(Institute/College/University)
Executive Summary
Recent news reports on racial minorities being shot and killed by the police, or by those taken into custody and are reported to have died while in that situation, pose a grim reminder that the relationship of law enforcement and the racial minorities in the United States have been one filled with tension and conflict, mistrust and suspicion, fear and force, and domination and struggle. This is not a civil rights position paper; rather, this is a research geared to proffer that the instance of encounters between racial minorities and the police have been generally characterized by conflict and hostility. The questions is thus raised in this instance, why is this instance only found in police and law enforcement elements with racial minorities, or are these reports tainted to gain an advantage or a position where which a specific interest can exploit this factor to propound its own interpretation of the facts? Whatever the assertion here, the factor is that racial minorities have found themselves at the “short end of the stick,” and policies must be developed to help in eradicating the problem. The police are tasked to implement the existing laws in the society, and not to create new ones as these fulfill their duties. In this light, the paper seeks to provide literature and positions on the possibility to craft policies and programs that will help in this endeavor, and in highlighting the problem in the police if these have still not been discovered or addressed and in facilitating existing programs if these have been set up.
Introduction
In the story of Somashekar, Lowery, Alexander, Kindy, and Tate (2015), it was recorded that for every nine days, one African American man was being killed by the police. In April 2015, one stretch showed that three unarmed African American men were taken down by law enforcement personnel. All of the killings were recorded on video or broadcast on local television stations. Surprisingly, the number of these killed by the police for that year is just a small fraction of those who were killed by the police, and most of the instances showed that the suspects were armed. In comparison, of the 60 reported incidents that the suspects were unarmed, 40 of those incidents involved African American men. What is more disturbing, African Americans comprise a mere 6 percent of the US population, though these comprise the majority of the victims in police shootings.
The controversial killings of weaponless African American men by police officers have triggered mass protests as well as civil unrest in a number of US urban areas. The killings of Michael Brown, Walter Scott, and Freddie Gray and others have given evidence of the widely acknowledged and long established racist police practices as well as its use of inordinate amounts of force against “colored” suspects. Racial stereotypes was a significant issue for law enforcement in the 1990s, and in the opinion of University of Florida associate professor of criminology and Police Executive Research Forum research director Lorie Fridell, viewing the issue as a “white” individual gives the opportunity to discover a number of findings.
One, racial profiling is not confined to several police officers in a department and two, the overarching objective of the police in the United States is to eradicate crime legally. Fridell, in this light, proffers that the two digressing agendas can be forged together by the operation of “implicit bias.” The operation of tacit prejudice affects people’s perceptions on whether a person is seen as a threat or not. Research studies show that the engagement of tacit prejudice impacts the choice of shooting a weaponless African American than a weaponless “white” person. In regards to the police, this finding is supported by a report released by the United States Department of Justice that proffers that police officers are also susceptible to practicing tacit prejudice in their determination of who constitutes a threat and who does not (BBC 2015).
Schulenberg and Warren (2009) posit information that impacts their discretion whether to view a person as a suspect/threat or as a non-threat. Among the factors considered in this exercise included the presence of a weapon, the prior record of the juvenile and the level of harm committed; all of these factors play a part in the construction of the police officer’s decision whether to consider the youth as a potential threat to the community. What is noteworthy in this discussion is that save for the factor of having a prior criminal record, all of the factors guide the police officer whether to apprehend the suspect. The impact here is even though there have been significant changes in the immediate environment of the police-the community, and the dynamics within the community- these factors impact little the way that the police will comprehend the instances wherein juvenile delinquents have to be taken into police custody (p. 7).
The perception of threats coming from a minority group expands Marxist tension postulates that expound on the associations with influential economic sectors and their less affluent social counterparts. This social relationship between the strong and weak in a society have been portrayed as a “social melting pot” with the various ethnic and minorities being absorbed into the American social mainstream. However, a diverse number of factors such as language barriers, religion, and other elements have served to strengthen barriers in that society (Ruddell, Thomas 2010, 256,257).
Literature Review
Chapman (2012) notes that though governments need a force or component that will be tasked with the implementation of the laws of the state, there will be times that this mandate given to such a potent force can and will be open for abuse. From the roots of modern policing, it has been widely held that the police must only use minimal force in quelling criminality. Sadly, much of the modern police establishment have lost this basic tenet in policing, and in the area of police actions among minorities, much of the police often operate in fear and in suspicion of the “malevolence” of the minorities. Moreover, the police oftentimes will reinterpret the original tenet of the law to suit the needs of the police (p. 421).
