Police patrol black neighborhoods more than white leading to higher arrest. “Confirmation bias is also known as selective collection of evidence. It is considered as an effect of information processing where people behaves to as to make their expectations come true. People tend to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses independently of the information’s truthfulness or falsity.” (Grosjean,…
Looking back at the countless accounts of police brutality and needless deaths that so often result from it, one cannot make any exceptions when it comes to a human life. The ERPA cannot change the mindset of individuals, but in can provide grounds to prosecute police officials responsible for racial convictions. The trust between the general public and police agencies has become brittle and decayed, paralleled and seen with the interactions today. “To serve and protect” becomes “To seize and arrest” when racism comes into play. This is why no matter what context, a law enforcement official should only act on solid evidence.…
In one more instance two black men are calling each other the same negative names and their voices and body movements continue to spiral upward the whole time (111). Emotional blockage. The comment of a white civilian women, “I wake up angry everyday” (124), tells us that it is not only law enforcement that need to understand where their emotions come from before dealing with others. Nor is it minorities that only feel angry about their life. Whatever the reason, it is necessary for civilians also to learn that bias and prejudices toward minorities can be the cause emotional and even potential physical crashes which have to be dealt with by law enforcement.…
Keywords: racism, law enforcement, minorities, African Americans, institutional racism, implicit bias theory Racism in the Law Enforcement System The idea of racism in the law enforcement system has recently sparked a lot of controversy. Citizens are supposed to feel safe in regards to law enforcement, but how can they feel safe if those with power abuse it and treat some of them differently than others? Granted, not every individual in law enforcement shows racism towards citizens, but there is a great deal of those who treat people of color differently. The racism in the law enforcement system can be seen in…
When you watch these videos, you must remember that this is NOT an accurate representation, nor does it portray how EVERY officer is. A lot of people, however, will watch videos like these and jump to the conclusion that all cops are crooked. So how do we stop police brutality and corruption?…
Racial bias or racial tendencies become apart of society when the only image of a criminal is African American. A fundamental component of racial profiling is the targeted application of law enforcement resources to communities of color when whites engage in similar behaviors but do not receive similar scrutiny (Glover, 2009, p.93). Unconscious bias is active even when law enforcement tries not to discriminate because of their racial…
Firstly, in understanding Police discretion someone would want to know if the concept has any benefit to society. In fact there are many strengths or advantages associated with the principle of police officers using their discretion. When a police officer uses his or her discretion it allows them to make a decision that is fair and humane, which in turn can improve the way people view the police. If the police were to follow the laws to latter, they would be perceived to be unfair to society and hence rejected (Rivera, 2006). This shows a major strength in the use of discretion by police officers mostly because it helps to build the moral of the officer and also contributes in building a community’s trust in the police, for example in…
When the discussion of law enforcement comes across many would have an image of a group of masculine men in collared uniform. For decades this image has imprinted on our society of law enforcement’s identity, which has caused a hardship for women in this field. Although women are able to have a career in law enforcement today, they are still discriminated against due to their gender. Throughout time women were viewed as powerless and emotionally unstable for this field but as time progressed it has been found they have the same intelligence, communication, and compassion as male officers.…
The driver repeated his identity several times until the officer pulled out his gun and pointed it in the driver’s face. African American officials were infuriated with the incident and the media continued to cover the story for an additional two months after the incident. The test subjects went over the stories in this time period, both the police reports and the media articles, and were then asked to express their thoughts of police racial profiling. African Americans and other non-Caucasians believed racial profiling to be more widespread than that of Caucasians; however, after more information on the event was made available, beliefs about profiling decreased in all ethnic groups (Graziano, Martin, & Schuck, 2010). Another study was conducted in order to determine the public’s perception of police misconduct.…
This incident also made me feel sad because of how much it still resembles today's America. Even though racism is less apparent today and African American people have more rights and representation in our society, there is still underlying racism in many parts of our life, especially the courtroom. There are too many cases of police brutality where the murderer is still walking free and still has their job. It is endearing to me that children will put apart their differences and help each other.…
Inversely, officers who abuse their discretionary powers often exercise discrimination, deny citizens their due process rights, systematically under-enforce the law, and lack effective personnel management. (Walker & Katz, 2012, p. 352) Prime examples are evident throughout history; from the nationally televised beating of Rodney King (Kleinig, 1996) – to the more recent shooting death of Philando Castile (Raguse & Thiede, 2017). These incidents serve to remind us that the abuse of discretion can also severely damage police-community relations if improperly…
(2007), police officers were in fact ‘less bias’ in shooting Black targets than community members, which was expected, given their training, and had much higher criterion when shooting ‘stereotype-incongruent’ targets, though most participants had ‘greater difficulty’ in reacting to ‘stereotype-incongruent targets’, which was consistent to their hypothesis. Also, they found that environment that supports stereotypes increases officers’ racial bias and their timing to shoot correctly, for example, neighbourhood with more Black people involved in crime (Correll et al. , 2007).They monitored police officers’ ‘performance’ in a ‘video game simulation’, while including of the significance of a ‘target race’. Similarly, despite being more stereotypically ‘bias’ against Black targets initially, police officers were able to remove their bias toward unarmed Black targets with constant practice eventually, which was consistent to their hypotheses. This is mostly due to the constant ‘exposure’ of unavailability to shoot ‘stereotype-incongruent’ targets (Correll et al., 2007), which influenced participants to raise their criterion for shooting Black targets.…
Daniel discusses how racism is visible within our countries laws and procedures. He also states that racism is built into customs, however in this sense it might not be as visible as it is within laws and procedures. It is noted by Akers and Sellers that this might be the case as use of excessive force, citizen harassment, stop and search, etcetera, lean toward racial and class biases. This brings to light the existence of stereotypes and their workings within the criminal justice system, centering on police actions and behavior.…
For instance, many cases reveal that a lot of individuals killed by police officers were unreasonably seen as a threat, while, in fact, they did not even carry an object or behave in a way that could harm anyone around. It also occurs that police act differently with individuals of different race and ethnicity who are usually stereotyped of being dangerous and aggressive. Accordingly, the conflict perspective best explains the motive of the…
The aforementioned recruiting strategy will attract potential police candidates; however, those efforts are “hindered by the fact that applicants will also carefully consider their likely experiences of racism and discrimination” (Newburn, 2011, p. 627). Individuals who has personally experienced police brutality will show less trust, confidence, and support in law enforcement. For that reason, a profession in law enforcement will not be appealing and it will make recruiting efforts very difficult and challenging. Police misconducts will fray relationships with the communities they are responsible to protect and…