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Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System
Racial Discrimination in the Criminal Justice System
Solutions to racial profiling
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I found this event to be very informative and interesting. Many people would think that racial profiling would stop after segregation, but sadly it is still an issue increasing over the years. The special quests Shaniqua shared with us that out of all the people that have been stopped and frisked over the years have been mostly blacks or latinos. Not only were the victim’s blacks, it was found that a majority of them were realized because nothing could be found.
Shaniqua gave a lot of examples of certain cases and they were shocking and unbelievable. She stated that a man got shot four times upon opening the door for the police officers. Another case was a young man who was selling artificial cigarettes and was shot. Another man stated that
he could not breathe and he was still put in a choke hole.The one case that I found most horrendous was the case of the young black man who was shot fifteen times the day before his wedding. The cases are very heart-breaking. I can only imagine what these families are going through. It must be tough to not only lost a loved one, but also a member of the community. I believe that police officers should be retrained on the way they handle certain. Every one commits crimes it is not just Blacks and Latino’s. I also like that fact that in the near future police officers will be required to wear body cameras. If police officers are required to body cameras a lot of crimes will be prevented. With a body camera on , police officers who are racial profiling will think twice. Our classmate Steven mentioned that police officers should be voted into their profession. Though it may be hard to do, I believe that it is a great idea. Police officers should work where they are familiar with the community because they know the environment. This relates to social justice and National Association of Social Workers because both were created for the well-being of individuals in society. “The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty (NASW, 2016).” This a very big issue worldwide that has to somehow be solved. People should not be afraid to leave their homes fearing that they are being targeted. I have not been racially profiled but, I have a lot of friends that have been. It is not a good feeling at all.
No Heroes, No Villains: The Story of a Murder Trial by Steven Phillips takes the reader behind the scenes of a particular case. This is the story of James Richardson, a black man who was accused of murdering police officer, John Skagen. John Skagen, a white off duty officer, was headed home in the subway system in South Bronx, New York. For reasoning still questionable, he ordered Richardson to get up against the wall with his hands up. While being frisked, Richardson pulled a gun on Skagen and the two exchanged shots. Richardson then escaped the custody of Skagen and headed up the subways stairs firing four shots, two of which hit Skagen in the shoulders. Richardson shouted as he reached the top of the stairs “He’s shooting, a crazy man
As I waited to observe the audience as they filled the seats with pencil in hand, I was amazed by the amount of diversity I saw before me. By the time the lecture was ready to set foot, I observed that nearly the entire lecture hall was filled. I would say that the hall where our discussion was being held in could probably hold around 300 people. The majority of the audience was not students forced to write a paper on the Brown v. Board Commemoration events, but rather scholars who were on average in their mid-40s. It seemed as though everyone knew each other to some degree. At one point, I saw a woman walk in with her young son and they were greeted by one of the first presenters. Oftentimes, groups of 2 or 3 walked into the room and they would sit down in no particular section of the seating and proceed to talk moderately loudly and peacefully. There was a sense of joy and rejuvenation in the air. After making my final observations of the crowd, I noted that it was a predominantly white showing! Not something I would expect to see when attending a discussion on slavery. It was a spectacle for me to see a group of Asian Americans nodding in unison when points were made during the seminar relating to black and white race relations. I would say that African-Americans wer...
The story in discussion is that of Meagan Grunwald since it was one for which various articles from different online sources were available due to the large controversy it had sparked a while ago. Meagan Grunwald, a teenager of seventeen was convicted in May 2015 on 11 counts, including aggravated murder, attempted murder, aggravated robbery and use of a controlled substance and was sentenced to 30 years to life with the possibility open for parole.(Associated Press, 2015) The girl had engaged in a 51 mile crime spree that left one sheriff 's deputy dead and another wounded with her 27 year old boyfriend Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui who was killed in a shootout with police in the spree which included a driveway of a speeding car in a three county
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.
This presentation related closely to political and economic justice; however, this documentary is certainly related to social justice too. It was evident that this documentary was educating us about the policies and laws in America that have oppressed people who are non-white. It was disheartening to learn that America has a history of making laws that segregate non-whites in our society. I was well aware that African Americans have been oppressed by the policies that were put in place; however, I was shocked to learn that other non-white people too were oppressed by these policies. The documentary talks about what it means to be white by law; I was shocked to learn that our government never
This incident would have produced nothing more than another report for resisting arrest had a bystander, George Holliday, not videotaped the altercation. Holliday then released the footage to the media. LAPD Officers Lawrence Powell, Stacey Koon, Timothy Wind and Theodore Brisino were indicted and charged with assaulting King. Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg ordered a change of venue to suburban Simi Valley, which is a predominantly white suburb of Los Angeles. All officers were subsequently acquitted by a jury comprised of 10 whites, one Hispanic and one Asian, and the African American community responded in a manner far worse than the Watts Riots of 1965. ?While the King beating was tragic, it was just the trigger that released the rage of a community in economic strife and a police department in serious dec...
For the past few years there has been an ongoing debate surrounding the issue of racial profiling. The act of racial profiling may rest on the assumption that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than any individual of other races or ethnicities. Both David Cole in the article "The Color of Justice" and William in the article "Road Rage" take stance on this issue and argue against it in order to make humanity aware of how erroneous it is to judge people without evidence. Although Cole and William were very successful in matters of showing situations and qualitative information about racial profiling in their articles, both of them fail at some points.
The one good thing that I believe comes from this case is that it educated America on the mistakes being made by a law enforcement entity. The attitudes portrayed by these officers are terrible and, regretfully, most likely common. What it did was wake us up by showing us how biased criminal investigations can be and that bigotry has no place in the criminal justice system.
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...
Racial profiling does indeed exist in America. This practice is especially damaging to African Americans, who are frequently shamed by society as criminals, drug addicts, or welfare abusers. This societal flaw is evidenced by recent injustices to both Mike Brown and Trayvon Martin. Years of abuse of power have brought this issue blazing to the forefront of hot topics in America.
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...
"I don't want to talk about whether or not racial profiling is legal. Racial profiling is not an effective law enforcement tool." -- Eric Holder, 82nd Attorney General of the United States
Racial tension has been a part of America ever since the Civil War. Today we have a different issue with race, which is called racial profiling. Over the years, the relationship between the police and community of color has gone bitterly racial profiling. America’s society today tends to be tainted by racial profiling and stereotypes. These issues can have great effects on our society.
Have you ever been followed by store officials or security while shopping in a department store? At first, all of the attention can be flattering but quickly becomes insulting once you realize they’re not following you to offer any assistance. Instead because of how you look you fit a certain profile that causes store officials to think you’ve come to their store to steal. This type of behavior is called racial profiling. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, racial profiling refers to the discrimination practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Citizens need to be more aware of racial profiling and make laws that racial profiling should be illegal. Racial profiling is carried out by law enforcement airport security, and other security personnel that look to profile the minorities for no reason. Heather Sally Newton Driscoll ebscohost.com stated “The practice of profiling is rooted in centuries of discrimination and is based on stereotypes that have long been disproved. Profiling holds on entire population accountable for the committed by a small minority”.
Massive protests against racial segregation and discrimination broke out in the southern United States that came to national attention during the middle of the 1950’s. This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ...