Lady Justice Research Paper

Police brutality is increasingly prevalent and is constantly being swept under the rug. The dynamic between police officers and citizens is overwhelmingly racist. Cops (white or black) are in the position of power and use that to their advantage the same way any white person would over black man. Chief Justice Taney is a prime example of how white men can make and enforce laws that blatantly disadvantage colored people. In the Dred Scott case, he used his power to ensure that black men could not be considered citizens even though he had no right or authority to do so (“Speech on the Dred Scott Decision at Springfield Illinois” 111-120). The same racist institution that allowed Taney to make that decision decided Timothy Loehmann was not at fault for Tamir Rice’s murder. The justice system is built on and fostered by this racist power

You are a single mom with one kid who is out drinking at a bar for the night. You get a call on the phone. Your son is in the hospital with gruesome wounds and broken bones….from the police.. USA police alone have killed over 5,000 citizens since the 9/11 incident with most of them being black males. Most recently, Freddie Gray was terribly injured by the Baltimore police who arrested him for weapon violations. Freddie gray later died in police custody from a severed spinal cord that he received from the police’s horrible treatment toward him. Riots broke out in Baltimore against Freddie’s terrible treatment. The riots cost the city of Baltimore $9,000,000 in repairs for all of the damage. Research also says that the knife that Freddie Gray

Police brutality has been the most prominent form of racism captured by the media and since the 1992 Los Angeles Riots protesting the death of Rodney King, it still dominates headlines. After more than two decades later, the number of innocent, and unarmed black American deaths have only increased along with the acquisition of the police accountable. According to “More Than 250 Black People Were Killed By Police In 2016,” Julia Craven states that “34 percent of the unarmed people killed in 2016 were black males.” This is unreasonable because according to the same article, “black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population.” The numbers are disproportionate enough to show that there is a clear target against blacks. This statistic of black males compared to their white counterparts also show a significant disparity as statistics John Wihbey and Leighton Walter Kille provide in “Excessive or reasonable force by police? Research on law enforcement and racial conflict,” clearly state that unarmed blacks were killed at twice the rate of whites with “31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males.” There is clear cut evidence of racial profiling in policing as blacks who make up a only a small amount of the U.S. population are killed at a much higher rate than whites who make up a majority of the population. This is obvious discriminatory intent by the hands of the police,

The Department of Justice data indicates that per capita, police are approximately five times more likely to shoot a Black person than a White person (Correll, Hudson, Guillermo, & Ma, 2014). Some argue that the discrepancy when use of force is concerned, is driven by the types of activities that Blacks and Whites engage in (Correll, Hudson, Guillermo, & Ma, 2014). The thought is that if Blacks conduct more crimes than Whites, it would make sense that Blacks will be overrepresented in the encounters (Correll, Hudson, Guillermo, & Ma, 2014). Even though officers were still more likely to use force against Blacks, it was largely because officers were more likely to encounter Blacks in dangerous neighborhoods (Correll, Hudson, Guillermo, & Ma, 2014). Studies using controlled racial differences in arrest rates eliminated the effect of race on shootings. It was found that race generally had little effect of sensitivity. Regardless of race, police participants were usually able to distinguish between armed and unarmed suspects well (Correll, Hudson, Guillermo, & Ma,

Many researchers have conducted numerous studies analyzing the police interactions and arrest records of African Americans to see if there is a discernible disparity between the number of African Americans and Caucasians arrested. Studies conducted by researchers has led to the disclosure of many out of important stats including on which states that African Americans believe police do a poor job of handling their fellow officers accountable for misconduct and treatment of racial and ethnic groups equally (CQ Researcher,373). Addition research has shown that 57 percent of African Americans believe police use excessive force when detaining suspects while only 25 percent of white

On April 19, 2015 at approximately 7 a.m., Freddie Grey, a 25-year-old black man from Baltimore, Maryland died by mysterious causes. After being chased down and thrown into a police van by police officers, he was taken out of the van unresponsive and soon, “...lapsed into a coma, died, was resuscitated, stayed in a coma and on Monday, underwent extensive surgery at Shock Trauma to save his life" (Ford, 2015). Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Eric Garner are other minority males that have become symbols of a raging national conversation about police brutality and racial injustice. These events have caused community’s civil rights protests to unite under themes such as; " Black Lives Matter", "Hands Up Don 't Shoot", "No Justice No Peace", and “I Can’t Breathe.” Police brutality driven by racial profiling is evident in lower income and minority areas. This is apparent because of lack of minority police officers, racial profiling in all ages, and the fear of the people in the community to step up to authority in the face of adversity.

