Law Enforcement : Discrimination In The United States

What is racism? Racism is defined as discrimination toward someone’s race or religion etc. As we know today, this is a big issue, especially in United State. This is important to me because it does not matter what skin color you have or what religion you believe in. All that matters are that a person follows the law. Police officers, for example, they are supposed to use the power that they have for the bad people, people that do crimes and our threat to our society. Using violence against people that haven't done any threat to our society is wrong. In Sweden there is some racism, but not to the extent that black people will get harassed because of their skin color. In Sweden, the law is for everyone and whoever breaks the law will get the punishment they deserve. We all know that it is always two side of a story for example what happened to Michael Brown on August 9, 2014. Michael Brown was robbing a grocery store. The police officer stated that “He shot Brown after the teen attacked him”, While brown’s family said, “Brown was surrendering when he was shot dead.” You are always going to hear two different sides but the justice will find out who is the guilty one and who is the victim.

Police brutality and police militarization have become a hot topic in the United States of America. There are many cases where police officers motives are being questioned, leading the public into an uproar. Just to name a few of these cases, we have Micheal Brown from Fegurson, Missouri, that started it all, which took place on Augest 19th, 2014. We also have Eric Garner from New York, taking place July of 2014. July of 2016, Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge and Walter Scott from South Carolina in April of 2015.

Have you ever asked yourself what it would be like to become a police officer. Becoming a police officer isn’t an easy take because they have to risk their life everyday to protect and serve the community. They have to go through the dangers of arresting criminals when there is a chance that they could die. However, in today’s society only a small amount of police officers actually serve their community and protect citizens from danger. Right now, most police officers abuse their power to the point where they don’t seem to care for the safety of the community. They would usually arrest innocent people, make accusations, and even use their power as a source to show their dominance. If you think about, whenever you are stuck in traffic some

A police officer is a law enforcement official whose job is to protect and serve the people, not to abuse their power. Due to the fact that the U.S is consisted of many different races and ethnic groups, the ongoing conflict between police officers and citizens of color is at a constant rise. Although policies today no longer directly target those of colors, the policies applied by law enforcements in African-Americans communities are discriminating. Officers sometimes abuse the policies resulting in citizens viewing it as discrimination. By changing the way laws and regulations that unfairly impact Black and Brown communities can improve the justice system (Policy 5).Racial impact has changed the view of the government resulting in more inclusion of people of color in the system. Policies that are not racially excluding anyone of color should be used within police departments to evaluate the impact of different policing.

Police officer have recently been criticize for shooting African American and using excessive force on them. Groups like Black lives matter and other organizations have crated organization against police officer, those organization have ask for justice for those people that have been killed by police officers. One of the biggest stories in resent time is Samuel Debose a young African American that was shot and kill by Officer Rey Tensing in Cincinnati. Mr. Debose died instantly and Officer is being charged with murder.

The discretionary power to decide who should be searched, arrested, prosecuted, and punished depends on the law enforcement system. Therefore, “skewed statistics, along with some dramatic instances of excess in the exercise of police authority,” suggest that the evident nature of racial disparity is the cause for the maltreatment of minorities by the policing system. Data shows that minorities such as Latinos, and Blacks specifically form a disproportionately large percentage of the people who receive punishment, and land up in jail. These consequences affect them for the rest of their lives and even impact the future status of their communities. (2) “It has long been recognized that racial disparities

32 percent of black people killed by police this year were unarmed, compared to 15 percent of white people and 25 percent of Hispanic and Latino people. Police brutality has a been a topic that you have seen through the news lately. This has been a constant problem, especially with minorities. A bunch of innocent minorities has died because of police brutality, People such as Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and etc. These people have accused of doing something that they were really not doing. Police brutality is a growing problem in America and it is has taken a bunch of innocent lives.

Discrimination is a known concept that happens everywhere, yet police and prosecutors are blind to it. Their ways of preventing crime are discriminatory in every sense of the word and they categorize people based on their skin color and where they reside. The disproportionate minority contact with the stop and frisk method is one of the ways that discrimination can be seen. “Code of the Street” and “Law and Disorder in Philadelphia” help dissect why discrimination is not seen by police and their agencies and also how police officers and their administration go about ways of preventing crime. The pressure within the police, community, and courts create inequalities for the individuals going through the Criminal Justice System.

A frequent amount of violent and non violent protests and riots due have occurred due to police officers not being indicted for the senseless homicides of unarmed black males. “Shootings like those of Michael Brown

It seems that in some cases police officers forget this. “Prior to Ferguson, police were politically untouchable.”(Somashekhar et al.) Police officers had not been put under the spot light as much as they have been recently. The law seemed to always be on their side protecting them from all wrong doing. Fortunately, the media has finally given these wrongful acts a place to be investigated. Law enforcement agencies can no longer turn their heads on what is really going on. “Some in law enforcement are troubled by this trend, worried that public sympathy is shifting toward suspects and away from the police who put their lives on the line every day.” Yes it maybe a police officers job to arrest people doing crimes but it is also their job to protect. Just how it may not be fair that they put their lives at risk everyday and are scared to get killed in the line of duty, people should not live everyday scared to go out and be confused for a criminal by an officer just because of their skin color, clothing or location. Police officers have to go into work everyday know g that there will be consequences to there wrongful actions. This will make them think twice before pulling out their guns on innocent people of color. Yes, there are criminals that police need to be careful for but this does not mean that everyone one has to pay the cost. Officers should be charged if proven to be at fault for being involved

Nonetheless, law enforcement officers have the unique opportunity to combat their lack of awareness in efforts to reduce, mitigate, or even reverse the disparity of minority youth in the juvenile justice system by increase training and compliance with the JJDA. For example, the Connecticut juvenile justice advisory committee has trained 1,400 law enforcement officers on the disproportionate minority contact since 2007, reporting a lasting positive impact on officer’s knowledge and attitudes about adolescent development and other issues regarding the racial disparity [citation Mendel]. Training must include adolescent development and psychology, demographic and cultural influences and creating rapport with the adolescent by offering respect

Law enforcement officials are continuously criticized due to the way one perceives another individual (Levinthal, 2012). Levinthal (2012) notes law enforcement developed a drug courier profile. The profile assists officers to recognize possible drug smugglers, as well as, the behavior involved of the individual targeted (Levinthal, 2012). Criminal profiles can vary from one law enforcement official to the next; however, at some point, the behaviors all link together. The inconsistency among officers can cause disputes between societies as a whole. Much controversy follows the drug courier profile resulting in a racial profile (Levinthal, 2012).

Prejudice and discrimination have been constructed across our country. Prejudice and discrimination happen all around the country especially against black and minority people. This is a very bad issue in our country. Unfortunately, racial inequality happen all around the country even exist our justice system which emphasize absolute equity. From the article, Manning used many data to show that our criminal-justice system is totally being racial inequity. “In New York, African Americans and Latinos make up 25 percent of the total population, but by 1999 they represented 83 percent of all state prisoners and 94 percent of all individuals convicted on drug offenses.” (Marable, 2011, p.389) If people said that because most African Americans and

no one really cares about each other’s feelings they just feel like they are over the world. How many times have you seen someone apologize for being racist or not even being racist?

The Communications Division incorporates a diverse population of individuals. The Government utilizes Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 in order to prohibit discrimination in the workplace. Teamwork, comradery, and mutual respect are important in any profession, but even more so in a public safety environment. Harassment and discrimination shall not be tolerated.