Discuss Racial Profiling In USA Police Department (Essay Sample)

Police and Racial Profiling
Name Institution
Abstract
Racial profiling has been a problem that undermines implementation of criminal justice since it was first reported in 19th century. This paper discusses racial profiling by police in the war on drugs and its effects on minorities, police shooting and brutality against minorities, and unfair treatment of minorities. The paper then gives different solutions that can be applied to reduce racial profiling and finally concludes by with personal comments about the issue.
Police and Racial Profiling
Introduction
Racial and police profiling refers to acts of discrimination by law enforcers by targeting certain crimes based on religion, race or national origin. Research consistently indicates that minorities in USA are more likely than whites to perceive police agencies with distrust and suspicion. Many report how frequently the law enforcers disproportionately single them out due to their ethnic or racial group. The USA Supreme Court upholds that racial profiling act violates the constitution, which accords equal protection of everyone by law. It is also further prohibited by the guidance of Federal Law Regulation Agencies, which asserts that not only is it immoral but also ineffective. Police profiling has a long history in USA having rooted from slavery and facilitated by Jim Crow segregation laws.
Mainly racial discrimination in justice systems developed in the mid-1980s when the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) established the drug courier profile with an aim of combating illegal drug trafficking (Cochran & Warren, 2011). The DEAs were allowed to arrest individuals based on behavior and race clues especially those who showed nervousness or used rental vehicles. Many African – American and Latinos Images were painted negatively by the DEAs without any evidence that they were more likely to use drugs and traffic them. These negative perception has since dominated the law enforcement agency up to date. Indeed, this can be well depicted by recent data published by Guardian in May of 2015, which shows that 32 percent of African American, 25% of Latinos was killed unarmed compared to 15% whites. In addition, in a survey done by Kaiser Family Foundation, 19% of blacks and 17% of Hispanics claimed to have been unfairly treated by the police as compared to 3% whites.
Unfortunately, the 19th century DEA approach was extended on war against terror as profiling targeted on Muslims from Arabic countries developed after September 11th, 2001 (Roberts, 2015). Mainly actions of racial profiling undermine the justice implementation as people are treated unfairly. The following discussion will evaluate war on drugs and how it affect minorities, shooting and brutality against minorities, unfair treatment, after which solutions will be given on ways to reduce racial profiling.
War on Drugs and how it Affect Minorities
As asserted the biases in drug war started in late 19th century when DEA introduced discrimination against Blacks and Hispanics. Today being more than a hundred years later shows the magnitude of the act as the profiling remains a major challenge in criminal justice implementation. In a study by Iguchi et al., (2002) it was observed that minorities have a higher percentage of drug convictions. Racial targeting provides another noticeable stamp to the war on drugs. The law enforcement currently incarcerates blacks at a rate of four times compared to the imprisonment of black men in South Africa during the apartheid regime. Provine, (2011) asserts that the approach adopted to fight drugs in USA is what has led to persistent of racial profiling for all these years. According to the author, the method used reveals broader domain in which punitive regulations, prosecution, and incarceration combine to stigmatize and harm the minority group in the society. Furthermore, the pervasive ideology of race blindness undermines discussion of inherent ethnic prejudice in criminal justice system. Racial targeting drug regulation causes blacks to have 13.4 times probability of being imprisoned as compared to whites.
Given the fact that the racial profiling targeted on Hispanics and Blacks rather than the fight appearing to be against drugs it seems to be aimed at undermining minorities politically. The USA constitution provides that after completing a sentence, one should not vote. As a result, many drug offenders who are arrested due to minor drug offenses such as nonviolent possession loses their right to participate in an election. This was evident in a place such as Florida where over 200000 blacks were barred from voting in 2000 general election (Tyler, 2011). Interestingly although most of the prisoners are, the minority race studies show that the rate of drug use among them is equal to the whites. This means that since the whites in USA are five times bigger in terms of numbers than blacks, then drug user’s percentage is overwhelmingly higher as compared to African - Americans.
