The World Is Not Black And White : Racial Bias

The way in which a police officer reacts to a situation relies on the characteristics of the suspect and location, and the personal beliefs of the police officer. The characteristics of a suspect include the individual’s race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, and behavior. These aspects play a single role in a law enforcement officer’s behavior under a nerve-wracking situation. People will argue that an officer judging by a suspect’s characteristics is sexist, racist, etc., but, truth is, everyone judges by

Over the years, there have been numerous cases of African-American men being shot and killed by white police officers. According to many of these police officers, it was just a rapid decision to pull the trigger. Correspondingly, implicit biases have resulted in these ideologies, making African-American men seem more violent than white men. In fact, there are many studies that demonstrate how police officers are affected by implicit biases. For example, a study had college students play a computer game where the objective was to shoot dangerous armed

The movie Crash, a film that follows the individual lives of several people and how they all intertwine with one another, hints at the underlying issue of race and the unconscious bias that are hard wired in us. It also shows that racism is not a one way street, but that it travels in both directions and because of this many film critics gave it a high praise. In this paper I will examine how it relates back to the topics we have covered in class, like unconscious bias, racism, and police interactions.

When faced with a threat human instinct is to kill first instead of to be killed. Police are trained to disable a threat and as a last resort, kill. What does it say about America’s law enforcement when an officers’ victim is a person of colour who is unarmed? A recent and well known case of unjust demise by police is 22-year-old Oscar Grant. A young black man gunned down, whilst handcuffed, by a white police officer. Grant was unarmed and posed no threat to the officer. Similarly, 23-year-old Robert Tolan Jr. was given the same fate by an officer who allegedly received inaccurate information about a stolen vehicle. Like Grant, Tolan happened to be a black man shot by a white police officer while unarmed. No

this is a behavior that everyone experiences daily. Social psychologists have studied the cause and effect of biases, specifically by white police officers towards minorities. Implicit bias, specifically racial bias, describes a psychological process in which a person’s unconscious racial belief (stereotypes) and attitudes (prejudices) affect his or her behaviors, perceptions, and judgments in ways that they are largely unaware of and typically, unable to control (Graham).

The bias in the American criminal justice system is first reported in the first stages of the system, which includes the (act of asking questions and trying to find the truth about something) and arrest of the suspected people by police personnel (American Civil Liberties Union, 2013). These police personnel discriminately target the minorities as criminal suspects, which eventually skews the racial population of the people arrested, charged, put in jail or convicted (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2013). One of the key problems suffering (from sickness) the U.S. criminal justice system is (assuming certain races of people are more likely to commit crimes) (Cole, Smith, & DeJong, 2013). This involves the identification of criminal suspects on the basis race or (special way of speaking/mark that shows emphasis). According to Cole, Smith, & DeJong (2013), (assuming certain races of people are more likely to commit crimes) is widespread because the police agents enjoy a large amount of (ability to make wise decisions) as to who they think about/believe as a suspect. For example, in Baltimore, African-American car/truck drivers are discriminately stopped for minor traffic offenses because they are believed to be more likely tobe start/work at more serious criminal activity than whites (Saad, 2011). This results in a large percentage of innocent African-Americans and other minority drivers such as Puerto Ricans, Colombians and Cubans to be illegally subjected to the embarrassment (in

Besides enacting racial bias screening and training requirements, police departments need to change the way they operate, by changing poor police protocol currently in place. In other words, in some cases, this issue of racial profiling can stem from police chiefs who provide their officers with patrol assignments targeting minority neighborhoods due to implicit biases which they have. In Driving While Black: Racial Profiling On Our Nation's Highways, David Harris suggests, “Because police look for drugs primarily among African Americans and Latinos, they find a disproportionate number of them with contraband” (Harris). Certain police chiefs intentionally target minority neighborhoods and put a greater effort on catching the people living there for their wrongdoings, thus making those minority groups appear as higher threats to society. The picture of crime would be reversed if the police targeted White people rather than minorities.

