes he should uphold the law. It is a simple question of whether or not the officer sees value in the life of the individual with whom he’s interacting.

Police Brutality and Racial Profiling This paper will aim to show how racial imbalance continues to play a central role in police brutality in the United States. Minorities have alleged human rights violations by police more often than white residents. To prove this I will be discussing how African Americans are more likely to be stopped out of unjustifiable suspicion by analyzing a study of 1.3 million stops made over 12 years by the Charlotte- Mecklenburg Police Department.

Racial profiling has been a long-standing issue in the United States in regards to law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels. It has existed in America since the first introduction of African-Americans, for instance, when slave patrols stopped and questioned any African-American unaccompanied by a white person. It continues to be a prominent topic covered by the media today. The media often covers stories on minorities being racially profiled and targeted by law enforcement not on their behavior, but on their personal characteristics, which debunks any argument that the United States is in a “post-racial era.” “Whites and some people of color point to the virtual lack of overtly racialized law- for example, Jim Crow statutes-

Describe racial profiling and racially biased policing. Explain why these phenomena have become significant issues in policing. What steps have been taken to eliminate racial bias among police? I. Describe racial profiling and racially biased policing.

Those of the minority community have been exposed, for a vast amount of time, to violence by those in the law enforcement. This variety of violence is a direct depiction of police brutality, which frequently generates death. Certain races, especially the colored skinned, are considered to be accused in criminal activities as a result of their race, notably when there is no valid proof present to affirm these allegations. In any police department in the nation, many of the officer's intentions is to do the ethical thing. However, the remaining will consciously breach the human virtue of the people in the communities they serve.

Police brutality is a civil rights violation, occurring when a police officer acts with uncontrolled power by using an amount of force with regards to a civilian that is more than necessary (Reuters 1). In the past, several years’ police actions of abuse have become very crucial. Instead of police officers protecting and serving the people like they were assigned, they rather murder and anguish them for no cause. The common race being tortured are African Americans. The incidents that are occurring is being overlooked.

This paper focuses on why police brutality is a major issue in our society today, as it affects African Americans. Throughout this paper, police brutality as it is directed toward African Americans will be thoroughly explained and the main factors associated with it. It will also show the relationship that links police brutality and African Americans. The portion of my paper entitled “Reaction” will then discuss how the narrative has raised my insights in regard to my own comfort zone, triggers and learning edge as defined by Miller and Garran.

Racial Profiling and the disproportionate use of police force are controversial political issues. Debates on racial bias in policing continue to reverberate across the country making headlines, aside from the importance of the debate on racial profiling and police use of force, such events create intergroup conflict, foreground stereotypes and trigger discriminatory responses. A serious issue in today’s society is the rising tension between the police force and the community which has developed through racial profiling and police brutality. In New York City, the controversial “stop, question, and frisk” policy was endorsed by some as essential for reducing crime rates (MacDonald 2001) and challenged by others as racially biased with a heavy burden placed on affected individuals and communities (Fagan et al. 2010).

Running head: Race and Policing 1 Race and Policing 6 Colby Heywood University of Massachusetts - Lowell Gender, Race and Crime 11/18/2016 Our country has been suffering a spike of fatal shootings of men of color by their own neighborhood police officers in the past recent years. However, the data of cases where racial inequality has been evident in policing duties has not been made readily available to the public. In fact, the federal database does not provide for any such records.