As the director of the Center on Quality Policing and assistant professor for the department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, the authors of this article believe that through three methodologies of research, problem police officers can be flagged so that the issue of racial profiling can be addressed more appropriately. Ridgeway and MacDonald present data recovered from various studies which suggest that there is a problem of racially biased policing in many communities. With these efforts of research,…
In recent years throughout the rise of media attention on police malpractice and inner conflicts of racism in the force a campaign for Black Lives Matters has come to exist. The foundation of this group was built on racially based shootings and arrests. Many people have come to the belief that the police force is racist against those of the black community. In recent history the black community has felt that there have been a great number of injustices against them. These injustices have caused a major distrust of the police in the African American community.…
1. BIAS IN POLICE STOPS? In the late 1990s, popular, legal, and political concerns were raised across the United States about police harassment of minority groups in their everyday encounters with law enforcement. These concerns focused on the extent to which police were stopping people on the highways for “driving while black” (seeWeitzer 2000; Harris 2002; Lundman and Kaufman 2003). Additional concerns were raised about racial bias in pedestrian stops of citizens by police predicated on “zero-tolerance” policies to control quality-of-life crimes and policing strategies concentrated in minority communities that targeted illegal gun possession and drug trafficking (see Fagan, Zimring, and Kim 1998; Greene 1999; Skolnick and Caplovitz 2001; Fagan and Davies 2000, 2003; Fagan 2002; Gould and Mastrofski 2004).…
One of the major problems that police deal with is bias-based policing. Bias-based policing is best described as practices that police intentionally use based on ethnicity, gender, religion, age, and sexual orientation. It also includes racial profiling (p.31). In my opinion, this problem will always be around, because there will always be at least one bad police officer. In order for us to minimize this problem, police officers should interact with the people in the community more. If the police made relationships with people of all races, it would make it easier for the community to trust law…
Through the symbol of the wind as a microcosm for the natural world and Ahab’s interaction with the wind, Herman Melville argues that human will will never been able to subvert the natural world long term, and short term attempts will be at the cost of the individual. Throughout Moby Dick, Melville characterizes Ahab as ambitious and charismatic, a leader who constantly internally and externally compares himself to a god. The wind acts as a symbol, an object that represents a greater intangible motif, for the natural world. Through Ahab’s monologue about his interactions with the wind, his own helplessness within the natural world becomes evident. Ahab begins by stating “Were [he] the wind, [he]’d blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world” (Melville, 337),…
In any field where your job is to provide a service to the public, it is important to have a basic understanding of the people you serve. The same is true for those who work in law enforcement, but because of the nature of their duties, it is an issue for serious concern. The multicultural shift in America means that there is more representation of various minority groups, all of whom have differing historic relations with those in law enforcement, and often times an unfavorable one. Whether these groups are newly represented in American society or have been part of the society for generations, most often there is a history of unfair or unequal treatment under the law that is difficult for parties on both sides of the issue to overcome. This lies at the core of the problems with police-community relations (PCR). In order to serve the public to the best of their abilities, those who 've taken the oath to do so need involvement from the community they represent, a community that seems to be ever…
A controversial topic in American Policing is the issue of racial profiling. Many people have different views when it comes to this subject matter. Many people believe that racial profiling is a myth or ploy and is ultimately nonexistent. Others feel that racial profiling does exist and is a key contributing factor that law enforcement officers use to determine whether to perform law enforcement. The topic of Racial Profiling has been passionately debated among citizens, law enforcement officials, policy makers, and legislators at various levels of government. These debates has led to a large number civil lawsuits nationwide, court-ordered data collection, investigations into certain law enforcement agencies, and the passing of various laws mandating cultural diversity training and prohibiting racial profiling practices in various law enforcement agencies. Still, the following questions have not been thoroughly answered: Are African-Americans and other ethnic groups stopped by police because they are more likely to have committed certain types of traffic violations? Is race a significant predictor of being “pulled over”, cited or search by police? Does law enforcement officials target motorists based on race? This research paper will emphatically prove that African-Americans and other ethnic groups are disproportionately cited for traffic violations more often than whites.…
