The Equal Protection Of The United States

In looking at Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) history with using excessive force, there needs to be a way that hold these police officers accountable to prevent citizen-police tension and create transparency for the public. During the 1990s, 61% of police officers from the LAPD were white and considered aggressive with African American communities which suggest racial tension among the two groups (Suburbanstats, 2017). Eula Love and Rodney King are two victims of

The brutality of the police force has been a long worldwide problem, but especially between the years of 2012-2016. Black people are being unjustly beaten and shot in plain sight for doing nothing while being unarmed. Journal of African American Studies “Blacks are viewed as deserving of harsh treatment in the criminal justice system” (482). “Black males with more “Afrocentric” features may receive longer sentences than blacks with less Afrocentric features like lighter skin and straighter hair”(482). Nowadays it is important to know about the police force. It’s important to know our rights as citizens and be careful around cops. Not everybody is good, but not everybody is bad also. In The New York Amsterdam News 21 people were killed by Chicago police in 2008. Entire families were being attacked. They believe it’s because of their skin color and how they are different. The year of racism started off with the world seeing the police murder of Oscar Grant. “The media have pushed people away from hearing the issue of police brutality, and it has fallen off of the radar screen.”(2) “You can’t give in. They will try to make an example out of you, try to break your spirit!”(2) African Americans say do not trust the cops with anything. “They will ruin you.”(2)

The United States features a prison population that is more than quadruple the highest prison population in Western Europe (Pettit, 2004). In the 1980s, U.S. legislation issued a number of new drug laws with stiffer penalties that ranged from drug possession to drug trafficking. Many of those charged with drug crimes saw longer prison sentences and less judicial leniency when facing trial. The War on Drugs has furthered the boom in prison population even though violent crime has continued to decrease steadily. Many urban areas in the U.S. have a majority black population. With crime tendencies high in these areas, drugs are also prevalent. This means that a greater percentage of those in prison are going to be black because law

In recent years and in light of recent tragedies, police actions, specifically police brutality, has come into view of a large, public and rather critical eye. The power to take life rests in the final stage of the criminal justice system. However, the controversy lies where due process does not. While the use of deadly force is defined and limited by departmental policies, it remains an act guided chiefly by the judgment of individual officers in pressure situations. (Goldkamp 1976, 169). Many current studies have emphasized the racial disparities in minority deaths, primarily black Americans, killed by police through means of deadly force. The history of occurrences reveals the forlorn truth that police reforms only receive attention in wake of highly publicized episodes of police misconduct. The notorious 1992 Los Angeles riots brought the matter to mass public attention and prompted improved law enforcement policy. Significant local reforms resulted, for instance, ending the policy of lifetime terms for police chiefs. Additionally, on a broader platform, in 1994, Congress approved provisions to the Crime Control Act in effort to tackle police abuse in a more structured way.

First, it is crucial to note that police brutality is not synonymous to racism against a particular group. However, there is a stigma that police often racially profile a specific African Americans. In February 2015, two cases of police brutality did not involve African Americans; instead the two victims were a Hispanic shot and killed in Washington State and an Indian-American severely paralyzed in Alabama. Even with this considered, of late, a majority of police brutality cases have involved minorities and specifically African American males. Cases such as Michael Brown and Freddie Gray have sparked a cultural uprising. These trigger event inspired the protests and riots against police brutality demonstrating collective action and physical violence, but the idea of police brutality is much larger than these individual cases, since it is a reoccurring cycle.

In 1950, 70 percent of whites were imprisoned and in 1990 it flipped to 70 percent of African Americans and Latinos imprisoned. In 2008 a study showed that 68 percent of those in prison were African Americans and among drug offenders who were released, 92 percent were black (Vogel, 2016). Nearly 14 million whites and approximately 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug (Criminal, 2016). In 1980 whites were more likely to sell drugs than blacks by 45 percent. In 2012, 6.6 percent of whites sold drugs compared to just 5 percent of blacks. However, blacks are 3.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for selling drugs and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for possession of drugs. (Rothwell, 2014). Blacks make up 12 percent of the total population of drug users, but 38 percent are arrested for drug offenses. African Americans essentially serve as much time for drug offenses as whites do for violent offenses. Yet blacks are incarcerated at six times the rate of whites (Criminal, 2016). “Jerome Miller analyzed arrest statistics from several American cities to determine the impact of the War on Drugs on policing. He found striking racial disparities in how drug arrests were made. In many jurisdictions, African American men account for over eighty percent of total drug arrests. In

