Racial Profiling is defined as the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed a crime or an offense. Sadly, Racial profiling has seem to play a factor in police traffic stops. Discretion and Racial profiling are both left up to the law enforcement officer. The practice of racial profiling by law enforcement officials is a growing concern to the public. The everyday public question is how frequently racial profiling is put into practice, as a result of discussion in national media. It is widely believed that minorities are being stop more often than whites, and that the numbers of stops are disproportionate to the representation of the population. It is also assumed that these stops are justified by minor …show more content…
traffic violation that to the discretion of some police officers would be ignored. Some have referred to the pretext stops as DWBB or driving while black or brown. Over half the American population believes that the practice of racial profiling is widely used by law enforcement agencies. As a result of racial profiling the government requires agencies across the state to report the age, gender, and race of the driver, but racial profiling goes further than just traffic stops. Currently only 25 states are required to collect information on the race of the motorists they stop. City leaders, and the government all throughout the United States are working to stop this pretext stops based on stereotypical notions. Several violent incidents have occurred as a result of racial profiling. There have been incidents such as Trayvon Martin, and Walter Scott that has caught the attention of the national media. Unfortunately, This attention has caused several communities to distrust law enforcement officers, and their intentions. These incidents of profiling seem to be the focus in the media lately. There has been several instances nation wide, but also here in South Carolina. Practicing racial profiling in law enforcement has had a negative effect on the communities being targeted, and on the trustworthiness of law enforcement officers. Targeting individual based on race, ethnicity, religion, and or national origin for suspicion of a crime is immoral. One incident that stands out is the case of Trayvon Martin, and George Zimmerman in 2012. Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman One incident that stands out from the rest is the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case.
Despite the unknown facts about the case this incident brought national media to its attention. On february 26, 2012, George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin after a dispute. George Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer, and Trayvon was walking through the neighborhood on his way back home. Zimmerman considered the African American boy to be suspicious, and called his local law enforcement agency, despite the dispatched advising Zimmer to wait for a law enforcement officer, Zimmerman went to confront Trayvon. It is reported that a struggle occurred between Zimmerman and Martin. Zimmerman claims that young man punched him and knocked him on the ground, and followed to bang his head against the pavement. Zimmer proceeded to shot Trayvon and claimed it was self defense. Zimmerman did admit to shooting Martin, and was not arrested based on Florida’s Stand your Ground law. The following days, and month was filled with controversy. Communities called out for Zimmerman’s arrest, and questioned why Zimmerman chose to confront Martin, despite being warned to wait for a law enforcement officer, and to why Zimmerman considered Martin to be suspicious in the first place. This case seemed to involve racial profiling on Zimmerman’s part. African American communities were outraged and asked for Zimmerman’s arrest on the charge of murder. Through much protest, George Zimmerman was formally charged with second-degree murder. Zimmerman was found not guilty and concluded that Zimmerman acted in self defense, out of fear for his life. Martin’s death caused racial tension about racial profiling to grow across the country. It seems that the racial part of this incident escalated it to a national level. At a national level the media played a large role in the George Zimmerman case. Without the media this crime would have just been another homicide in Florida, but Several
communities accused Zimmerman of practicing racial profiling. The death of the teenage african american was covered extensively by the national media. In total forty one media segments were aired on CNN, thirteen on MSNBC, and only one of Fox News. Several communities consider Trayvon to be MWB or murdered while black. One author calls that George Zimmerman was protecting the white neighborhood or the “good neighborhood” for “these thugs who always get away”. This same author also claims that white people often have “the fear of blackness”. It is believed that George Zimmerman believed Trayvon Martin to be a thug in a gated community up to no good. Most say that Trayvon was a victim of racial profiling. Some critics argue that things may have ended differently if the young man had been caucasian. Some of the more alarming fact is in the search results relating to the Zimmerman and Trayvon incident. Each search begins with “Trayvon Martin is/was” or “George Zimmerman is/was”. On Trayvon Martin results comes up with; thug, no angel, a bad kid, a rapist, making lean, and not a good kid. In contrast Zimmerman results are; a hero, innocent, not racist, and my hero. Authors, Sanniasha Dale, and Jessica Henderson Daniel make valid statements about the Zimmerman and Trayvon incident. These two authors argued that racial profiling contributed to this tragedy. They say that Martin was deemed suspicious by Zimmerman because he was a black male adolescent. They accuse Zimmerman of stating to the 911 dispatcher that