Introduction
The question of racial discrimination in the legal system of the United States is a sought after topic despite limited evidence to support its existence at present. Although the nation once participated in discriminatory practices in the past, the majority of the activities ceased during the last few decades. Despite sweeping developments in recent years, the news never grows old while reporting a possible aberration. This research paper examines the evidence of data available in the books against the media reports which claim the rampant existence of racial discrimination. Each section in this research paper will raise question regarding the validity of a racial discrimination issue in the Criminal justice system. The goal of this research paper is to prove the nonexistence of racial profiling.
Overview
The goal of this section is to provide a background into the problem and come up with answers to three questions pertaining to the subject. The final part of the section will have a summary which will provide a conclusion to the main question for this section. A prominent question in the last few decades was whether racial discrimination is persisting in the Criminal Justice System. This section will raise three questions to verify whether there really is a problem. In the years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the press, the leaders of minority rights organizations, and minority religious leaders used racial discrimination to gain profits, and maximized on the publicity. However, in the years that followed the number of Civil Right cases declined significantly. The following questions will determine whether news channels and minority leaders blew out of proportions of what would otherwise be routine operations. The summary at the end of this section will tie up the findings to the main research question. The three questions are as follows.
Is race really a problem in law enforcement at present?
The diversity of personnel in law enforcement is still disproportional when compared to the Caucasian population. However, race is not the only reason which contributes to this issue. The minimum qualification required in most of the law enforcement outfits is a high school diploma. Unfortunately, schoolchildren from minority populations have high attrition rates even before they reach high school graduation. As a result, not many of them qualify for a job in law enforcement. In addition, the pay in law enforcement is significantly lower than several illegal employments which attract young adults from low-income neighborhoods.
A police officer makes around ninety-two thousand dollars per year however; a cocaine dealer will make the same kind of money in less than six months. Moreover, the constant news reports are a major deterrent for the minority community from cooperating or joining the ranks of the police. Caucasian families have traditions of serving in law enforcement for generations and as expected, they outnumber any other race. The reported nepotism does not have significant influence across the nation. There are several African American Police Chiefs, senior ranked FBI officials, and even CIA officials. News channels are always on the lookout for a case of racial discrimination and they need such cases to work a good rating on prime time. Racial discrimination is not an event which Americans are able to experience regularly (Eger et al, 2015). Hence, it is clear that the problem is not rampant as the reports suggest. The problem is not nonexistent since some of the southern states still harbor intentions to harm the African American community. Unfair judgments, prosecutions, arrests are fairly common in such states. However, this only represents a minority and not the majority states in the American nation (Rowe and Ross, 2015).
Is the public reacting to media sensationalism or does race play a role in law enforcement?
Public reaction to breaking news stories is always highly emotional. The beating of a minority community member by Caucasians becomes an instant hit with the media and the community. However, there is no such hue or cry if a Caucasian faces the same type of violence from members of a different community. There are sensational news stories which always focus heavily on the part where they question a traffic stop or scrutinize on whether the officer’s actions warranted attention. However, the news crew immediately focuses on Fourth Amendment right violations, and on every possible angle involving technicalities (Rojek, Rosenfeld, and Decker, 2012).
News reports and newspapers are the only way of picking up the knowledge on political views for most Americans. However, instead of presenting the facts of the case, the channels and newspapers choose to present only the interesting or controversial portions of the incident. In the Fergusson shooting incident, there were very few (if not any) newspapers focusing on the criminal act of Michael Brown than about his shooting. The story of the police officer is never on record. There is no mention of what circumstances evolved from the time the police officer made initial contact with the suspect and the actual shooting incident (Carter, 2004).
Understanding the mind of a police officer in such circumstances is difficult since, there is virtually no information on how police officers think except in textbooks. All law enforcement builds walls around their mental surroundings and alienates the rest of society. For these men and women, it is always an ‘us v. them’ mentality. There is no neutral ground. When a member of society violates the law, the police officer on the scene or while responding, he/she is always on guard to protect themselves. There are several hundred police officers killed by criminals every year. Many of these killing are the result of traffic stops. Hence, it is not unreasonable for a police officer to draw his weapon and shoot at a perpetrator who is resisting arrest. Not all killings by police are justifiable however; there is probable cause which never makes it to the news (Nix et al, 2014).
Why the news reports focus only suppression of the weak involving law enforcement?
The curious part of news channels is that they only highlight on the plight of minorities in case of killings by Caucasian police officers. The African American minority for instance has a large number of issues that require fixing. They have serious issues in education, housing, security, unemployment, drugs, and vocational training. The emphasis however is not on the issues faced by the community. If the news channels are really concerned about the well-being of the community, why are there no stories of these issues in the news?
