African American Police Misconduct Essay

“The African American community is not making this up. It’s not something that’s being politicized. It’s real”

Cooperation from members of the public is important in order for police officers to effectively fight crime within the community. In order to obtain cooperation from members of the public, police officers must gain their trust and confidence. It has been known that African Americans and Hispanics have lower levels of trust and confidence in police because of racial disparities and racial profiling. This paper will discuss the public opinion of police by different ethnic groups and how racial minorities hold lower levels of trust and confidence in police.

African Americans in modern America have bound together in unity against inequality to help end the unnecessary murders and unjust police beatings. However, where did these tensions between police and African Americans begin? This question can be answered by looking at the history of police in America and why they were originally established. Police first came on to the scene in 1704 when Carolina established the nation’s first slave patrol that would turn into what we know today as the modern police. The slave patrol had the duty of searching for runaway slaves and returning them to their masters. Therefore, the original reason the police force was established was to deal with black slaves and it seems as if some officers today still hold that as their job title. However, this was just the beginning to the negative police encounters that many African Americans would have to endure. With the ratification of the 13th amendment and the freeing of the slaves the slave patrol became what is known as modern day police. During reconstruction the police began a war to create a new form of slavery, this form of slavery was known as convict leasing. Although, the 13th amendment legalized the enslavement of anyone convicted of a crime it seemed as if it was only used against African Americans. This new method of enslavement sky rocketed the rate of African American arrests and created new laws in the south such as the pig laws which sentenced anyone who stole a pig to 5 years in

Do relations between the police and minority and the police and non-minority communities differ, how, and for what reasons?"

Cops and African Americans don’t seem to being getting along, is the African American community broken or are the cops to be blamed. Over the past years you have heard of people, more specifically African Americans, being harmed or killed unarmed. It is no surprise that cops are treating them as dangerous animals. A cop managed to kill Samuel DuBose, forty-three years old, who escaped from the hands of the cop and was running away. The cops said that he had feared for his life when Samuel truly had never truly harmed or threatened the cop.

"Relations between the police and minority groups are a continuing problem in many multiracial societies. Surveys consistently document racial differences in perceptions of the police, with minorities more likely than whites to harbor negative views." (Weitzer and Tuch, Race and Perceptions of Police Misconduct, 2004)

Police brutality against African Americans was a huge impact in Los Angeles, California in 1991, and continues to be a problematic situation in America today. On March 3, 1991, a group of white LAPD beat Rodney King. After this incident occurred a lot of negative events started to transpire. A lot of African Americans were angry and demanded justice. The relationship between the LAPD and the Los Angeles community in 1991 were horrific and still continues to be awful today. Police brutality just seems to be increasing more overtime, which means the increase in the community not trusting the police. Police brutality can be a huge disadvantage when it comes to community policing.

What is police misconduct? It can be defined as any action performed by a law enforcement officer that is unethical by established employment guidelines, unconstitutional, or a crime with in itself. When people hear the term “police misconduct” they automatically think of a police officer using unnecessary force against a civilian. While that is a form of police misconduct it is not only form. Throughout this paper I will bring light to the many types of police misconduct that can happen in the law enforcement industry.

Police has the power to put anyone in Prison especially if they are not committing anything seriously. One of the reason is because Colored citizens don’t have higher class, meaning on poverty, no wealthy jobs etc. meaning that they would do crime. War on drugs is a significant factor in the High incarceration rates for African-American.

Police corruption and misconduct come apparent in many different forms. A basic definition for police corruption is, when an officer gets involved in offenses where the officer uses his or her position, by act or omission, to obtain improper financial benefit. The main reason for such corruption is typically for personal gain, such as bribery. Police abuse of authority occurs in three different general areas such as physical abuse, psychological abuse, and legal abuse. Physical abuse is such abuse where one uses excessive force or physical harassment. The psychological abuse occurs through disrespect, harassment, ridicule, excessive stops, or intimidation. Finally, legal abuse is abuse that occurs during unlawful search and seizure

In a national Institute of Justice study it was found that interactions with police are the factors that most influence public opinion. (Factors That Influence, 2007) Interactions were defines as “person to person”

One benefit of community policing is the reduction of crime. If police officers interact with people within a neighborhood, these individuals will be more willing to help officers whenever certain situations occur. Some officers are placed into environments where they don’t know that much information about the area, and are reluctant to learn about the area. Many officers go into an environment and demand respect, but this isn’t something that people will accept, especially if officers are coming into neighborhoods where police and residents have a bad relationship (Lasley, 1994). If officers treat people with respect, communicate with individuals, and help when situations occur such as robberies or other crimes then people within the community will be more willing to help

Racial Bias are a direct correlation to police violence against African Americans, stereotypes perpetuated by social constructions and media representation along with individual prejudice help by police officers view African Americans as a threat especially African American men. Police trust this ideology of “threat” to assist in their use of excessive force against African Americans to comply. (Tyler, 2011; Tyler et al., 2015, Skinner, Haas,2016).

To many, policing is not just a job but rather a calling. Considering the extensive dedication of law enforcement officers, it can be a greatly demanding position. Despite the risks and mounting pressure, police officers invest time and sacrifice their lives to protect and serve communities. Granted, if there were no police officers to implement laws, there would be criminals roaming the neighborhoods one should feel safe in. This is why some police officers go above and beyond to protect the community, even to a point where it affects his or her own quality of life. For these reasons, police officers play a significant role in society. More recently, the perception of police continues to change into a negative light.

The purpose of this paper was to see how the demographic factors affect the perception of citizen-police interactions and does race of both police and citizens affect police-citizen interaction. While there are many hypothesis, the main hypothesis is that a negative interaction/perception of citizen with the police depends on the race of the citizen. The results of the hypothesis were significant at the .003 level. The results of this hypothesis show that those who are white recorded that 80.6 % were not treated respectfully while those who are non-white recorded 19.4% were also not treated respectfully. Those who were treated respectfully were recorded at 84.8% for those who are white while those who were non-white were recorded at 15.2%. According to Huggins (2011), African Americans are more likely to have more problems when approached by law enforcement. A majority of these problems are due to the color of the individual’s crime.