Trayvon looked like he was up to no good. They also mention the scenario whether or not this situation would have played out differently if it was a white adolescent. Zimmerman used stereotypical notations to suspect the black hooded adolescent was considered suspicious. Dale, and Daniels also bring up that law enforcement officers, and security officers often use stereotypical notions to deem suspects. The authors included circumstances where this is practiced such as traffic stops, border stops, and “out of place” stops such as stopping a minority in a suburban area, or any other venue the officer considers a minority to be “out of place”. It is widely accepted that George Zimmerman did practice racial profiling, and used stereotypical notions on the night Trayvon Martin was killed. The Trayvon Martin, and George Zimmerman tragedy continued to be followed by the media until Zimmerman was arrested and put on trial. This is just one example of racial profiling, but practicing racial profiling is far more than just targeting individuals based on race. Racial profiling is a problem seen in everyday life. Racial profiling goes far beyond this one incident. It is seen at a federal, national, and local level of all law enforcement. Secure or Insecure communities? The Federal government enacted a program known as Secure communities. Secure communities is an American deportation program that developed a partnership between state, and local law enforcement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). One author argues that this Secure communities could be promoting racial profiling, and pretextual arrest. Kurbin makes the point that individual law enforcement officers who practice law enforcement more aggressively may be motivated to arrest individual for petty offenses with the intention that the arrest be processed through the secure community program. Kurbin argues that policies such as these would encourage agencies to practice discriminatory policies on other ethnicities. Racial profiling and, stereotypical notions practiced by law enforcement officers are not isolated incidents. Racial profiling is seen at local, state, and national levels involving law enforcement agencies. Everyday Statistics Racial profiling is often practiced by law enforcement officer in everyday patrol and activities. Pretext stops and profiling extends into everyday life and activities. These stereotypical notions can be seen in the statistics related to traffic stops. A special report was written in correlation to characteristics of drivers and traffic stops in 2002. One of the highlights reported by The Bureau of Justice Statistics suggest that when stopped Hispanics (85%), and blacks (78%) were more likely to receive a ticket than whites (70%). These statistics seem to support the notion that Blacks and Hispanics are pulled over at a higher rate compared to whites. It is also seen in the report that Whites stopped were searched 3.5% of the time compared to Blacks and hispanics who were searched 11% of the time. The statistics shown in this report seem to support the notion that race and ethnicity can affect traffic stops. It is apparent that in 2002 whites were less likely to be pulled over, and less likely to be written a ticket than African Americans, and Hispanics. These statistics are compared to the thought that Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics all equally likely to violate traffic laws, but African Americans, and Hispanics are more likely to be pulled over. These statistics could also be related to belief that law enforcement officer are more likely to pull over African Americans, and Hispanics for minor traffic violation that would often be ignored. Law enforcement agencies nationwide are asked to report the gender, and characteristics of the citizens they pull over, but these statistics may be skewed as a result that currently only 25 states are required to collect and report the data from the motorist stopped for traffic violations. Right at home In 2014 South Carolina State Trooper Sean Groubert was fired for an incident that occurred over a seat belt traffic violation. Groubert was fired because of excessive force, and violating several agency policies. It is recorded that Jones, the man pulled over was asked to step out of his vehicle following a traffic stop. Groubert then continued to ask Jones for his license, from there Jones turned and reached inside his vehicle for unknown reasons. Groubert fired his service weapon several times while telling Jones to exit the vehicle. Jones was unarmed but was struck in the hip by the Groubert. It is noted that the incident occurred in broad daylight, Groubert had a clear view of Jones during the whole incident. It may be probably that Groubert was using pretext assumption, and stereotypical notions during this traffic stops. Groubert was within the law for the seat belt violation, but for reasons unknown Grouber choose to fire his service weapon at Jones. Jones was struck but is did not die. This particular incident has called for South Carolina Legislators to push a laws preventing racial profiling. The law would require all agencies to report and track the characteristics of the motorist stopped for traffic violations. It is estimated that 167 agencies are currently are not complying and report the characteristics of the motorist pulled over. Racial profiling is evident in everyday life, and seems to be practiced to a degree by law enforcement agencies. Racial profiling is not an isolated incident that happens every so often. Profiling and stereotypical notions are used at times for law enforcement agencies. Federal and national agencies as a result are calling for law enforcement agencies to track and report the age, sex, and race of all the motorist stopped for traffic violation in order to help prevent the practice of profiling in policing.
