Racial Profiling by the Police Force - Essay Example

Running Head: RACIAL PROFILING BY THE POLICE FORCE Racial Profiling by the Police Force s Racial Profiling bythe Police Force Abstract This is a research essay in criminal justice field regarding racial profiling by police. This paper would demonstrate a critical thought process and knowledge of the subject issue. Introduction Before we would discuss about racial profiling by the police force, we should know what is racial profiling? The most common example of police racial profiling is "DWB", otherwise known as "driving while black". This refers to the practice of police targeting African Americans for traffic stops because they believe that African Americans are more probable to be engaged in criminal activity. Despite the fact that racial profiling is unlawful, a 1996 Supreme Court verdict allows police to impede motorists and explore their vehicles if they deem trafficking illegal drugs or weapons. Additional traffic stops leads to more arrests, which further reorients the racial profiling statistics in opposition to African Americans. Studies have exposed that African Americans are far more probable to be stopped and searched. Discussion Racial profiling is one of the most burning social civil rights issues facing America currently. It extends further than the sufferers to depressingly affected persons of color of all generations and revenue levels. It undermines the authority and legitimacy of the criminal justice system, and hinders efficient policing in the communities that mainly require it. Although there is no single, universally accepted definition of "racial profiling," we are using the term to designate the practice of impeding and inspecting individuals who are passing through public places -- such as drivers on public highways or pedestrians in airports or urban areas -- where the motive for the stop is a statistical profile of the detainees race or ethnicity. The U.S. government, in reaction to the unhappy events of 9/11, started an unparalleled campaign of racial profiling, deportations and detentions so grave as to stirring up the historical imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Numerous innocent people have been imprisoned without trial or any kind of court hearing. Several hundreds remain indefinitely under arrest without charge being brought against them. They are mostly tortured and sometimes shipped off to other countries to be tortured. Racial profiling has been a core issue for a very long time. Some believe that the racial profiling began in New Jersey. It is an acceptable fact that racial profiling is practiced everywhere in the world. The term racial profiling got its fame in the early 1990s. This term really have its start on the New Jersey Turnpike. In fact the turnpike is the main channel for the shipment of illegal drugs and other smuggled goods to the great criminal marts of the Northeast.(Steve, 2001) Minorities are not only more probable to be stopped than whites, but they are also frequently pressured to allow searches of their vehicles, and they are more probable to permit such searches. In March, The New York Times reported that a 1997 study by New Jersey police of their own practices found that turnpike drivers who agreed to have their vehicles searched by the American Police were devastatingly black and Hispanic. Some racial profiling advocates concur that the drug war bears a large fraction of the blame for racial profiling. "Many of the stop and search incidents that brought this issue into the spotlight were part of the so-called war on drugs," (Gene Callahan Online). He argues that even if drugs were legalized in the future, this evil practice would persist. In order to eliminate the racial profiling evil, Americans must consider the root causes of this problem, namely: drug laws that provoke police to believe members of broad groups as likely criminals. We must readdress law enforcement toward resolving specific, known crimes using the specific evidence obtainable to them about that offense. It should be understandable that there is a loophole in the legal system that accepts suspects in murder, rape incidents, and robbery are innocent until a trial proves otherwise, but believes that a landscaper carrying some cash is responsible of drug trafficking. The police repeatedly abuse the application of racial profiling and often turn it into a practice of simply impeding blacks or Hispanics because they consider that the blacks or Hispanics are trafficking drugs. Police are even taught by their own departments and interlocking systems to pull over black drivers, and especially those driving certain vehicles. Police also abuse their powers when making traffic stops as well. In one of the more shocking incidents, Nelson Walker, a Liberian man attending college in North Carolina, and his two passengers were stopped on Marylands I-95 by two state troopers who alleged that he was not wearing a seat belt. In the two hours that ensued, Walker and his passengers were detained on the side of the road while police searched for drugs in their car, eventually dismantling door panels, seat panels, and