More handpicked essays just for you.
Crime and race correlation
Racial bias in criminal justice system paper
Racial bias in criminal justice system paper
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
"Relations between the police and minority groups are a continuing problem in many multiracial societies. Surveys consistently document racial differences in perceptions of the police, with minorities more likely than whites to harbor negative views." (Weitzer and Tuch, Race and Perceptions of Police Misconduct, 2004) A great deal of society views law enforcement officers as heroic and honorable individuals, whose main purpose is to protect and serve the community. For many officers, this description is accurate, however for others; violence and brutality against innocent citizens is part of getting the job done. For years, minorities have fallen victim to police brutality based on racial profiling, stereotypes and other unjustifiable reasons that has cost innocent lives. The involvement of officers in police brutality against minority groups causes tainted and negative views on policing. This reduces their ability to protect and serve the community. Police brutality is a violent incident involving an officer and a victim, usually including excessive force, unnecessary violence and sometimes resulting in a senseless fatality. Minority groups such as African Americans and Hispanics have often been the victims of this form of abuse by officers, however little justice has been done in order to protect these individuals from this form of cruelty by the hands of those with the most power. For many individuals, police brutality is a non-existent matter because it does not directly affect them or the community in which they live. Yet for others, this is an everyday occurrence and few limitations have been set as to what is unjust and malicious behavior of an officer towards the public, therefore, several officers are rarel... ... middle of paper ... ..., 747-763. Simmons, K. C. (2008). The Politics of Policing: Ensuring Stakeholder Collaboration in the Federal Reform of Local Law Enforcement Agencies. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973- ), 98(2), 489-246. Smith, B. W. & Holmes, M. D. (2003). Community Accountability, Minority Threat, and Police Brutality: An Examination of Civil Rights Criminal Complaints. Criminology, 41(4), 1035-1063. Tyler, T. (2005). Policing in Black and White: Ethnic Group Differences in Trust and Confidence in the Police. Police Quarterly, 8(3), 322-342. Weitzer, R. and Tuch, S. (2004) Race and Perceptions of Police Misconduct. Society for the Study of Social Problems, Inc. SOCIAL PROBLEMS, Vol. 51, No. 3, pages 305–325. ISSN: 0037-7791; online ISSN: 1533-8533 Web. 4 Sept. 2015. http://web.missouri.edu/~jlfm89/Race%20Perceptions%20of%20Police%20Misconduct.pdf
Do the institution and also those officers serve it act discriminately to different race group? On the one hand, it has to be admitted that some actions taken by the police are leading to the greater involvement of young black people in the criminal justice system but they cannot be recognised as discriminative behaviours. For example, the police tend to give priority and more effort into certain crime categories and some deprived areas, depending on local and central first concern. As a consequence, some criminals of ethnic groups and ethnic minority residences living in certain areas are inevitably more likely to come into contact with the
Authors of this document had written an evidence that proves the tensions between the minorities and the police. In their article, there were unanswered questions of the behavior of the police. Statistics were involved explaining how characteristics of police and communities affect the incidence of filed complaints on police violence. There were two hypotheses on threatening minorities made relatively to complaints. These authors had made analytical theories behind
The police officer may not have explicitly racist beliefs, nevertheless, may enact racist attitudes in an unconscious evaluation and responses. The police officer perceives the male black as a threat because of the implicit bias subconscious. Police officers have the cognitive to use negative stereotypes and unconsciously act on them, even when conflicts explicitly avow. Racial profiling by police officers is one of the primary concern and commonly used, implicit and explicit. Racial profiling has recently become decorous among law enforcement officers. “Some Americans believed that police engaged in racial profiling, and 69 percent disagreed with the practice” (Dempsey & Forst, 2015, p.243). Police officers have a lot of discretion in their jobs, and this particularly evident in traffic stops. If people don’t feel they can trust police officers, the relationship will deteriorate. All people, no matter what race have biases that lead to automatic behavior responses, we are more or less aware
Choudhury and Fenwick (2011) argue that as a result of increased policing and stop and searches, more members of minorities are subjected to prejudice and discriminatory views from law enforcement which has heightend distrust amonst minorities with the police force as laws are seen as being unlawfully implicated amongst members of their minority group as a result of their race of religious
How Minorities Feel About Police According to Dr. Carl S. Taylor, the relationship between minority groups and police in the United States has historically been strained. Some cities have a deep and bitter history of bias and prejudice interwoven in their past relationships. The feeling in many communities today is that the system pits law enforcement as an occupying army versus the neighborhood. Dr. Taylor wrote about easing tensions between police and minorities, but stated “If there is any good news in the current situation, it is that the history of this strain has found the 1990’s ripe for change.
Police brutality is a very real problem that many Americans face today. The police carry an enormous burden each day. Police work is very stressful and involves many violent and dangerous situations. In many confrontations the police are put in a position in which they may have to use force to control the situation. There are different levels of force and the situation dictates the level use most of the time. The police have very strict rules about police use force and the manner in which they use it. In this paper I will try to explain the many different reason the police cross the line, and the many different people that this type of behavior effects. There are thousands of reports each year of assaults and ill treatment against officers who use excessive force and violate the human rights of their victims. In some cases the police have injured and even killed people through the use of excessive force and brutal treatment. The use of excessive force is a criminal act and I will try and explore the many different factors involved in these situations.