This disturbing perception was bolstered by findings international human rights watchdog Amnesty International (2015) wherein the group found that hundreds of individuals are killed in police incidents each year. Though there are no exact figures that accurately gauges the extent of the problem, the limited data shows that the numbers of African American men killed by the police are inordinately disparate compared to the numbers of the other suspects. It is the task of the police to defend and maintain the law, as well as protect the rights of the members of the community where these are located. Often times, these objectives place the police officer in difficult and hazardous situations; however, the killing of Michael Brown in Missouri as well as others has drawn attention to a growing pattern of police treatment based on the race of the suspect as well as disturbing use of deadly force across the United States.
In another survey conducted by the UK based Guardian newspaper, it discovered that African Americans were likely to be weaponless when these were killed by the police. In the report, it found that one out of four African Americans killed by the police were without a weapon. In 2015, the Guardian found that three out of 10 African American men killed by the police were weaponless, compared to one out of four Hispanic and Latinos, and a mere 15 percent of these were “whites.” The results were drawn from a database of collated information of suspects killed by the police in the United States.
In the findings, it evinced the fact that police at the local and state levels as well as federal law enforcement organizations were killing suspects at twice the rate collated from the records of homicides committed by the police. The data from the Guardian integrated deaths and killings by the police with the use of other mechanisms such as “Tasers” ™, police homicides with the use of patrol vehicles, and deaths involving violent fights with the police, as well as in shootouts with police officers. Of the number of people killed by the police, 29 percent of those killed (135 out of 464) were African Americans. 14 percent (67 persons) were from the Hispanic minority, and 234 persons or nearly 50 percent were Caucasians.
Though the larger portion of the statistics proffer to “whites” having a higher casualty rate, it must be remembered that African Americans comprise a mere 13 percent of the US population, and of the 13 percent, 95 percent are men. With the data on the police related deaths, it was reported by the Guardian that the police agency with the highest number of deaths related to police actions is the Los Angeles Police Department which is also America’s third largest police organization. Just in 2015, it was reported that 10 people have been killed by the police; of the 10, five of the fatalities were weaponless (Swaine, Laughland, Lartey, 2015).
However, there is a growing opinion in literature that uses racial discrimination to agitate and worsen tensions in the society. This is not to state that racial discrimination in law enforcement does not happen; numerous resources and judicial opinions proffer that it does occur. Nonetheless, there are resources that evince that the data can be overblown (Crime Prevention Center, 2014). In this light, the importance of collecting accurate data is imperative in the accurate depiction and magnitude of the issue. In the past years, mainstream as well as social media have been a growing part of the comprehension of the issues on the use of lethal force by the police. Using these mechanisms, a number of cases have garnered national attention, such as those of Laquan McDonald and Eric Garner. The information that has been seen so far is that the police have been using lethal force in inordinate amounts in instances involving African American males compared to those involving other racial minorities or “whites (Beer, 2016).
Mullainathan (2015) proffers a more cogent and disturbing question to the issue: would the recent victims of police shootings such as Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, and Michael Brown still be alive when the police accosted them if these were “white?” It is stated that racial prejudice is and remains to be a significant factor in police relations with minorities. The “Supplementary Homicide Report” of the FBI disclosed that roughly 30 percent of all persons killed or wounded by the police were from the African American minority; though the data may be incomplete, similar data from other states evince similar results. Such threats are open for all people; many suspects are killed by the police are not Africa Americans. Withal, the issue here is not whether the person is “black” or not; it is having a higher frequency of encounters with the police, and this will significantly raise the risk for suspects to be killed in such instances.
In this light, it can be established that killings by the police are based on race; African Americans, whether male or female, are being slain in disparate numbers. However, this instance is insufficient proof that police officers have a higher tendency to kill African Americans in an encounter. Framed in another way, it can be understood that the disparate numbers of African Americans in police encounters is mainly due to the fact that police officers encounter African Americans at a higher frequency than any other demographic.
Beer (2016) proffers the question in a seeming reverse mode, asking which sector is the most victimized. At its most basic level, the answer will point to “whites.” For example, in 2015, 578 Caucasians were killed by the police, double the rate for African Americans (301). However, the numbers must be framed within the context of the overall population. When comparing these statistics, it will show that the African American minority was impacted more than compared to the “white” or Hispanic communities. Here, though the numbers for the latter two were larger, the numbers of African Americans killed by the police must be framed in the context these are smaller in the general population compared to the other two demographics.
Lasley, Larson, Kelso and Brown (2011) posit the theory of the “representative bureaucracy theory (RBT) in discussing the issue of police apathy to minorities. According to the authors, this apathy can be partly attributed to the long held practice of solely recruiting and hiring “white” police officers that possess similar work attitudes and values of those in the same organization. This policy, citing the work done by Chappell (2009) as cited by the authors, has bolstered a law enforcement culture that has steadily remained racist.
