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Conflict between police and minorities
The truth on minorities and police violence
The Role Of The Police In The Criminal Justice System
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Criticizing the Police One purpose of government is to preserve order. There are many ways the government does that; one way is having a police force. The police are an important part of the executive branch which enforces laws made by the legislative branch. The police keep the peace by catching lawbreakers who are then tried in court and punished for inappropriate behavior. Without a well equipped and trained police force, society will fall into anarchy. People will do whatever they want without consequences for breaking the law. Millions of people would die because of unfettered lawbreaking. America would decline from a world power to a land of chaos and crime. Police officers provide an important and necessary function; however, in recent months, there have been many people who have expressed their opinion about the police acting inappropriately. The displeased people feel that the police have discriminated against and mistreated African Americans. One widely known example of perceived mistreatment is the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. According to Buchanan, Fessenden, and Lai (2015), Michael Brown stole merchandise from a convenience store and proceeded to walk down the middle of the street. Officer Wilson stopped him and recognized Brown as a suspect in the robbery (Buchanan et al., 2015). According …show more content…
These people feel that African Americans are mistreated by the police because of their race. In some cases this may be true; officers may knowingly or unknowingly handle a situation differently than they would have if the suspect were white. However, in most cases, it is the suspect who is in the wrong for making the officer consider using force in the first place. No matter the race of the suspect, if he immediately surrenders to the police, there is absolutely no reason why he would be
American policing originated from early English law and is profoundly influenced by its history. Early law enforcement in England took on two forms of policing, one of which heavily influenced modern policing and it is known as the watch (Potter, 2013). The watch consisted, at first, of volunteers which had to patrol the streets for any kind of disorder including crime and fire. After men attempted to get out of volunteering by paying others, it became a paid professional position (Walker & Katz, 2012). The three eras of policing in America are shaped by these early ideas and practices of law enforcement. Throughout time, sufficient improvements and advancements have been made from the political era to the professional era and finally the community era which attempts to eliminate corruption, hire qualified officers and create an overall effective law enforcement system.
The family of Michael Brown wanted justice for their son in which they felt was an unjust shooting. His mother was quoted expressing mistrust towards the police, "You 're not God. You don 't decide when you 're going to take somebody from here.” (McLaughlin, E. C. (2014, August 15) The family was obviously hurt by the shooting and wanted justice and support. The community began protesting the shooting and Officer Darren Wilson. Chaos broke out in Ferguson and a State of Emergency was issued. The community felt that the shooting was unjust and did not trust police officers. The community response to the shooting often attracted attention and made many political statements. Darren Wilson’s family were interested in maintaining his innocence. They hoped that the investigation would prove to the world that Wilson acted out of self-defense and did not violate Brown’s rights. The Criminal Justice system’s interests all hoped to create reforms and eliminate racism in police departments. On the local level many had to maintain safety in the community and assure proper police procedures. The state had to step into issue curfews and State of Emergencies to keep the state safe despite protests and riots as well as make sure Darren Wilson did not violate any laws of the state of Missouri. The state also hoped to create reforms to better race relations. On the federal level was the investigation which hoped to find out if the
Many people claim that racism no longer exists; however, the minorities’ struggle with injustice is ubiquitous. Since there is a mass incarceration of African Americans, it is believed that African Americans are the cause of the severe increase of crimes. This belief has been sent out implicitly by the ruling class through the media. The media send out coded messages that are framed in abstract neutral language that play on white resentment that targets minorities. Disproportionate arrest is the result of racial disparities in the criminal justice system rather than disproportion in offenders. The disparities in the sentencing procedure are ascribed to racial discrimination. Because police officers are also biased, people of color are more likely to be investigated than whites. Police officers practice racial profiling to arrest African Americans under situations when they would not arrest white suspects, and they are more likely to stop African Americans and see them as suspicious (Alexander 150-176). In the “Anything Can Happen With Police Around”: Urban Youth Evaluate Strategies of Surveillance in Public Places,” Michelle Fine and her comrades were inspired to conduct a survey over one of the major social issues - how authority figures use a person’s racial identity as a key factor in determining how to enforce laws and how the surveillance is problematic in public space. Fine believes it is critical to draw attention to the reality in why African Americans are being arrested at a much higher rate. This article reflects the ongoing racial issue by focusing on the injustice in treatment by police officers and the youth of color who are victims. This article is successful in being persuasive about the ongoing racial iss...
In this week’s supplementary reading, author Lydia Polgreen evaluates the recent string of deaths of unarmed black men, all attributed to police officers. The deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Freddie Gray in Baltimore, and Laquan McDonald in Chicago have pushed the issues of race relations and institutional racism to the forefront of societal issues in America. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that in most of these cases, the officers accused of the unlawful deaths are usually given the benefit of the doubt and found innocent by jurors. This has culminated in the schism in public opinion of the police force. White individuals are more likely to support the officers’ use of deadly force, while black individuals are far more likely to
In 2014, the death of Eric Garner in New York City raised controversial conversations and highlighted the issues of race, crime, and policing in neighborhoods that tend to be poor and racially isolated. Garner, an unarmed black man, was killed after being tackled and held in a “chokehold.” According to the AP Polls in December 2014, “Police killings of unarmed blacks were the most important news stories of 2014.” The problem is that young black men are targeted by police officers in which they have responded with the misuse of force and policy brutality. It is evident that this issue affects many people nationwide. The civilians do not trust the police department and the justice system because they hold the perceptions that police officers are immune from prosecution despite their actions. In particular, black individuals, specifically black males, do not feel safe in the presence of police officers because they are not held accountable for their mistakes.
