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Examples Of Discrimination In Law Enforcement

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Pattern of Discrimination in Police Agencies

Discrimination in police agencies is a big problem in this country. This discrimination comes in different forms and names. The three mains types are Institutionalized discrimination, Contextual discrimination, and Individual acts of discrimination. These patterns of discrimination can occur because that’s the way it has always has been done or because of the situation. Ethnic groups pose problems for police agencies including language barriers and their prior contacts with law enforcement. Gang involvement and the location a person lives can also lead to discrimination. Illegal immigrants pose a different type of problem for law enforcement. Because they do not want to be deported, most times they …show more content…

These policies do not directly involve race. An example of this is more African Americans are sentenced to jail than Whites. This type of discrimination results from past practices that are put into law. In pure justice, all people would be sentenced based on the crimes committed, no matter the race even if there were extenuating circumstances, like self-defense. The person would still be sentenced for what they did.
Contextual discrimination
Contextual discrimination involves being discriminated against in particular cases or situations. An example of this is racial profiling in traffic enforcement. Another is when an African American is given the death penalty for killing a White person, but a White person is not given the death penalty for killing an African American. In pure justice, each case would be looked at, and a like punishment would be handed down based on the crime. This does not take into account the age of the offender or the reasons the crime was committed.
Individual acts of …show more content…

The three types of discrimination patterns which can be encountered by agencies include institutional, contextual, and individual types. These patterns are can occur because of prior practices, law changes or the individual situation. Ethnic groups pose problems for police department because of many reasons some of which are; language barriers, prior experiences with law enforcement, attitudes towards police, and culture. Language barriers and prior contacts are the two which have the biggest effect on encounters with ethnic groups. Gang involvement and where a person lives can also play a part in discrimination encountered by people. Illegal immigrants are more likely not to report any crimes for fear of deportation. Police agencies have enacted policies to reduce the liability placed on them because of incident of discrimination. These polices protect the department and they also help them with the relationships they have with their

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“Slangin’ Rocks” Objective Summary “Slangin’ Rocks” by Robin D.G. Kelley, is an opinion essay about the treatment of “people of color” by United States law enforcement, in a historical and modern sense. The purpose of the essay is to persuade the reader to agree with the belief of the author, that U.S law enforcement treats “people of color” unfairly, and that the system itself needs to be changed. The essay begins with the author describing his own experience with law enforcement, which provides him with credibility on the topic and provides insight into why the essay was written (Kelley 21-23). The author’s personal story provides the reader with a specific example of how “people of color” are treated unfairly by law enforcement, and that

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Racial profiling can be defined as any law enforcement initiated action that does not rely on the behavior of an individual, but relies on the individual characteristic such as their race, ethnicity, and national origin. Racial profiling states that if race or ethnicity is used as a factor in a decision to initiate interaction with an individual, then racial profiling is occurring. In other words, if a law enforcement officer stops an individual based on race, then the officer partakes in racial profiling. Historically, the lynching of slaves was advocating racial profiling. Also, the court case in 1944, Korematsu v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court held that ethnic profiling is not unconstitutional and may be practiced in times of national

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Although we hope our Police force will use their powers for good, but sometimes police misconduct can occur. Often, the police are under great pressure to act as quick as possible, espcially in a murder case and if the murder victime is white, a child, police officer, or prominent. For example, In the 1990’s the case of Rodney King, that not only shows a racist issue within the criminal justice system, but also the issue with abuse from police officers, but changed the country’s views on the LA police force. Twenty- Seven years ago,Rodney King was brutally beaten by Los Angeles police officers.

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Even before our nation’s founding, people of color have been discriminated. Decades pass and the criminal justice system is still “racist” labeling people of color as criminal, meaning black equal criminals therefore is fine to discriminate people of color just because they’re criminals. In “The New Jim Crow” the system targets black men because they are associated with crime, meaning crime stands in for race. In the other hand, As Heather Mac Donald writes in her book “The War on Cops”, “The criminal-justice system does treat individual suspects and criminals equally, they concede. But the problem is how society defines crime and criminals” (154).

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Systemic racism refers to the ways in which policies, practices, and cultural norms within a society perpetuate racial inequality and injustice. Within the criminal justice system, systemic racism is evident in a variety of ways, including racial profiling, discriminatory sentencing, and over-policing of communities of color. Racial profiling, or the practice of targeting individuals based on their race or ethnicity, has been shown to be a significant factor in the disproportionate representation of people of color in the criminal justice system (López, 2014). Research has found that Black and Latinx individuals are more likely to be stopped, searched, and arrested by police than their white counterparts, even when controlling for factors such as crime rates and socioeconomic status (Eberhardt, Goff, Purdie, & Davies, 2004). Moreover, studies have shown that racial bias among police officers is a significant factor in these disparities (Risse, Zeckhauser, Chon, & Karlan, 2017).