Although police and prosecutors may contend that discrimination does not occur within their agency but that does not mean discrimination doesn’t occur. The facts show that minorities are targeted much more than whites. There are many factors that contribute to this. I don’t believe it is any one agency that specifically targets minorities but rather the criminal justice system as a whole. The interplay between the media, the

I remember the first time I learned how to ride a bike, my father had brought me out to Liberty State Park. Now Liberty State Park was in my opinion very scenic and beautiful, surrounded by the Hudson River, American flags rippling in the air, and the Manhattan Skyline across the river but what stood out to me the most less than 2,000 feet away was the Statue of Liberty. There she stood towering above me in the distance. It was there when I first became intrigued and fascinated with the Statue of Liberty. Fascinated to this day about how the statue came to be and what it has come to symbolize over the years.

While racism might appear to be the primary cause of a higher proportion of African American deaths by police, when comparing that to crime rates and police encounters by African Americans, the proportional gap significantly lessens. According to “the counted” police shootings database by the guardian newspaper, police shootings of African Americans in 2016 make up around 25% even though they only make up 13% of the population. This one statistic has led many people from the general public, media, and scholars to attribute this as evidence for racism. What they fail to mention however, is that according to the FBI database on crimes committed by race in 2011, African Americans commit 28.4% of all crimes, 50% of homicides, 55.6% of robberies, and 33.6% of aggravated

In modern-day America the issue of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system is controversial because there is substantial evidence confirming both individual and systemic biases. While there is reason to believe that there are discriminatory elements at every step of the judicial process, this treatment will investigate and attempt to elucidate such elements in two of the most critical judicial junctures, criminal apprehension and prosecution.

Research has proven that blacks and whites have different experiences with the police. From a historical and current point of view, blacks are more likely than whites to report having an unjust experience with the police. According to a survey released in 2015 by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, half of black Americans reported being treated unfairly by police because of their race; consequently, their views of law enforcement are shaped by this experience. Black Americans are also four times as likely as whites to describe violence against civilians by police officers as a serious problem (AP-NORC, 2015). There is a recorded 85 percent of blacks who think police are more likely to use force against a black person

Is there structural inequality in the criminal justice system? When we watch the news or read our newspapers, we can see that most of the criminals portrayed are of African American or Hispanic descent. Being a fan of true crime novels, they even depict more Black male criminals than White males. Are African American males committing more crimes than White males? What factors are involved for Blacks to be more involved in crime? How do African American stereotypes play a role with possible racial profiling from the policing force? Are Blacks treated fairly in the criminal justice system? After much research, I hope to answer these questions and determine if African Americans

African Americans are oppressed by the Jim Crow laws which ultimately separated White Americans and Black Americans by creating Black only restaurants or White only bathrooms. And if a person of African heritage did not comply with these laws? They were likely to be brutalized by police. In this day and age many would like to believe that African Americans no longer have problems when it comes to policing or unjust treatment from society. Unfortunately, this is not the case. With several unjustified killings or beatings of African American people from police over the span of many decades, is there an abnormally high rate of incidents with negative outcomes between police officers and

The execution of equality is extremely important when it comes to justice. Whether you're a police officer, courtroom judge, a member in a jury, or and figure that holds a higher say, it is vital not to discriminate against others. “To be morally acceptable, a society’s institutional order must treat its citizens justly.” Thomas Pogge, a german philosopher writes “Institutional designs that moderate inequalities outside the sphere of strict equality are crucial to the stability of a just society. European states illustrate that it is not hard to keep socioeconomic inequality in the moderate range. But once it breaks decisively above this range, it may be next to impossible to prevent justice from unravelling. This is what we may be witnessing

The issue of racism in the United States goes far back as time immemorial; the lynching of blacks for no obvious reasons or killing of blacks for “not-so-justifiable” reasons like failure to address a white man as Mr. or not standing when a white is about to sit. Even after two hundred and thirty nine years, the story has not much changed. From names like Michael Brown to Trayvon Martin, to Dontre Hamilton, and a host of other names, to the most recent Freddie Gray. And the baffling fact about the aforementioned names is that they were all blacks. The color black is only a color of a particular set of people not a weapon.