Arguments Against Racial Profiling Today

Questioning Assumptions about Race, Social Class and Crime Portrayal: An Analysis of Ten Years of Law and Order

When we as people watch the news or read our newspapers, we can see that most of the criminals committing crimes are usually of African American or Hispanic descent. Society today even depicts people of color as criminals in all novels and comic books while white characters play the victim. It may seem as if the media only focuses on the crimes and pettiness involved with black people. What are included for Blacks to be more required in wrongdoing? How do African American stereotypes and racial profiling from societies new look on policing power?

"When someone fabricates a crime and blames it on another person because of his race OR when an actual crime has been committed and the perpetrator falsely blames someone because of his race." (Russel 70) The negative image of African-Americans has become so bad that "imaginary" Black people are invented as criminals. In some cases Black individuals were even chosen out of a line

Racial profiling has been one of the most controversial and prevalent topics in today's society. This form of harassment is demonstrated when certain ethnicities are being targeted by the law enforcements. An example of this can be expressed when police are targeting people with colored skin because they suspect them having some type of illegal substance, or suspect them of crime, which they have not committed. Racial profiling needs to stop before it gets out of hand, or cause violence. Law enforcements are mistreating blacks and Latinos by racial profiling. In the article “Jim Crow Policing,” by Bob Herbert, demonstrates many statistics on how many blacks, and latinos were stopped by the police. The article “Racial profiling has destroyed public trust in police. Cops are exploiting our weak laws against it,” by Ranjana Natarajan, explains where law enforcements are using excessive force on a black male, named Eric Garner. In “Racial Profiling in Preschool,” by Editorial Board, expresses how black adolescents are given harsher punishments than others. Based on the analysis of strong textual evidence and the conducted research, it is clear that racial profiling is an unnecessary policing strategy because there are many possibilities such as unjustified deaths, the isolation of individuals, and irrational accusations.

One could argue that there is an apparent "thugification" of the black male. Black men are seen are more aggressive and intimidating than their white counterparts by the masses. This could be used to explain why an unarmed black boy who commits a minor crime can see years behind bars, while a young white boy can commit a similar crime and mass media will say that he simply "needs help" or "was a troubled child" as he receives no jail time. This is not to say that the system (the American Criminal Justice System) is inherently racist but, simply to say, that it is flawed and needs to enact some major changes.

Undoubtedly, race defines nearly aspect of the criminal justice system, from police profiling/targeting, to crimes charged and sentencing, to rates of conviction and incarceration. Blacks and Latinos make up sixty-three percent of the prison population while only making up a quarter of the total population (Hunter & Wagner, 2011). According to Michelle Alexander (in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, “More black people are in prison or jail, on probation or on parole than were enslaved in 1850”, despite the fact that whites and blacks engage in criminal activities, especially drug offenses, at roughly comparable rates (2010). Historically, there has been a tendency to strip black and brown bodies of their humanity,

In the year of 2009, the United States population consisted of approximately 195,629,400 million Caucasians and 36,285,000 million African-Americans (Perez). Seems like a huge differ- ence, right? Also, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2009, there were 5,382,464 million Caucasian criminals and 2,472,370 million African-American criminals (Table 49). Those numbers are close, and that is the point. To back this up, in 2000, 12.3 percent of the United States population were African-Americans, according to the United States census data. Also, information from the Department of Justice says that approximately forty percent of all criminals that went to prison were African-Americans. People can tell that from these statistics, the average African-American is more likely to commit a crime than the average Caucasian indi- vidual

In American society, a widespread depiction of crime is that it is mostly committed by Black men. Many Americans have the image of a young Black male as violent and criminal. “In fact, perceptions about the presumed racial identity of criminals may be so ingrained in public consciousness that race does not even need to be specifically mentioned for a connection to be made between the two because it seems that ‘talking about crime is talking about race’” (Welch, 2007, p. 276). Subsequently, the stereotypical image of African Americans being violent and criminals, has been unfairly integrated into society that even when people do not think they are thinking about race, they might actually be thinking about race. When people are thinking about crime they are interrelating that with race.

Racial profiling has reached epidemic proportions. In light of the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and recently Mansur Ball-Bey one might be able to conclude (or theorize through conspiracy) that there is a bounty on the heads of people of color executed on the individual (micro) and ________ at the community (mezzo) and societal levels (macro). Racial profiling is the act of targeting a person or people based on their race or color for alleged criminal offenses not based on committing a crime. Racial profiling is a social justice issue and a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 4th and 14th Amendments rights.

A number of recent investigations have concluded that news programs often systematically misrepresent black Americans as perpetrators of crime and whites as victims of or defenders against lawbreaking (Dixon 1). According to those investigations by Dixon and Linz (2000a), “Blacks were twice as likely as Whites to be seen as perpetrators, six times more likely to be portrayed as perpetrators than officers, and overrepresented as criminals.”

I strongly believe that racial profiling should not be used in law enforcement. Racial profiling is irrational and leads to discrimination by targeting individuals based on race, ethnicity, or religion. In the United States, everyone has the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty, but racial profiling allows the authorities to consider people guilty until proven innocent. Racial profiling is exceptionally unethical, unreasonable, and ineffective.

There are major suspicions that minority groups of people are being treated unfairly by law enforcement, through a concept called racial profiling. Racial profiling is focusing blame for a crime onto a group of people based solely on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. This is only a suspicion in the U.S., but in other countries, this is blatantly going on now in 2017. The reason law enforcement officials tend to racially profile is because there is a common belief among many that certain people commit certain crimes more often, therefore it is a way to (in theory) catch more terrorists, drug dealers, etc. It occurs when officials such as the police will take someone into suspect just because of race, ethnicity, religion or national

Police officers get credit for doing racial profiling which is consider “lazy” work when there are other officers out doing actual police work. It also is an abusive practice that only targets people for how they look. The majority of law enforcement officers are ethical and professional, however, there are those officers that abuse their power to target individuals of certain ethnic groups for unequal application of the law. Also it derails the trust in the community between police and civilians such as when some of the “good” officers come into the community looking answers/clues to find a real criminal they will be denied anything from mostly everyone in the community because of what those “bad” officers had done. Racial profiling isn’t just traffic stops

Racial profiling is evident in our community when police officers target people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or natural origin.

White people are generally assumed to be law-abiding until they show some sign that they are not, while people of color are routinely assumed to be criminals or potential criminals until they show they’re not (Johnson). This example dictates that certain groups of people already have stigmas attached to them based on their skin color, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.