One of the biggest controversies in society today is concerning whether or not the criminal justice system is racially bias. It is clear that blacks are overrepresented in America’s prison system. For example, they are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of white people and “constitute for nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population” (Criminal Justice). Although this is true, the disproportionate number of black men serving time in the criminal justice system is due to circumstance, not necessarily race. While there are some judges, police officers, or other officials who may have a racial bias towards black people, in the majority of cases blacks are not arrested because their race, they are arrested because they …show more content…
Police are often accused of racial bias, but it 's not very likely that they are arresting innocent black people and letting white criminals get away. For example, if there had been a recent string of murders committed by a white woman, then the police would be on the lookout for and be more cautious around white women. Likewise, because statistically black men commit more crimes, officers are more likely to be more cautious when they see a black man doing something that looks suspicious. In most cases, an officer is not going to risk his badge and reputation by consistently bringing in innocent black men and accusing them of a crimes there is no evidence for. While there are racist cops out there who will pull black men over unnecessarily or beat them for no reason, these officers will have to face the consequence of their actions. The police arrest people who commit crimes, and if black men commit more crimes then it makes sense that more of them are arrested. It would be a little ridiculous, if officers had to bypass or ignore any black criminal they saw, just because they’d already arrested a number of black men proportionate to the population. According to data produced by the FBI, when compared, the number of black arrestees and offenders are almost identical (Rubenstein). “If police are arresting a larger proportion of blacks than the proportion of criminals victims say were black, it would be evidence of bias”, but this data shows the two figures are very similar (Rubenstein). Yes, there is a higher percentage of black people arrested and serving time in the criminal justice system, but it is because they commit more crimes, not because of a racial
Law enforcement There have been instances of injustice demonstrated by law enforcement officials pertaining to black individuals. A disproportionate amount of black people are being subject to brutality and incarceration due to racial profiling. More black individuals in prison means an increase in the chance of the decision of the death sentence for black individuals, depending on what is being accused of them. This can be justified based on the belief that blacks are simply committing more crime, but the truth of the matter is, black people are often targeted based on racism by officers and this is why they represent such a large proportion of people in correctional facilities. To illustrate, following a wrongful vehicle search without consent
America’s criminal justice system is marred by a startling and unfair impact on marginalized communities. People of color are arrested, sentenced and incarcerated when compared to white people accused of similar
Since the nature of the; law enforcement frequently requires the police officers to make snap judgments about the danger posed subjects and the criminal nature of their activity, subconscious racial associations influence the way officers perform their job” (Racial Disparities: U.S. Criminal Justice System). Racially profiling people started very recently; the police racially profiling people and arresting them, thus destroys the belief of “innocent until proven guilty” in which is embedded in the U.S. Criminal Justice
Police departments target minorities as criminal suspects more often than they target non minority groups of people. This then skewing the data between arrested racial groups, putting minorities higher, because they are targeted more. This is more commonly referred to in our society as racial
It seems that the officers who fear black males, as the study presented before suggests, are allowed to shoot their weapons out of fear because the courts are protecting them. It is a police officer’s duty to be brave and not to act out of fear, but it seems as if the officers that are involved in killing these unarmed black men are only acting out of fear. There are so many cases where officers are acquitted or their charges are dropped. This has to do with the absence of video evidence and every police officer claiming that they were acting in
Not all trials are impeccable. The issue of racial disparity has been a serious problem of the United States. Especially in the criminal justice system category. For in criminal justice system today racial inequality is increasing not receding. This is because today, our justice system remotes the idea of fair trials and discriminate many African Americans and other minorities as well without realizing it.
Blacks (I use this word because I am speaking about the black community as a whole, not only African Americans) face racial discrimination from the criminal justice system as well. Treyvon Martin was gun down because of a hoodie he was wearing. When George Zimmerman went on trial for his actions, he was “innocent” and he said it was in self defense. “The Justice Department announced today that the independent federal investigation found insufficient evidence to pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida” (justice.gov) . This was very devastating for the black community as a whole.
According to numerous experiments, “analysis have found that racial profiling actually makes police less accurate , not more so in catching criminal activity. (Emily Badger)” Racial profiling causes assumptions on a group of people which changes their outlook within society, and impairs our efforts to remain fair and just. Race-based assumptions within the law enforcement “makes the community less safe… [causing] mistrust that arises in heavily profiled communities, where residents are wary of reporting crime or of cooperating with law enforcement” (Emily
In 2003, the Department of Defense (DOJ) banned the use of racial profiling in federal agencies, except when it came to looking for terrorists. States have also taken a stance against racial profiling, with many enacting their own laws that ban the use of racial profiling by the police. Departments are also encouraged to do things such as “monitor activity reports for evidence of improper practices and patterns” per the PERF report. In the end, it is up to the police officer and individual police departments to stop racial profiling and racially biased policing. If departments and people don’t try to change, then nothing will change in the
Rather than targeting people of color for their conduct or activities, the police target them because of their race. Minority groups, especially African Americans, are more prone to have unpleasant contact with law enforcement officers, according to studies that have been conducted repeatedly (Davis, 2017). Several studies indicate that people of color are unfairly affected by police officers, which is a serious problem in policing known as racial profiling. Compared to white Americans, black People had a more than twofold increased risk of being murdered by police. Research shows that black people are more likely to be subjected to police officers using excessive force than other groups (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2018).
After the results of a poll called “Race and Reality in America,” it is an acknowledgement that we have a race problem. According to the report, a large majority of minorities say that whether an incident in which an unarmed person is harmed or killed by police is videotaped plays a major role in whether or not the police officer or officers are charged for the crime (CNN Wire). A tangible solution, however, is to put body cameras on all cops. Most blacks feel like they are discriminated against when it comes to police brutality, because they are a minority. In our criminal justice system, the disadvantage of being a minority is
The police power ought to be an impression of the community. Thus, if a community has a substantial amount of African Americans, there ought to be a proportionate number of African Americans on the police force. Be that as it may, cops of any race soon wind up plainly bored on the off chance that they work in high crime rate areas. The police typically just interact with the most noticeably bad looking of the community, the general population they capture. What's more they are presented to some terrible occasions murder, assault, and kid manhandle.
First, police officers are racism against on black people. The unarmed black people who noticed police officers are white and they killed black people more than white people. They are racism toward to black people because of their color races. “…black people are being killed by police at more than twice the rate of white and Hispanic or Latino people. Black people killed by police were also significantly more likely to have been unarmed” (Laughland, Swaine and Lartey).
The fear and racism behind the idea that black people deserved what comes to them is blocking the vast majority of Americans from not only black humanity, but to the fact that they are getting killed as well. Many will assume the central accusation of this piece is "if I 'm scared of black people, which means I 'm racist". However, whether you, or I, or the officers in question personally hate black people is entirely beside the point. Hate doesn 't need to be in the calculus to know whether or not an individual recognizes the humanity in another or at least fosters implicit bias that manifests itself in real world conflict. The fact of the matter is frightened police are killing people, and doing so with impunity because the suspects in question scare us as well.
Police officers are trained to use their discretion in line with statistics or perceived statistics. It is often perceived that people of certain races are more likely to be guilty of crimes, and this concept factors into why the police made the choices that they made during this investigation. While this is illegal to do, it is still very hard to prove it in