the sunroof during the search. Finding nothing, the officers handed Walker a screwdriver, and saying "You are going to need this," left the three men on the side of the road next to their dismantled vehicle. More shocking is the fact that black police officers in unmarked vehicles are pulled over by white fellow officers, who are shocked to find out the results of their stop and quickly leave the scene. In one stop of a Metro-Dade, Florida police officer, Orange County sheriffs deputies wrestled Major Aaron Campbell to the ground, attacked him with pepper spray, and confiscated him regardless of his self-identification as an officer. Racial profiling does more harm daily than is worth the handful of justified arrests it leads to. The nationwide victimization it creates, the ways in which police abuse its application, and the general racial ignorance it uses as its basis make racial profiling an unjustified method of law enforcement. Racial profiling, though permitted by the Supreme Court and lawmakers, must be stopped before it is taken any further than it already has been. Racial profiling is not just a problem in the minority neighborhoods of New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles, but rather is a disease that is plaguing our entire nation. Blacks and other minorities, joined by white activists, have been decrying the situation for many years, but have just now begun to be acknowledged as lawsuits are brought against police departments and dragged through the appellate court system, including the Supreme Court. Though some victims of racial profiling may win monetary settlements from these lawsuits, the courts still affirm and justify the use of the discriminatory practice. “To treat differently a person or group of individuals based on their racial origins. Power is a necessary precondition, for it depends on the ability to give or withhold social benefits, facilities, services, opportunities etc., from someone who should be entitled to them, and are denied on the basis of race, colors or national origin.”( Deena at et, 2004) After the event of September 11, federal state and local law enforcement agencies worked anxiously to investigate those responsible for the most reprehensible violence on United States Soil and to evaluate the state of vulnerability to more acts of terrorism. As part of those conclusions, about the national origin and ethnicity of the prime suspects was inescapable. This crime was committed by a terrorist organization of foreign nationals of Middle Eastern descent. Immediately law enforcement agencies focused special investigative efforts upon individuals from Middle Eastern countries often in disregard of any other issues warranting doubt. Heather MacDonald of New York’s City Journal wrote in spring 2001 issue: “ What we may call hard profiling uses race as the only factor in assessing criminal suspiciousness: an officer sees a black person and, without more to go on, pulls him over for a pat-down on the chance that he may be carrying drugs or weapons. Soft racial profiling is use race as one factor among others in gauging criminal suspiciousness: the highway police, for example, have intelligence that Jamaican drug posses with a fondness for Nissan Pathfinders are transporting marijuana along the northeast corridor. A trooper sees a black motorist speeding in a Pathfinder and pulls him over in the hope of finding drugs”.1 The task of conscientious police and other law enforcement functionaries in fighting domestic terrorism is to consider what they know to be true about the ethnic uniqueness of the September 11th aggressors, and merge it with other aspects acquired through investigation and analysis to spotlight investigative efforts and keep away from casting a net too wide. Ethnicity alone is insufficient. If ethnic profiling of Middle Eastern men is sufficient to warrant unequal treatment, Americans hint they accept that all or most Middle Eastern men have a liking for terrorism, just as during World War II all resident Japanese had a liking for espionage. On the other hand, the use of group probability in police investigations is rightly regarded with tremendous suspicion, as it violates a basic principle of justice: The legal system should treat all citizens uniformly, until there is specific, convincing evidence that they have committed an offense. We can say that the odds that any specific adolescence black or Hispanic person will be harassed by the police are much higher than for a white person who, apart from his race, is geographically impossible to tell apart from the other. These minority men, no matter how law-abiding they are, recognize that they will be investigated by the police notably more often than other citizens who are not members of their ethnic group. We should try to build up relationships with various ethnic communities instead of antagonizing them. This kind of investigation raises few civil liberties concerns as long as the police rely on truly consensual encounters and human intelligence, rather than electronic surveillance or other more coercive intrusions. For law enforcement organizations, human intelligence means more