The Equal Protection Clause derives from the Fourteenth Amendment, which specifies “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…” As a part of the Reconstruction Amendments, the aforementioned clause was meant to ensure racial equality in the Reconstruction Period and has been applied successfully against the affirmative action. Introduced in United States v. Carolene Products Co., the strict scrutiny has been applied to the cases, in which a fundamental constitutional rights have been infringed or a government action applies to a suspect classification (i.e. race, religion, national background). Specifically, in regards to Bakke v. Regents of University of California, the Supreme Court (“the Court”) concluded that, considering that the University of California, Davis received several Caucasian applicants for its special admission program in 1973 and 1974 and that none of the applicants received the admission to the program since the start, the program unfairly administered in favor of minority races and, therefore, violated the rights of the white applicants under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, from Hopwood v. State of Texas, the Fifth Circuit Court ruled under strict scrutiny that, the affirmative action imposed by the University of Texas School of Law (“the law school”) violates the Fourteenth Amendment since neither the law school nor the University of Texas system has proved a proof of

“Officer Jeronimo Yanez, charged with second-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black Minneapolis man” (Capecchi). “Brian Encinia, former Texas trooper charged with misdemeanor perjury stemming from his arrest of Sandra Bland, a black woman who was later found dead in a county jail” (Almasy). “Sgt. Kizzy Adonis, charged with failure to supervise in connection with the 2014 death of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black Staten Island man who died after police to administered a controversial choke hold” (Eversley). These are a few examples of the mistreatment suffered by young black citizens at the hands of police officers that resulted in the death of a suspect. Throughout the nation, the mishandling of the authority given to police officers has increased and is not merely coincidentally occurring.

In recent years and in light of recent tragedies, police actions, specifically police brutality, has come into view of a large, public and rather critical eye. The power to take life rests in the final stage of the criminal justice system. However, the controversy lies where due process does not. While the use of deadly force is defined and limited by departmental policies, it remains an act guided chiefly by the judgment of individual officers in pressure situations. (Goldkamp 1976, 169). Many current studies have emphasized the racial disparities in minority deaths, primarily black Americans, killed by police through means of deadly force. The history of occurrences reveals the forlorn truth that police reforms only receive attention in wake of highly publicized episodes of police misconduct. The notorious 1992 Los Angeles riots brought the matter to mass public attention and prompted improved law enforcement policy. Significant local reforms resulted, for instance, ending the policy of lifetime terms for police chiefs. Additionally, on a broader platform, in 1994, Congress approved provisions to the Crime Control Act in effort to tackle police abuse in a more structured way.

In 2009, a survey showed that blacks were arrested for drug possession more than three times as often as whites, and a survey made in 2011 showed that whites have abused drugs more than blacks (The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive). Yet, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one out of every 3 black males can expect to go to prison in their lifetime, and 225,000 of the people who were serving time in state prisons for drug offenses in 2011, blacks made up 45 percent while whites comprised of just 30 percent. One must question, why is there a disproportionate number of African Americans in the criminal justice system? Well, the majority of Americans are unaware of this mass incarceration and outright racism in the criminal justice system. When we think of racism, we think of the 1930’s-60’s, slavery, and Jim Crow which come to mind, but what

This brings up the question; do blacks use drugs more than whites? Contrary to public belief, the higher arrest rates of black drug offenders do not reflect higher rates of drug law violations. Whites, actually, commit more drug crimes than blacks. “By 1988, with national anti-drug efforts in full force, blacks were arrested on drug charges at five times the rate of whites. Statistical as well as anecdotal evidence indicate drug possession and drug selling cut across all racial, socio-economic and geographic lines. But, because drug law enforcement resources have been concentrated in low-income, predominantly minority urban areas, drug offending whites

A young man’s brutal death at the hands of the police is found justified in a court of law due to his “suspicious” appearance: a black hoodie and his hands in his pocket. An elderly woman is fatally shot in her home for her relation to a suspected criminal. A married man with two toddlers is choked to death after a minor traffic stop by an officer who later claimed that his unarmed victim was wielding a gun. These people all have a few commonalities: the color of their skin, their presumed guilt at first sight, and their ultimate unjustified death administered by the law force. These are not uncommon occurrences. Due to the staggeringly disproportionate rate of African-Americans killed by the police, and the underlying rampant racial profiling, police brutality towards blacks in America must be called to light.

Excessive force and police brutality have become common terms for anyone keeping up with today’s current events. In 2014, the media covered numerous cases of excessive force that resulted in the deaths of several people of color (Nelson & Staff, 2014). The most widely covered cases by the media in 2014 were of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black male shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri; and Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black male in Staten Island, New York who was put into a choke by police officer Daniel Pantaleo until he lost consciousness and stopped breathing (Nelson & Staff, 2014). These cases brought attention to the seriousness of police brutality and the curiosity of how often it occurs (Brown, 2015).

Police brutality is not a new subject. It has been around for numerous years, and like most issues, has resurfaced to the public’s eyes. The recent events brought up the question: Does there need to be a reform in the system in the police system? In this year alone, there have been countless cases of individuals being harmed or even killed by police officers for reasons that continuously are not explained. What has people more attentive to this injustice are statistics showing that most victims in these police attacks happen to be African Americans and other minorities.

The Equal Protection Clause is part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause provides that no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws". Two landmark 14th Amendment cases are Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education. However, each case treated the 14th Amendment differently and this caused a different outcome for each court case.