Research Paper Rough Draft: Police Brutality Police misconduct is as rampant as ever in America, and it has become a fixture of the news cycle. Police brutality is the use of any force exceeding that reasonably necessary to accomplish a lawful police purpose. The media is inevitably drawn toward tales of conflict, hence why there are so many crime and police stories on the news. Despite the increasing frequency of misbehaving cops, many Americans still maintain a high respect for the man in uniform. Still, police misconduct is a systemic problem, not just an anecdotal one.
Weitzer, Ronald, and Steven A. Tuch. "Race and Perceptions of Police Misconduct." JSTOR. Aug. 2004. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.
Background and Audience Relevance: According to the Human Rights Watch 2012 report on Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States; police brutality has become one the most serious human rights violation. As citizens of the United States it is our duty to make sure that those with authority don 't take advantage of their power.
In 2003, 36 black police officers were asked to recount their lived experiences with having been the subjects of racial profiling, and a majority indi- cated that they had been stopped and questioned by other police officers ‘‘for no other reason than the colour of their skin’’ (Tanovich 2006: 1–2).
Chaney and Robertson, (2013) stated that “The Department of Justice office of Civil Rights has investigated more than a dozen police departments in major cities across the country on allegations of racial discrimination or police brutality”. Police brutality is defined as the use of excessive physical force or verbal assault and psychological intimidation. White police officers who grew up in the south and were raised to see African Americans in a negative way have a lower opinion of them. However, not all white police officers are from the south, some say that police officers are just abusing their power. When we look at what is going on around the country, it appears racism plays a part in police brutality. Even during this new digital age, there are video cameras in police cars facing the front of the vehicle, but that still does not hinder police using excessive
A police officer is a law enforcement official whose job is to protect and serve all people, not to ignore racial equality. Because the U.S consists of many different races and ethnic groups, the ongoing conflict between police officers and citizens of color is constantly rising. Although police officers today are no longer allowed to have racial bias, which can be described as, attitudes or stereotype used against individuals of color to define their actions and decisions, officers sometimes abuse their authority going around racial impact tools and policies. This results in citizens viewing it as discrimination and mass criminalization. By changing the way laws and regulations unfairly impact Black and Brown communities can improve the justice
Police brutality is one of the most serious human rights violations in the United States and it occurs everywhere. The reason why I chose this topic is because police brutality happens all the time in the United States and still remains unrecognized by many. Additionally, the public should be knowledgeable about this topic because of how serious this crime can be and the serious outcomes that police brutality can have on other police officers and the public. The job of police officers is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crimes. They are involved in very dangerous and stressful occupations that can involve violent situations that must be stopped and controlled by any means. In many confrontations with people, police may find it necessary to use excessive force to take control of a certain situation. Sometimes this makes an officer fight with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all cops in communities are great cops. At least once a year, the news covers a story about a person being beat by an officer. The article “Minority Threat and Police Brutality: Determinants of Civil Rights Criminal Complaints in U.S. Municipalities” by Malcolm D. Holmes from the University of Wyoming, uses the conflict theory to explain why officers go after minorities sometimes causing police brutality. It explains the police’s tension with African American and Latino males. Those minorities are the ones that retaliate more against police officers which causes the officer to use violent force to defend themselves.
Walsh & Conway(2011) suggested standards of police should be to implement transparency be responsive and maintain professional, human rights. The black people and lower class people face this violence in form of deadly force and shootings. In the 2011 publication, Gabbidon, Higgins & Potter suggested police to be more corrupt, unfair , harsh and cruel against black people.The police needs to be accountable to its community and department but by doing these kind of acts they are felt to be unsafe in the smaller communities. The brutality lead to push the black people to slavery in many countries by enforcing racial discrimination on them. In the past brutality was done by police in situations of racial discrimination which is still going on at many places to preserve power of upper class white people and for political purposes. This practice of brutality has a strong effect on minority groups like the blacks. If it is observed in a legal context police brutality is an abuse in law enforcement where a police officer has an upper hand because of the uniform they are wearing and the firearms they use which cannot be used by an ordinary individual. Examples of police brutality can be taken from the United States of America where in reality the black people are being discriminated by violating
Police brutality is an act that often goes unnoticed by the vast majority of white Americans. This is the intentional use of “excessive force by an authority figure, which oftentimes ends with bruises, broken bones, bloodshed, and sometimes even death” (Harmon). While law-abiding citizens worry about protecting themselves from criminals, it has now been revealed that they must also keep an eye on those who are supposed to protect and serve. According to the National Police Academy, in the past year, there have been over 7,000 reports of police misconduct; fatalities have been linked to more than 400 of these cases (Gul). Police brutality is often triggered by disrespect towards the police officer.