In the contemporary cosmopolitan society, cases of police brutality and racial profiling especially those perpetuated towards the ethnic minority groups such as the blacks, Asians, as well as the Latinos have abounded. Despite the different perspectives held by many Americans, the fact of the matter is that according to research, the ethnic minorities are more likely to fall victim to racial discrimination, police brutality, or racial profiling. The effect is that the minority communities are less likely to trust and place their confidence in the police or the law enforcement. Prior to delving into this topic, it is crucial to understand the fundamental terms that will be used in the discourse of this paper to induce understanding of the issues under discussion comprehensively. Racial profiling can be described as the discriminatory act propagated by the law enforcement officials of targeting individuals of a minority group for suspicion of crime based on the group’s race, color, national origin or ethnicity. On the other hand, police brutality is the unprovoked use of extreme and unnecessary physical force on civilians in a bid to accomplish a lawful police purpose. In this regard, this paper seeks to provide an articulated discourse centered on the issues relating to racial profiling and police brutality. In addition, how different perspectives contribute to this debate will be examined.
Literature Summary
According to Nadal et al., (2017), most of the minority groups such as the black Americans, the Latinos, as well as the Asians are more likely to be unfairly stopped and subjected to some physical force as opposed to the whites. According to the authors, based on the experiences with the police, the perceptions of the minority groups regarding police brutality are as negative as their narrations concerning their encounters with the police. Although significant gender differences in perceptions regarding the police among the minority groups are nonexistent, black men have reported more negative perceptions of the police compared to the females. The same can be said regarding their physical experiences and encounters with the police.
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Other than the physicality of police brutality, the encounters have negative psychological implications for the victims. According to Dukes & Kahn (2017), some of the major reasons that result in the propagation of police brutality and violence towards the minority groups include implicit bias, racial stereotyping, as well as contextual factors, which in a compounded manner exacerbate the issue. In addition to the physical and psychological injuries, emotional pain and grief are other detrimental effects of the brutality especially if it turns into a violent confrontation leading to the death of the civilian of color. A perfect instance of this is the death of Michael Brown in 2014, which edifies many other police shootings and brutality cases in the recent times as in the case of Philando Castile (Dukes & Khan, 2017).
Similar to police brutality, most individuals of color contend that profiling that was initially geared towards curbing crimes and fighting the war on drugs has turned into racial profiling for the minority groups. The focal concerns theory that focused on racial profiling during traffic stops instances revealed that racial profiling was evident and is an issue during traffic stops (Vito et al., 2017). The concept of creating a profile for individuals who commit certain types of crimes has detrimentally led to the police and law enforcement to generalize this characteristic for entire minority groups, and as such, act according to the generalizations rather than specific behavior.
One of the major negative effects of racial profiling has been manifested in the form of litigation processes regarding civil rights concerns, which are expensive. In addition, the relationship between the police and the citizens has detrimentally strained therefore creating challenges in policing (National Institute of Justice, 2013). However, forward-minded solutions regarding the issue has seen the incorporation of ethnic police officers from the minority groups into the forces that intensively rely on racial profiling as a policing tactic. This, in turn, has reduced the number of stops, frisks, and brutality propagated against the minority groups. Sadly, it has not completely solved police brutality or discrimination due to racial profiling.
Different Perspectives on the Issues
Opponents of racial profiling maintain that it is an ineffective policing technique, especially if the profiled criminals change their activities outside their active profiles such as using a different minority group or using individuals of different ages to carry out their criminal acts such as moving drugs. Additionally, the opponents contend that racial profiling has gradually spread from the highways during police stops to the streets where the minorities are stopped and frisked thus resulting in police brutality in some instances. They believe that profiling began as a way of fighting drugs but has since been used and incorporated in the daily policing strategies in law enforcement agencies.