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Research have found different outcomes on the effects race has on sentencing.

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Courts are a major evaluative stage of the criminal justice system and we rely on these courts to determine our outcomes based on the crime that was committed. Today, there is more diversity of leadership in the court system but, race still plays a role in the outcome of the offender. This could range from petty crimes being committed like traffic infractions or facing the death penalty based on the race of the offender or victim. This paper will examine the three types of disparities that cause biased sentencing in the courts. The three types of disparities are race, social class, and gender and these all play a huge factor when making a decision based off an offender.

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Shannon Sharpe is describing the events displayed on television, newspapers, and on the internet. Although, most people in America will state that racial profiling by law enforcement is minorities complaining based on statistics or perception (Racial Profiling, 2016 ). Thus, racial profiling by law enforcement agencies prevents useful approaches, alienates communities, and impedes public safety (Hubpages and Hubbers, 2009). Prevents Useful Approaches Racial profiling distracts law enforcement agencies from using useful approaches.

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Racial profiling has become a worldwide epidemic. Within law enforcement circles and its practices, has become a contentious issue. It occurs every day, in cities and towns across the country, where law enforcement and private security target minorities without evidence of criminal activities. Law enforcement is responsible for humiliating and frightening these groups with: detentions, interrogations, and searches. It can be triggered based on perceived race, ethnicity, origin, or religion.

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For individual discrimination, it is mainly that through our personal experiences and lessons learned and received in the past, to prejudiced another person. At the same time, institutional discrimination usually produce prejudice to the most of large institutions and organizations for part of the race and ethnic. In current society, individual discrimination is often released in the color issue today; we often are isolated by our own color. Sometimes, people who the white drive in the cars are easier to get forgiveness and understanding of police officers, but for other color race, these people usually tend to be suspects by other people. On the other hand, institutional discrimination is mainly manifested in several areas: economy, education,

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One of the greatest challenges law enforcement are facing is providing effective policing for minority communities. Some factors that prevent minorities from gaining access to justice or being taken advantage of certain criminal justice services are language barriers, racial stereotyping, and cultural differences. Since the 30 's and 40 's, and even during the 60 's, civil rights activists damaged the police-minority relations in the United States, believing that police only interest are protecting white communities. A big explanation of why there 's a poor police-minority relations in the United States is racism on the part of the individual officers. Many minorities in the United States have continued to complain about being treated more harshly than whites and the Department of Justice believes that racial profiling and police discrimination will continue to be a big problem.

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Although some people may challenge that diversifying police officers will not make a difference in the relationship with communities, police departments mirroring the diversity of communities may mend tension. Notably, the lack of minorities in law enforcement derives from distrust between minorities in communities and law enforcement. In detail, with more policing predicaments emerging, such as police brutality over the recent years, minorities have been more hesitant to join police force due to their

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Public security departments are reviewing their resident from racial prejudice and search all over the country, but it is impossible to know whether to stop and retrieve the distribution is unfair, without first analyzing what interests ask the police in this regard. This paper provides an analysis of empirical research, we developed a standardized basis. This article also provides general theory of police fairness aspect neglected by calling attention to the ideal. In this process, it shows the specification empirical sociological investigation. Public security departments across the country are subject to review their street station mode, traffic stops and possible causes and agree searches.

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When different ethnic groups have encounters with police some insist that the police racially discriminated against them. The question becomes do the police use racial discrimination or do they criminally profile suspects? Officers use criminal profiling to help them predict the characteristics of suspects. In the textbook

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Pre-existing beliefs of ethnic minorities from the media, police sub-culture or other micro-level influences mean that ethnic minorities are more likely to be stopped by the police than white people in an occupational culture where targeting is encouraged (see Cashmore, 2001; Bowling et al, 2008). Such targeting mandates are guided by discretion and are likely to become entrenched in the structural policies of the police. It is in such a situation that institutional racism finds its expression. Oakley (1999, p.290) defines the term as ‘the way institutions or organizations may systematically treat, or tend to treat, people differently in respect of "race"’. When such patterns of ill-treatment are repeated continuously, they take on a ‘rule-like status’ and cannot be easily disrupted (see Haney-Lopez 2000, p. 1723).

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