than confidential informants, although certainly such informants are a key element in gathering information about who has participated in crimes that have been committed and who is planning new crimes. Mostly, human intelligence implies that citizens from the community will report criminal and suspicious activities to the police and will freely and candidly answer police questions. The willingness of persons from the community to assist the police in this way depends greatly on whether law enforcement is seen as a friend or foe--an ally in combating crime and doing justice or a hostile occupying force bent on harassing community members and their neighbors. Therefore, the better the police treat the vast majority of law-abiding members of a community, the better the community will treat the police in terms of information and support. The discrimination against non-whites occurs due to geopolitical realities, political views, social standards and specifically economic issues. In some incidents economic conditions are blamed for racism. In the last century the economy of America has such progressed that they are helping other countries in various ways.(Robert, 2004) With such a great and prospering economy, it does not make any sense when economic condition is held responsible for racial discrimination. There is a need for monitoring and elimination of racism through an effective mechanism. Effective anti-racism laws should be made so that adequate institutional framework for redress is provided for the racially discriminated groups. If discrimination of racial, ethnic minorities, indigenous individuals and Afro descendents are not checked than all these individuals will never be able to fully enjoy the inalienable rights which they should share all the other members of the society.(Ronald, 2004) Conclusion and Recommendation Racial profiling of all kind should be deemed unconstitutional even when there is a statistically valid basis for believing that it will help catch more drug dealers or violent criminals. This benefit is far outweighed by the costs: Such racial profiling is hard to distinguish from and sometimes involves-plain old racist harassment of groups that have long experienced discrimination at every stage of the criminal justice process. It subjects thousands of innocent individuals to the kind of humiliation that characterizes police states, and hurts the law enforcement in the long run. The racial profiling can be reduced if the law enforcement agencies collect relevant data of all the drivers they stop without having discrimination of race. Data collection being part of the solution of racial profiling the continuous monitoring and measuring of police performance is necessary to ensure effective police work and to serve the important mandate of protecting the civil rights of the public. “It’s a complex, provocative issue”(Racial Profiling Online) The perception of the problem in minority communities is so strong that unless the state sends a clear message that it takes the issue seriously as a civil rights concern, it is difficult to even hope that it will be dealt effectively. It is crucial for useful analysis of the data that sufficient categories of data be recorded. The necessary categories are the location, date and time of the stop; the race, age and gender of the driver; the reason for the stop; the disposition of the stop; and data relating to searches. (Murray, 2004) If proper steps are not taken; then the ethnic minorities will not be able to live like the other decent individuals as they will not be able to realize their full potential. (Naomi, 2001) They have the abilities, talents, and power and will to work but due to lack of opportunities for ethnic or racial reasons they are not given a chance to work and make decent livings. They have the same blood and flesh as normal white Americans and Christians. This racial discrimination has been happening for generations but the 21st century is too modern a time to practice any kind of discrimination. The American nation should stand up to face the challenges it faces post-9/11 without compromising on the rich heritage of treating everyone equally, regardless of cast, creed, religion or color. References Deena R. Levine, Philip R. Harris, Herbert Z. Wong, Robert M. Shusta; (2004) Multicultural Law Enforcement: Strategies For Peacekeeping In A Diverse Society, 3rd Edition; Prentice Hall ; ISBN: 0131133071 Gene Callahan and William Anderson, Roots of Racial PROFILING, Retrieved from http://reason.com/0108/fe.gc.the.shtml on 20th August, 2005. Murray, Sylvester. (2004). Measuring the Implementation of Racial Profiling Reform Efforts. PA Times, Nov, Vol. 27 Issue 11, p12. Naomi, Zack, 2001. Believeing about Race. (Belmont, Cal.: Wadsworth). Racial Profiling; www.horizonmag.com/6/racial-profiling.asp accessed on 20th August 2005. Robert, Blauner, 2004. "Colonized and Immigrant Minorities." 149-60. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ronald, Takaki, ed, 2004. From Different Shores, 2d. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steve, Olson, 2001. "The Genetic Archaeology of Race," Atlantic Monthly. Read More