The main purpose of the police is to protection, and force should only be use to promote the safety of the community. The police have been charged with the one of the greatest responsibility in the world, and that is with safeguarding the domestic well being of the public. My father was a New York police officer for 20 years, and I know firsthand that this job is not an easy one. The polic...
In the article “The Perfect-Victim Pitfall: Michael Brown, and Now Eric Garner”, author Charles Blow argues that racial discrimination in our justice system is still a very prevalent issue we should be paying attention to. Blow insists that we must look at the uncomfortable reality that racism still exists and is tainting our police force and the criminal justice system alike. He strongly believes that the excessive force utilized in recent police situations was due to racism. Charles Blow acknowledges the recent cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner as fueled by racial discrimination and urges the reader to not allow these cases to be swept under the rug.
Police corruption, misconduct, and brutality in the United States have been issues since the creation of watch system in the United States (Grant& Terry, 2012). New policy and training is now in place and the corruption, misconduct, and brutality has gone down since the beginning of policing. This is a huge issue that impacts all police organizations in the United States. The extent of police corruption, misconduct, and brutality is hard to track in the United States. A lot of these crimes go unreported, tossed aside, or the officer responsible gets little or no punishment. This is huge issue in the United States criminal justice system.
The turmoil and stability of an area are correlated with the crime incidents that take place. In most cases, the extent of such incidents is largely dependent on upon the law enforcement the police practice in that area. The Ferguson incident in 2014 is the best case to demonstrate how the police practice of law enforcement caused a tragedy, and it led to a heated discussion on whether there were police brutality and racial profiling. On August 9, 2014, an 18-year-old black man named Michael Brown was fatally shot by a 28-year-old white police officer named Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. When issues of crime and race emerge, the society comes into chaos. Points of view on the blame or blamelessness of Darren Wilson were profoundly separated;
For instance, there was a lack of communication between police officers and many of the newly arrived people in inner cities. Since police officers immediately took action to dissolve a problem, it left many of the residents showing anger towards the police. Eventually causing the relationship between police officers and the residents to fail. John Dempsey and Linda Forst explains in their book, “An Introduction to Policing,” how police officers were no longer seen as members of the community. Instead they were seen as strict and their main focused was on preventing the crime from occurring, rather than making sure everyone in the neighborhood was safe. They mentioned “A lack of communication and mistrust often ensued because of the police
In traditional policing, most of what the police do is incident-driven form of early policing. They respond to incident after incident, by dealing with each one and then responding to the next call. Through the traditional policing strategy, police gained pride in their profession. Additionally, the law enforcement focused on traditional crime fighting and capturing criminals and cracking down on organized crime. Traditional policing model is also considered as the “reform era”, which began around 1930s and lasted until 1970s. The police’s role and responsibility under the traditional policing model represents more of a government agency and the top priority is focusing on solving crimes. Additionally, the essential nature of police accountability
Officers are trained and taught different polices that require them not to be biased towards any gender or race. Such officers include Sunil Dutta, if you don’t want to get shot, tasted pepper-sprayed, struck with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell you.” (Dutta) uses policies to their advantage. Lack of African-American officers, mainly in communities with citizens of color, can lead to an inquiry that there is a bias in law enforcement agencies and their policies. With recent events in the news displaying the misconduct of officers in an African-American communities like, in July of 2014, where the death of Eric Garner because of “chokehold” by a police officer hit home for many African-Americans and made them question the legislative decisions on policies causing a distrust and lack of confidence within the police departments, shying away citizens from
Protect and Serve,those are the words that should most commonly appear when speaking of the police force within our country, but since its introduction into our society policing has yet to entirely fulfill those duties.Minorities have been a target of unfair treatment and brutality,as many Slave Patrolling citizens became those who would enforce the law of the land. Instead of policing being a direct response to crime, it originally became a response to urbanization and to ensure an orderly workforce as well as to control those who were deemed to be inferior.
Finally, the future of policing seems to already be headed in a good direction, focusing on improved communication between departments and with the public. The strong emphasis on community policing will help people feel more comfortable with the police and not as their own society. Some reforms need to be more focused on though, like the international police force, because of recent events like September 11th. Overall policing will seem to remain the same because the transition will be slow and gradually take effect, but it will always be improving in any way that it can.
In the beginning the police were used in order to control free slaves and enforce Jim Crow laws. After that era was over, the police then moved on to control “dangerous classes” which were immigrants, the poor and African Americans .