The media only wants primetime ratings with reporters squabbling for position to line up for the next promotion in their news channel. The African American community faces more discrimination at the workplace than in any other place. The prime time newscasters fail to broadcast any news in this area unless there is a lawsuit. The news channels are unfortunately the only way for millions of Americans to receive knowledge in these subjects. Hence, it is easier to cause uproar and a story where there is none. They also find it easy to not broadcast the real stories of discrimination (Archbold et al, 2013).
Summary
The stories on television are not the real picture of how discrimination occurs in the United States especially in law enforcement. There are possibilities that racially tainted news stories have a history of churning up the rating of viewers. Hence, the news corporations insist on running stories to gain financially from them despite the social cost. Police Departments across the nation are creating new community policing initiatives to aid in the empowerment of low-income neighborhoods. They are also displacing criminal activities through hot spot policing and community-oriented policing. The police are in fact are involving more to prevent discrimination and generating more opportunities for minority communities (Beaver et al, 2013).
Method
The method of ascertaining the presence of racial profiling in law enforcement is by comparing data against the claims. A data oriented study will reveal fact from fiction. Criminology theory of social association also finds relevance in this section. The study will comprise of data on incarceration rates against sentencing reasons. If there is discrimination or racial profiling, the data should suggest a major discrepancy. There are three questions in this section which will help determine whether racial profiling is a reality or if the American Law enforcement fraternity have overcome this aspect of transformation successfully.
Why do African American convicts always outnumber other races in American prisons?
The presence of a disproportionate number of African Americans usually gives the impression of racial discrimination. However, the data relays a different message altogether. The majority of African Americans in American prisons are for drug charges. The drug laws changed since the crack cocaine epidemic in the 1970s. The community in the midst of the trade was the African American peoples. The convictions during this period had the essence of racial profiling. The sentences given unequally created enough uproar for the US Supreme Court to intervene and abolish the practice. Hence, the sentencing guidelines no longer had any racially marked boundaries thereafter.
The laws changed to accommodate lengthy jail terms for drug related crimes or for repeat offenders. Policy makers did not anticipate the influx into prisons until it was too late. The practices of sentencing as per the weight of the contraband and the three-strike law, generated a new influx into prisons. The African American community is one of the lowest income generators in the nation. Hence, the majority of them took up the drug trade to compensate. However, this development got the community involved in the firearms trade and eventually into organized crime. Their area of operation in the criminal fraternity increased rapidly.
The men away at prison, African American women were unable to withstand the financial burden of raising families without adequate support. This increased the potential for the unsupervised children to either find shelter with foster parents or find their paths cross with street gangs. The yearning to belong to a group or family lures young children into street gangs. In addition, households which took up drugs as a livelihood to increase their income exposed children to drugs at a very early stage. Hence, these factors, best described in the Social association theory became the reason for African Americans embracing crime more than any other community does. This is the reason why there are always more African Americans in prisons across the nation than any other race. However, there is no proof of racial discrimination playing a part.
Are sentences harsher for African Americans in comparison to the Caucasian inmates?
Prior to the 1960s, jail terms for African Americans dwarfed that of Caucasians. The trend changed when the US Supreme Court put an end to the practice in the late 1980s. However, the verdict did not affect the already imprisoned African American crack cocaine dealers. As a result, these men lingered in prison longer than other African American inmates did. The question of discrimination is not viable in present time since more African Americans find favor with the Supreme Court for wrongful convictions than any other race.
If there was discrimination in the ranks of the Judges, there is no scope of accepting that there was an injustice; let alone exonerate the individual. While the prosecution objected to several of the cases where innocent people finally found freedom, the move only increased the number of enquiries into prosecution misconduct related cases. Hence, these actions prove there is no discrimination. The sentencing guidelines are the same for both African Americans and Caucasians (Alesina and Ferrara, 2014). The number of years differs only based on the individual’s participation in rehabilitation programs, prior criminal history, and good behavior. Although the sentences might appear to run longer for African Americans, this is also due to their response to prison programs to determine the recidivism risk for the individual. Moreover, the involvement from family is higher when the inmate is a Caucasian. These factors will determine whether or not a certain sentence will apply to an individual (Abrams, Bertrand, and Mullainathan, 2010).
Do all minorities have equal representation within the Criminal Justice System in the United States?
Minorities do not have equal representation within the Criminal Justice System. The reasons are however not reasons for discrimination. There are varieties of factors which influence the representation. Lack of adequate education is the primary factor. While Caucasians do inhabit low-income neighborhoods, they largely hold white collar jobs and their wards are able to afford expensive law degrees from reputed universities. The rest of the minorities barring some Asian communities which work in the Information Technology sector, reside in low income neighborhoods (Stolzenberg, D'Alessio and Eitle, 2013).
