America has demonstrated significant levels of commitment to fighting terror since the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Among the many transformations that the country has made is adopting a new definition of terrorism, which now includes domestic terrorism. The Department of Homeland security now coordinates different agencies in countering homegrown terrorism. Law enforcement agencies and personnel, especially the police, have stepped up their mechanisms of identifying potential threats to national security within the nation’s borders. Much as the country has taken these and other steps that aim to protect the populace and critical infrastructure, many ethical issues have emerged. This essay identifies the element labeling some people as criminals using a case study of Texas. Although the case study given is fictional, it highlights the fact that fighting homegrown terrorism in Texas has labeled Hispanic and African American youths as delinquent as and more capable of executing terrorism than their White counterparts.
The Case Study and Issues Involved
A group of five police officers were on patrol one night in Langwood, Houston, Texas. Having the understanding of their contribution to crime and terror deterrence, the law enforcement officers earmarked Rosslyn as one of the regions that required vigilant monitoring because of an incident that had occurred a week ago. As part of their strategy, the police officers would stop people at random, ask several questions and searched them either for weapons or drugs. However, it was notable that the police were more interested with non-White residents, especially the male youth from Black and Hispanic backgrounds than their white counterparts from the neighborhood. The reason that informed the officers’ mode of operation or actions was that non-White youths from Black or Hispanic backgrounds were highly likely to engage in criminal activity than those from other demographic backgrounds. Consequently, White youths and their neighborhoods were often ignored, a situation that led to a disproportionate arrest and maltreatment of the Black and Hispanic youth by the police.
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The police would target youths from Black and Hispanic backgrounds because of reports that they were more affiliated to terror groups and gangs that operated in the state, and that their unemployed conditions increased the chances of their affiliation. It was common for the police to shoot at any of the victims who showed tendencies of non-compliance with their requirements. That night when they had arrested a group of juveniles and bundled them up in a police car. Unhappy with the police officers’ approach, one of the victims challenged them by shouting that he was not a criminal because of his Black background. The police answered that they had not arrested the adolescents because they were Black, but because they had all reasons to believe that they were delinquent.
The case study describes several ethical issues relating to criminal justice, including cultural, historical, and political concerns of efforts to combat crime. The issues in the case study include race, gender, and occupational culture. Precisely, the law enforcement strategies disproportionately affected individuals from minority groups in the region. One can note that the police in Langwood had labeled African American and Hispanic male youths as criminals. Furthermore, the police might have been interested in the youths because of their limited access to opportunities, which is the fact that most of them were unemployed.
The historical context of the ethical issue of labeling some people as criminals could be explicable through the sociological theory of labeling that Howard Becker advanced in the 60s (Becker, 2008; Gennaro, Jeffrey, & Ronald, 2006). The model proposes that individuals come to act in ways that are a reflection of the labels that others attach to them. It implies that sociologists understand that treating a person criminally fosters deviance in them. As much as the case study does not report the fact that the police have contributed to deviance among the affected groups, the sociological theory would suggest that this behavior might contribute to such tendencies in the long-run (Cordella, 2016). Consequently, it is unethical for the police to contribute to deviance and crime in a section on the populace.
The theory is applicable to explain the politics in the issues, especially the personal and group dynamics of the youth from the affected groups. The strategies that the police applied in combating homegrown terrorism in the case study ignores the fact that individuals are inherently different (Bernburg, Krohn, & Rivera, 2006). Therefore, it is unethical for the police to treat the youth of Hispanic and Black origins as criminals, a statement that is reflected in the challenge that one of the victims staged after being arrested. A proper strategy would have been to treat each individual according to their conduct as opposed to the generalized approach that the police had adopted for crime deterrence (Bernburg & Krohn, 2013). The victim who challenged the police is the only person in the case study who showed moral courage, which is the foundation to arguing the political issues involved.
The case study identifies the consequences of labeling the youth as criminals based on individuals’ ethnic background or their community identity. At the individual level, the labeling theory suggests that the approach to combating homegrown terrorism may cause the youth of Hispanic and Black backgrounds to become criminals; besides, they may seek solace from gang and terror groups that might be operating around the state. At the community level, the model suggests that the police could be contributing to the emergence of a deviant society unconsciously as they seek to deter crime and terrorism.
References
Becker, H. S. (2008). Outsiders . Simon and Schuster.
Bernburg, J. G., & Krohn, M. D. (2013). Labeling, life chances, and adult crime: The direct and indirect effects of official intervention in adolescence on crime in early adulthood. Criminology , 41 (4), 1287-1318.
Bernburg, J. G., Krohn, M. D., & Rivera, C. J. (2006). Official labeling, criminal embeddedness, and subsequent delinquency: A longitudinal test of labeling theory. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency , 43 (1), 67-88.
Cordella, P. (2016). Readings in contemporary criminological theory . Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press.
Gennaro, F. V., Jeffrey, M. R., & Ronald, H. M. (2006). Criminology Theory, Research and Policy . Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