Scholars aver that the sole mechanism that can sever the mindset that all cops follow the same principle is to change the recruitment policies that will result in changes in the perception that will greatly digress from the prevailing, racist based philosophies within the police organization. However, critics of the postulate aver that even if recruitment policies were geared and designed to hire police personnel from the minorities, these will be little to no opportunities to be able to express these divergent stances on appreciating minorities in the communities either within the police organization or the community. In this light, opponents hold that even if there was an increase in the number of racial minorities within the police department in the community, these will have negligible to no impact towards changing the attitudes of the dominant class in the organization (pp. 476-477).
Conclusion
The use of deadly force by law enforcement elements gives rise to a number of significant human rights questions inclusive of the “right to life,” the “right to security,” freedom from prejudice and to equality before the bar of the law. The United States has a binding legal obligation to uphold, defend, and to comply with human right treaties it has entered into and has adopted the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination that directly states these liberties and guarantees. One of the most integral duties of police personnel as the ‘tools’ of the state is to defend the lives of those whom these serve.
In this light, though there will be instances that force will be required to quiet a situation, the use of such force that will result in loss of life cannot be condoned; in international agreements such as the United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms proffer that police and other law enforcement personnel are barred from using firearms save for instances to defend themselves from “imminent death” or to prevent harm or injury to others. Moreover, international jurisprudence on law enforcement mandates that force at any level can only be engaged when there is no other avenue that can be used to achieve a legitimate goal. If there is no other avenue to take than the use of force, the force must be proportionate to achieving that goal and the use of the force must be constricted to prevent any additional loss of life or damage (Amnesty International, 2015).
Recommendations
In the light of research finding deficiencies in traditional policing methods, Alarid and Montemayor (2012) discuss the significance of community policing approaches that are proactive rather than reactive to address the issues in the community. Many of these approaches have taken on a “decentralized” nature to insulate these methods from political partisan demands for a “better” community in relation to criminality. Here, the position is that community crime rates can be reduced when there are strong community links with the police.
Moreover, criminality can be successfully reduced with small non-confrontational methods such as proper garbage disposal, freeing up roadways by removing abandoned vehicles, demolishing unstable structures, and giving youths and other people after-school or leisure activities rather than be ‘tempted’ to commit crime. In this light, aside from community policing, ‘restorative justice’ approaches can also be considered to address criminality. This approach takes on the consideration of the position that crime is a cause and an effect of destroyed social and family relationships and unequal opportunities, finding solutions within the community rather than inside the criminal justice system (pp. 449-451).
Racism and crime do not have to be inextricably linked with each other. Mindsets and perceptions must, not have to, be changed in order to effect changes in the police-community relation. However, that change must come from within the organization, and that change must be done in all earnestness and seriousness. Until this is done, racism and police confrontations will continue to play a large role in the societal dynamic of the community.
References
Alarid, L.F., Montemayor, C.D., (2012) Implementing restorative justice in police departments. Police Practice and Research Volume 13 number 5, pp. 450-463
Amnesty International (2015) “Deadly force: police use of lethal force in the United States” Retrieved 7 April 2016 from <http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/deadly-force-police-use-of-lethal-force-in-the-united-states?page=3
BBC News (2015) “Why do US police keep killing unarmed black men?” Retrieved 7 April 2016 from <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523
Beer, T (2016) “Police killing of blacks: Data for 2015” Retrieved 7 April 2016 from < https://thesocietypages.org/toolbox/police-killing-of-blacks/
Chapman, C., (2012) Use of force in minority communities is related to police education, age, experience, and ethnicity. Police Practice and Research Volume 13, number 5 pp. 421-436
Crime Prevention Center (2014) “Grossly misleading claims about black teens being vastly more likely to killed by police than whites even after adjusting for crime rates.” Retrieved 7 April 2016 from <http://crimeresearch.org/2014/10/inflammatory-and-misleading-claims-about-black-teens-being-vastly-more-likely-to-be-killed-by-police-than-whites-even-after-adjusting-for-crime-rates/
Lasley, J, R., Larson, J., Kelso, C., and Brown, G (2011). Assessing the long-term of officer race on police attitudes towards the community: a case for representative bureaucracy theory Police Practice and Research Volume 12, number 6, pp. 474-491
Mullainathan, S (2015, October 16), Police killings of blacks: here is what the data say. The New York Times Economic view
Ruddell, R., Thomas, M.I., (2010), Minority threat and police strength: an examination of the Golden State. Police Practice and Research, Volume 11, number 3, pp. 256-273
Schulenberg, J,L., Warren, D., (2009), Police discretion with apprehended youth: assessing the impact of juvenile specialization, Police Practice and Research, Volume 10, number 1, pp. 3-16
Somashekar, S., Lowery, W., Alexander, K.L., Kindy, K., and Tate, J (2015, August 8), Black and unarmed. The Washington Post
Swaine, J., Laughland, O., Lartey, J. (2015) “Black Americans killed by police twice as likely to be unarmed as white people” Retrieved 7 April 2016 from <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/01/black-americans-killed-by-police-analysis