Shooting and Brutality against Minorities
Data indicates that police kill minorities especially blacks at a much higher rate as compared to whites. Studies show that African American only make up 13 % of the entire population in USA yet they are victims in 26 % of all shootings done by police, which is nearly three times the rate of whites (Krieger, 2015). According to Mother Jones. Org studies, the black individuals were four times likely to die in custody as compared to whites. Guardian reporting found that of the total number of unarmed individuals killed by police 35 % were Blacks, 25% Hispanics and Latino while 15% were whites.
A study by Washington Post on police assassination observed that the blacks that are fatally killed lower probability to be posing an imminent dangerous threat as compared to whites shot. The killings have increased distrust among minorities as shown in different studies. According to reports from W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 2015 showed that 68% of the Latinos were worried that law enforcement agents would use excessive force against them (Krieger, 2015).
Unfair Treatment
Criminal Justice Statistics data revealed that in 2000 there are few blacks in colleges as compared to those in prison (Provine, 2011). Also, black children were nine times likely to have one of their parents in prison when compared to whites. Empirical evidence reveals existence of the racial profiling acts by police in American today, especially in roadways. In research that surveyed data from 1997 to 2008 showed that by the age of 23, 38 % of white males, 44 of Hispanics males and 49 of African American males had asserted that they had been arrested once (Krieger, 2015). The high number of can be attributed to discrimination by the law enforcers. In fact, according to US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the number of Hispanics and African American traffic searches and arrest is relatively higher as compared to white. A study by Vera Institution of Justice carried out in Manhattan found that race was a major factor at almost every stage of criminal prosecution. Interestingly according to BJS on data of the number of drivers that are pulled over showed that blacks and Hispanics had three times likelihood compared to whites. It is interesting to find out that terms such as walking or driving while black have been coined as the rate of blacks being pulled over in the roads increases.
More studies by Pew Research Center Survey indicate that blacks perceived racial biases to be greater injustice systems than others. In particular, 7 in 10 blacks asserted that they were treated less fairly by the police than whites. The situation in Hispanics is the same with 55% of them stating that police are unfair when dealing with them. Unfair treatment is also seen when police are dealing with people perceived to originate from Arabic countries. Also, although racial hate crimes reported in USA decreased from 2000 to 2009 by 18%, the proportion of Muslims profiling increased by over 500% (Antonovics & Knight, 2009). In fact, 43% of Americans have self-reported to harbor some degree of prejudice towards Muslims, which extends to police agents.
One example of this unfair treatment is the programs that were launched by New Yolk Police Department (NYPD) targeted on American Arab, Muslims and Africans in an attempt to combat crimes. The profiling technique was highly questionable regarding its legality and has since resulted in closure of most of these programs. This programs violates rights of certain people and have proven to be ineffective. For instance, the stop and frisk program of NYPD has widely proven to be an act of granting legal permission for police that discriminates blacks. Studies showed that nearly 9 of those frisked out of 10 are innocent and 90% of all the people stopped to be searched are Latinos and blacks. Also, surveillance program launched by the same department in conjunction with CFIA after the 9/11 attack that targeted Arab American Community was unfair treatment since it was an act of invading their privacy (Tyler, 2011). Furthermore, only it was ineffective, as the information collected did not provide any lead on terrorists’ activities rather it acted just as a form of prejudice against Muslims.
Police Profiling Solutions
The first thing that requires being changed is practices and attitude of law enforcement as the main stakeholders in racial profiling problem. According to a study done by David Rudovsky, Many police perceive the act to be an adequate practice since they often arrest individuals with contrabands when they initiate such programs (Roberts, 2015). While many approve that it is inappropriate to stop and frisk persons on the basis of their color, some police agencies urged that reliance on it in addition to other factors was an adequate way of curbing crimes. However, although stops are succ...