Summary Of Racial Profiling In The Criminal Justice System

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Racial profiling in the criminal justice system in America has been a critical issue that continues to thwart the efforts of the people seeking justice. Many Americans of the minority ethnic groups continue to believe that the justice they seek and the incarceration of the criminals is affected by the color of the people and that the criminal justice system is not fair in the administration of justice. Police arrests are believed to be based on the ethnicity of the. Police relations in areas where minorities live are strained. This paper investigates the issue of racial and ethnic profiling in the criminal justice system and how racial profiling cases are affected by the criminal justice system itself.

Racial Profiling in the Criminal Justice …show more content…

Researchers have proved that a very high racial profiling exists in the police arrests and searches of people in the country. (Restoring a National Consensus: The Need to End Racial Profiling in America, 2011) Police officers disproportionately target minorities and they are charged, convicted, and incarcerated based on suspicion.
In addition to this, the police searches that are done along the highway have been proven to be based solely on the color of the drivers. (Harris, 1999) For example, during a 1995 to 1997 federal court consented decree for monitoring of the traffic stops by the Maryland State Police on Interstate 95, 70 percent of the drivers stopped and searched were black although only 17.5 percent of the overall people who were driving were black. (Cole, Smith and DeJong 63) It was clear that racial profiling affected the way police conducted their …show more content…

Though his home was broken into, the police, Sergeant James Crowley, arrested the victim (Henry Louis Gates Junior) on grounds of being disorderly when the police came in the house. The question lay on the necessity of the arrest while the situation called for understanding of the case at hand first (Houston and Parsons 44).
The probability of a black citizen being granted bail in the criminal justice system is very low, and people believe that the system is fully controlled by the white police officers (Angulo). In case bail is given to the minority people in the country, it is generally high amount that is required and amount that the officers believe the suspects will not be able to afford and are thus held in remands. (Angulo)
Although there are many cases where convicts demand bail while awaiting court process, many people view the additional charges that charged by the people are based mainly on the ethnicity of people. Such lack of trust in the criminal justice system is largely due to the biasness in the administration of the police (Samaha