Trayvon Martin was killed by a neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman. He says that it was self defense, but after the tragic phone call was released to the media everything took a huge turn questioning if it was a hate crime. If Zimmerman would have stayed in his car that night then Trayvon would still be alive. It could not be self-defense if all Travon had in his hand were skittles and some tea. The whole thing blew up right after it was released to the news. Then when it was time for the trial it was live on television. During the trial and after the verdict is when the social media started to go crazy.
The case involved a neighborhood watchman, who happened to be on duty when he saw a young black man wearing a sweater jacket called a “hoodie”, walking through the neighborhood. George Zimmerman, the watchman, who was twenty-eight years old at the time, called authorities about a suspicious character walking around in his neighborhood. The authorities told him not to do anything; just continue with his rounds and not worry. Zimmerman, however, decided he would take matters into his own hands. He confronted the young man; they got into a brawl and Zimmerman pulled out a gun and shot and killed Martin. That premise will play a role in this paper as an argument as to why George Zimmerman should have been convicted of committing a crime. Even if the jury could not have reasons to convict him of the second degree murder of Trayvon Martin; they had other choices.
In the United States of America today, racial profiling is a deeply troubling national problem. Many people, usually minorities, experience it every day, as they suffer the humiliation of being stopped by police while driving, flying, or even walking for no other reason than their color, religion, or ethnicity. Racial profiling is a law enforcement practice steeped in racial stereotypes and different assumptions about the inclination of African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American or Arab people to commit particular types of crimes. The idea that people stay silent because they live in fear of being judged based on their race, allows racial profiling to live on.
The Zimmerman case allowed me to be aware of something that was right in front of me. At a young age, my mother's significant other was arrested and imprisoned for "trafficking drugs". My mother had always maintained that he was initially arrested due to racial profiling, as there was no sufficient evidence to warrant the police to search his car. Despite this information being told to me as a child, I remained blind to the effects that such a system of injustice could have on your economic status, mental health, etc. However, I believe that the outcome of the Zimmerman trial opened my eyes to this effect. I believe that Trayvon Martin's family most likely received the same financial and emotional stresses due to the racial injustice associated with their experience. However, they had lost their son. Following the shooting of Trayvon Martin, I began to understand the effect that systemic racism could have on the lives of Black people, and how it had already been affecting
While the stop and frisk program ultimately seems like a great idea and that it will help residents of New York City feel safer while on the streets, there has been much controversy with this program. The issue of racial profiling is largely discussed when talking about NYPD’s stop and frisk program. Besides police officers targeting lower income neighborhoods, more stops are of African Americans or Latinos than of whites. These stops often end up with a higher arrest rate. Of the 685,784 stopped last year, 92% were male and 87% were African American or Latino (Devereaux, 2012).
Racial profiling is the tactic of stopping someone because of the color of his or her skin and a fleeting suspicion that the person is engaging in criminal behavior (Meeks, p. 4-5). This practice can be conducted with routine traffic stops, or can be completely random based on the car that is driven, the number of people in the car and the race of the driver and passengers. The practice of racial profiling may seem more prevalent in today’s society, but in reality has been a part of American culture since the days of slavery. According to Tracey Maclin, a professor at the Boston University School of Law, racial profiling is an old concept. The historical roots “can be traced to a time in early American society when court officials permitted constables and ordinary citizens the right to ‘take up’ all black persons seen ‘gadding abroad’ without their master’s permission” (Meeks, p. 5). Although slavery is long since gone, the frequency in which racial profiling takes place remains the same. However, because of our advanced electronic media, this issue has been brought to the American public’s attention.