On the other hand, proponents believe that the police are under immense pressure from the public to fight drugs, stop crimes, and terrorist activities and as such, achieving this objective requires employing other mechanisms such as racial profiling to keep track of suspects and previous offenders. From their perspective, the police believe that based on the history between racial profiling and the minority communities, most offenders and individuals of color hide behind racism and racial profiling to justify their actions or as a defensive mechanism to escape litigation processes. Indeed, it is common in the contemporary society to hear incarcerated individuals of color claim that the only reason that they were stopped on the highway or in the streets was not that they were speeding or carrying drugs and other contraband, but because they were black or differently colored. However, from the law enforcement and criminal justice system perspectives, the advent and installation of video cameras in patrol cars have been fundamental in thwarting the racial discrimination and profiling claims (Donald, 2001).
The perspective of the minorities especially the black community is that most individuals from their communities are subject to police brutality and violence citing the popularized cases such as that of Philando Castile. In refuting this, the police and the law enforcement agencies maintain that the force used in such cases is in response to the resistance from the criminal or suspect. However, the law enforcement agencies concede that a huge number of motorists subjected to disproportionate traffic stops are from the ethnic minority communities. Nevertheless, the agencies explain that sometimes the statistics are not a true depiction of racial profiling or brutality. For instance, if more police were present on a night that saw most blacks driving, then more blacks will be stopped as compared to other individuals from different ethnic groups. However, both the minority groups as well as the police have expressed their desires to stop and find solutions to the issues. From the criminal justice system perspective, the police force has put in efforts in fulfilling both groups’ desires through mechanisms such as employing ethnic minority individuals into the force as well as the use of the video cameras.
The Implications of the Proposed Research
The proposed research aims to show exactly with data and studies from ACLU and the Justice Department the relationship between racial profiling and police brutality and policing compared to other communities such as the whites. The research will provide explanations of the risk factors that provoke police brutality or warrant the employment of racial profiling. The fact that the police force has employed more individuals from the minority community will be analyzed. Specifically, the research will examine the extent to which this initiative has reduced racial profiling and police brutality. In addition, the literature provides a general anecdote that racial profiling and police brutality is a characteristic of the general police force. However, the proposed research will identify and model whether it is only the white police officers who perpetrate police brutality and racial profiling or police from other ethnic groups are involved, especially those from the minority group. Ultimately, because the issues of racial profiling and police brutality are complex and multidimensional, both will be uniquely examined and the correlation between the two provided.
Conclusion
In the contemporary cosmopolitan society, cases of police brutality and racial profiling especially perpetuated towards the ethnic minority such as the blacks, Asians as well as the Latino have abounded. Racial profiling and police brutality have for a long time been sensitive topics to the public, and the debates regarding the same are unending. However, the fact of the matter is that both the minority communities and the police agree that the friction based on these issues has to stop. To this end, futuristic solutions such as the use of video cameras in patrol cars as well as the employment of ethnic officers from the minority communities into the force have been effective and will continue to be so in reducing the rift between the citizens and the police. The current research is geared towards providing fundamental insights to the already existing literature thus enhancing further comprehension of the issues. Ultimately, the federal government has to step in, phase out politics on the issue, and provide solutions that will build public confidence in the police.
References
Donald, H. M. (2001). The Myth of Racial Profiling. There's no credible evidence that racial profiling exists, yet the crusade to abolish it threatens a decade's worth of crime-fighting success. City Journal , 11 (2), 14-27.
Dukes, K. N., & Kahn, K. B. (2017). What Social Science Research Says about Police Violence against Racial and Ethnic Minorities: Understanding the Antecedents and Consequences—An Introduction. Journal of Social Issues, 73 (4), 690-700. DOI: 10.1111/josi.12242
Nadal, K. L., Davidoff, K. C., Allicock, N., Serpe, C. R., & Erazo, T. (2017). Perceptions of police, racial profiling, and psychological outcomes: A mixed methodological study. Journal of Social Issues, 73 (4), 808-830. DOI: 10.1111/josi.12249
National Institute of Justice. (2013). Racial Profiling. Retrieved from https://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/legitimacy/Pages/racial-profiling.aspx
Vito, A. G., Grossi, E. L., & Higgins, G. E. (2017). The Issue of Racial Profiling in Traffic Stop Citations. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 33 (4), 431-450.