Compare and Contrast Essay The shootings of Michael Brown in Fergusson Missouri and Akai Gurley in New York have evolved into a national issue, complete with conflicting individual evaluations, blame narratives and definitions of racism. In such “racial events”, the tendency for Americans to offer their individualistic analysis blends with the

1. Introduction 1.1 Background One of the most polarizing policy issues in the United States is the process of using race, ethnicity, and/or national origin by law enforcement as a chief predictor of criminal behavior. In the presence of social media and modern technological innovation, there has been increased documentation on the very problematic ways in which police officers use their position of authority against minorities. The countless cases of murder and police brutality have prompted national dialogue regarding to what extent race should be used in methods of policing. Against a troubled backdrop of incessant clashes with minorities and law enforcement, navigating the situation requires a degree of care that does not diminish the

While in dangerous tactical situations, officers are now taking into consideration, the race of the offender, and what might be implied or taken out of context, if the offender is African American. “Most of the people who now live in terror because local police are too intimidated to do their jobs are black” (Martin, Jonathan). Furthermore, it also causes a danger to society by slowing officer’s reaction time. It puts law enforcement officers in a very tough spot, if they act to quickly they could be labeled a racist and face lawsuits, or even loss of job. However, if they don’t act, they could be harmed or even civilians around them.

Implicit biases can lead to race-based policing even without making a conscious decision to do so. Evidence proves that African Americans and Latinos are stopped for traffic offenses more frequently than Whites even though they do not commit more traffic offenses than Whites. (Richardson, 2015) One study revealed that police “officers were more likely to see weapons in the hands of unarmed Black individuals than in the hands of unarmed White individuals as a result of implicit bias” (Richardson). These discoveries mirror studies indicating that racial biases lead people to interpret the actions of Black individuals more suspiciously than they would interpret the same actions if they were performed by White individuals. (Richardson)

As Anita Hill once stated, “We have a history of gender and racial bias in our court that continues to undermine the system. Excluding individuals based on race is antagonistic to the pursuit of justice.” RACISM- Another word for ignorance; another way of saying nature should have had only one type of flower or one species of animal. Racism is like looking at a box of crayons and not seeing all the colors. Racism is another word for fear- fear of the unknown. For many of us, those of diverse races and creeds are the great unknown. The simple question that begs asking is: why? What role does race truly play in the criminal justice system and is the system truly as colorblind as many individuals believe it to be? With this country’s shameful history of slavery, the Jim Crow Laws, and numerous other racially biased injustices, it seems likely race does, play a role in the countless facets in the United States (U.S) criminal justice system. Our system is clearly, not, color blind. Although a handful of naïve people remain oblivious to the racism ubiquitously occurring, negative attitudes toward people of color are, even now, prevalent in our courts. Not only is racism found in the corners of our streets, but also, it is found where we work, in schools our children attend, and, most significantly, in our justice system. It is about time for people to start examining the causes and begin looking for resolutions to this severe predicament. We – As America, have the ability to

How Many Police Kill Black Men? So why is it so hard to get rid of _ in policing? Keason-? David Klenger, a former police officer says, “These are their official source of information about police shootings, all of these are imperfect: FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigations) Supplemental Homicide, Center for Disease Control,

However, other studies continue to show that there are consequences for race in regards to a police officer’s response to criminal suspects. One study in particular used a computer simulation to examine police officers’ decisions to shoot Black and White criminal suspects. Responses to the simulation revealed that upon initial exposure to the program, the officers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects. However, after extensive training with the program, in which the race of the suspect was unrelated to the presence of a weapon, the officers were able to eliminate this bias. (Plant, A., & Peruche, M. n.d.) Although there is a group of people who have the counterargument that reverse racism is becoming more of an issue than racial bias against Black Americans, recent Gallup polling still reveals that nearly seventy percent of Black Americans believe that the U.S. justice system is biased against them. The poll also shows that a quarter of White Americans as well as a third of all adults nationally, agrees. (Race Relations 2015).

Multiple elements prevent African Americans and police from getting Cops often stereotype African Americans as aggressive, violent, as well as criminal. In contrast, African Americans stereotype cops as unjust, racist and murderers. Cognitive factors of stereotyping include social categorization and the homogeneity effect. The out-group homogeneity effect is an individual’s perception of out-group member as more alike then the ones in their in-group are. For instance both groups have out-group homogeneity effect. Since both of the groups lack contact with each other they are unable to see differences in the out-group. Stereotypes of African Americans and police are maintained because neither of the groups interacts making both groups ignorant to each other’s dynamics. Some cops believe that all African Americans are violent criminals that should be punished to the highest extent. Moreover, the cognitive factor in relation to social categorization assess individuals need to assign people to specific categories based on how they see their attributes, which determines how they interact with them. This is a huge problem in our society seeing that officers group all African Americans together and interact with them all in the same way, which often leads to injustice as well as violence. The statement most police report when caught in a similar situation usually read the same that the suspect was believed to be a threat. In the trial Mehserle testified that he believed that Grant had a gun in his