Imagine driving home, on a pleasant evening, after a tedious day at work. Just as you are about to arrive to your neighborhood, you notice blue and red flashing lights and pull over. It seems the police officer has no reason for stopping you, except to search your vehicle because of your suspiciously perceived skin tone. This unnecessary traffic stop, designed for people of colored skin, happens on numerous occasions and has been termed Driving While Black or Brown. Racial profiling is the act of using race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of having committed a crime.
One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling. This is the police practice of stopping, questioning, and searching potential criminal suspects in vehicles or on the street based solely on their racial appearance (Human Rights Watch, 2000). This type of profiling has contributed to racially disproportionate drug arrests, as well as, arrests for other crimes. It makes sense that the more individuals police stop, question and search, the more people they will find with reason for arrest. So, if the majority of these types of stop and frisk searches are done on a certain race then it makes sense that tha...
Racial profiling is a wide spread term in the American justice system today, but what does it really mean? Is racial profiling just a term cooked up by criminals looking for a way to get out of trouble and have a scapegoat for their crimes? Is it really occurring in our justice system, and if so is it done intentionally? Most importantly, if racial profiling exists what steps do we take to correct it? The answer to these questions are almost impossible to find, racial profiling is one of many things within our justice system that can be disputed from any angle and has no clear cut answers. All that can be done is to study it from different views and sources and come up with one’s own conclusion on the issue.
The way the media portrays a trial influences many people’s views of the trial, such as the George Zimmerman trial. Racial profiling is based on the way a person looks or acts. The way some media portrayed George Zimmerman was as an innocent white man who shot Trayvon Martin as an act of self-defense. Other media such as NBC portrayed him as a racist. The way these two media portrayed him influenced many Americans to determine a verdict without hearing the trial. In the article “The Quiet Racism in the Zimmerman Trial” by Steven Mazie, he implies ...
Despite the fact racism has been around for hundreds of years, upcoming generations are becoming more open minded and less likely to publicly berate minorities; racial profiling, however, is the one loophole of racism America overlooks. Police officials often use the practices of racial profiling to discretely single out minority races. A common approach to this is through traffic patrols. According to a statistic based in San Jose, CA, nearly 100,000 drivers were stopped; during the year ending in June 2000; and of these drivers less than 32% were white, the remaining 68% of drivers were a...
Before any argument can be made against racial profiling, it is important to understand what racial profiling is. The American Civil Liberties Union, defines racial profiling as "the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin"(Racial Profiling: Definition). Using this definition we can determine that racial profiling excludes any evidence of wrong-doing and relies solely on the characteristics listed above. We can also see that racial profiling is different from criminal profiling, which uses evidence of wrong-doing and facts which can include information obtained from outside sources and evidence gathered from investigation. Based on these definitions, I will show that racial profiling is unfair and ineffective because it relies on stereotyping, encourages discrimination, and in many cases can be circumvented.
There has always been racial profiling in our history. The problem here is that at some point the ones who are oppressed and discriminated sooner o later will claim why they are treated unequally. There are many examples around the world, but one only has to take a look at how the American society has been designed to realize the great difference between individuals. It was even normal and acceptable to see these differences during the creation of this nation because the ones who supposedly had the power and knowledge of conquering made sure to create a huge division between leaders and subordinates.
Every day you see and hear about minorities groups complain about cops and their tactics against them stopping them while in traffic taking them in to custody or even getting kill over nothing. Racial Profiling is a common thing in this community and it is causing a lot of trouble. According to Minnesota House of Representatives analyst Jim Cleary, "there appear to be at least two clearly distinguishable definitions of the term 'racial profiling ': a narrow definition and a broad definition... Under the narrow definition, racial profiling occurs when a police officer stops, questions, arrests, and/or searches someone solely on the basis of the person 's race or ethnicity... Some ways to stop it is find out who is guilty of it, look at their
This case is about a 16-year-old kid from Miami named Trayvon Martin. On the night of February 26th, Trayvon walked from his father's house in a gated community to a nearby store. When walking back, he was spotted by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old neighborhood watch volunteer. There have been a number of break-ins in the neighborhood over the last few weeks and Zimmerman thought that a young black man walking in the rain and wearing a hooded sweatshirt looked suspicious. Zimmerman then called 911 to report the person who "might be on drugs."