For 27 years, my father served the city of New York as a New York City Police detective. I remember seeing my father coming home weary, exhausted from work daily and some days depressed, due to the stress of his job and the tension between officers and civilians, specifically minority groups. Currently, tension among police officers and minority groups including African Americans are at an all-time high. Recent events such as the deaths of African Americans including Eric Garner, Philando Castile and others in encounters with police officers nationwide have exacerbated the already tense relationship between officers and minorities. The heighten tension and dangerous rhetoric from different groups and individuals have led to the deaths of multiple…
Blacks are strongly affected by police brutality and biased judgments. Recent months have made police brutality hard to ignore and pose an unexpected challenge to the government, thanks to the black community that isn’t willing to put up with the corruption in the Police Departments. A black movement for the social problem has erupted since the shooting of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014,” That incident sparked a national movement to protest police treatment of African Americans and turned 18-year-old Michael Brown into a putative symbol of racial inequality in America”…
The volatile issues that surrounds “racial profiling” has led police agencies across the nation to start collecting information about traffic stops, especially for people of color. The controversy is supported by research that police officers may be racially biased in their decision making to stop someone. The article that was published in 2012 studies the consensus and conflict theories concerning racial disparities in the rate of police stops. The author suggested that both police deployment and race out of place arguments played a significant role in explaining the patterns of street stops, traffic stops, probable cause and consent searches.…
Most evidence suggests that when law enforcement authorities use racial profiling, racial tension can easily become a problem in communities. If ethnic minorities are far more likely to be stopped by police, they tend to feel that they are being unfairly harassed as a result, and before long racial tensions build up between the police and the local community. A great example of this tension is the reaction sparked by the Ferguson trials. Historically, black riots are driven by a collective lack of faith in the justice system, and feelings that the concerns of the community remain unheard. David A. Harris professor of law at the university of Pittsburgh says, "Neither the police nor the public can make the streets safe by themselves; police work without public support will not do the whole job. The police and those they serve must have a real partnership, based on trust, dedicated to the common goal of suppressing crime and making the community a good place to live and work." How can we expect the police to form this crucial partnership with all this tension in between the police and community?…
Racial Profiling, we see it, hear it, and experience it, all because of our skin color, ethnicity or simply because of our names. All throughout the country, millions experience racial profiling whether it’s in a school, a restaurant, their neighborhood, or in jail. Racial Profiling has destroyed the public trust in not only police officers but from everyone around them as well. Listening to movements based on the killings due to being a certain race and learning from the death of Eric Garner and the series of deaths of others, concludes that two issues need to be solved: racial profiling and police…
‘In New York City 80% of the NYPD stop checks were of blacks and Latinos’ (Quigley). It is more common for African Americans to be checked, by making them lay flat on to the ground, in comparison to any other group in USA. Moreover, the fear of police shooting have made African Americans parents so much afraid of the police that they train their children’s to not stir during a police check and to slowly access driving documents while the hands still raised up. Still African Americans form biggest segment of population killed during police checks and most of the time the person killed is unarmed highlighting the injustice resulting from bias attitude of policemen against African Americans. ‘Therefore, the ferocious afro, the wearing of beads, teeth, fetish necklaces and the like always define a militant black radical. It is no matter that these outer camouflages for the black ego and devotion to retrospective glory are no more than a ghetto fashion. These are the stigmata of the enemy to the police’ (Wright). The 7:1 ratio of African Americans to white shot and killed by police that prevailed in the 1960s and 1970s clearly reflected racial discrimination by the police while during the 1990s this ratio was 3:1 (Samuel…
In California, the criminal justice system is experiencing problems that appear overwhelming when it comes to racial profiling .Racial profiling not only respects individuals Legal rights, but it is considered ineffective policing. On Monday, the ACLU of Southern California released a report investigating more than 700,000 cases in which Los Angeles Police Department officers stopped pedestrians and/or drivers of motor vehicles between July 2003 and June 2004. Not simply whether Latinos, Middle Eastern and African Americans are stopped and searched by the LAPD more often than whites. It’s very clear that they are, but the most difficult question of whether…
Policing have become a major concern today in the United States. The citizens of the United States confidence and trust in policing of the police are at the lowest point since the Rodney King beating. Many Americans still report confidence in the police, however an unprecedented number of Americans also report no or very little confidence in policing. Throughout history poor police/community relations in minority and low-income neighborhoods has documented. It has been exacerbated by egregious acts of misconduct, some of which have been captured on video and shared on social media. Many people such as activists, politicians, and police officials themselves have called for better education and equipment, from de-escalation training to body-worn…