These residents barely get to complete high school and a few lucky wards make it to colleges with scholarships. Despite regional colleges accommodating quotas, for low-income students the struggles to complete the course without any breaks are rare. The inability to complete specialized education prevents a majority of the minority communities from competing with the rest of the communities on equal terms. The race of these students are helpful in acquiring scholarships and grants for those who complete high school with reasonably high SATs. The criminal enterprise in the low-income neighborhoods will claim most of the students even before they reach the eighth-grade. Discrimination is not a factor since there is no opportunity to exercise it. African American students who make it to college are seldom from low-income neighborhoods such as the projects (Weeden, 2011).
Summary
The studies and data for disproportionate numbers is all but a myth. There is no concrete evidence to point in that direction with several other overlaying factors contributing to the situation. There was a time in history when this nation boasted numbers due to discrimination. However, that period is no longer relevant. The problem with the African American community is, as per John Dhemery, a distinguished police detective of African American origin, the community is probably not ready to shed the victim status just yet. He believes that the community and its leaders are apprehensive about comparison with other minorities if they try to move on. Dhemery grew up in a project himself says that racial problems exist in America today. However, not on the scale it is portrayed (Gardner, 2014).
Result
Racial profiling is still a problem despite the findings. There are more traffic stops which transpire into searches for minorities than with the Caucasian race. If law enforcement are not indulging in racial profiling, what else influences the searches? This section will analyze the factors which influence racial profiling at present. The section will analyze the problem through a set of three questions which will use the outcome of the study to determine whether the problem of racial profiling will persevere (Carroll and Gonzalez, 2014).
Is racial profiling a subset of behavioral profiling?
Racial profiling is not behavioral profiling. However, even behavioral profiling identifies the race of the suspect depending on the facts of the case. The problem with profiling is that whenever there is a profile for a suspect in excess of six feet and four inches, the suspicion turns definitively towards the African American community. The profile is not based on the color of the skin. However, it is based on the likelihood of an unusually tall individual common in the African American community. Similarly, a suspect sporting cornrows style hairstyle will also lead police to look for an African American. The chances of this hairstyle sported by a member of the Caucasian community is not improbable however; it is not likely (Milner, 2016).
What are the inherent difficulties in eradicating racial profiling?
All police personnel in the United States are aware of the dangers of being shot during a traffic stop especially by a member of the African American community. Drug dealers are the prominent contenders for firearm violence in the United States. There are accounts of several such encounters going wrong and ending tragically for the police officer who made the stop. Hence, it is not unlikely for police officers to stop any suspicious vehicle driven by African Americans and subject the vehicle search. In most cases, there was probable cause for the police officers to make the stop (Milner, 2016).
Is racial profiling a problem for a particular minority or for all minorities?
Racial profiling is a common problem for all populations in the United States. The threats to the American nation are moving in on the nation in a diverse demographic profile. Hence, law enforcement is always looking out for suspicious Arabs, Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis, Mexicans, and African Americans. There is no specific community which is immune to the scrutiny of the police. Traffic stops where minorities are stopped twice as often as Caucasians are areas where minorities have a higher population density when compared to others. Hence, the numbers do not necessarily mean racial discrimination (Rowe and Ross, 2015).
Summary
Racial discrimination and racial profiling do not exist largely in the United States. There are few places where these practices find patronage however; they are not rampant as expected. The problems faced by the minorities are not unique to any particular race in the United States post 9/11. Hence, there is no justification to assume higher number of arrests or large concentration of prison populations point to racial discrimination (Weeden, 2011).
Discussion
Racial profiling is not out of choice. It is out of circumstance. This section will examine how racial profiling should have interpretation among the American people. The two questions below will provide the justification for this conclusion.
Is racial profiling on specific crimes or specific peoples?
There are specific crimes committed by a specific group of people. The last few deadly shootings involved immigrants. Hence, the police and other federal law enforcement agencies will look to profile immigrants as terror suspects. This type of profiling is not racial in nature. It is profiling based on the prior experience gained from terror attacks in the past. There is no logical reasoning involved in such types of profiling. Minorities cannot take offense since they are also among the citizens the police are looking to protect (Nelson et al, 2015).
Will the behavior of a minority origin police officer differ from a police officer from the Caucasian race?
The question remains on how an African American police officer will react if he was in Fergusson. In reality, it would not make a difference. The outcome will be the same. Michael Brown will still be dead. The police use deadly force based on the training they received and this training equips them to kill anytime they draw their weapons. A police officer’s job is dangerous and it is the expectation that they use any means necessary to come out of a situation alive. The race of the police officer will have little effect on how he will react if he feels his life is in danger.
Conclusion
The American public have outlived the myths of racial profiling. It is a past practice such as slavery and segregation. It is no longer relevant for the modern United States of America which is thirteen percent diverse as of 2015. The subjects of racial profile and discrimination have little to contribute towards society except for the news cameras. There are several elements that choose to use racialism to benefit for political reasons. The Criminal Justice System is not susceptible to these primitive practices which once shamed the nation. The conclusion of this research paper is that racialism is still a problem in certain pockets of the nation however; they are not a problem in Criminal Justice anymore.
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