...Racism in Police Brutality Race is an immensely large issue still being dealt with in the world today. The pursuit of an entirely color blind society is still in the process. Black History Month is a time to celebrate how far African Americans have come, but also a time to realize how much further they need to go. Hindrances, such as racial slurs and acknowledged discrimination, are part of the huge race problem still present in America. The result of this is that black men are more at risk to suffer injustices, specifically regarding police brutality. Black males are physically handled harsher, killed at a much higher rate, and are handcuffed or restrained more than white males. In Staples’ essay, “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space,” he says black men are recognized as threatening public space. Despite race and gender both being present in stereotyping, race is the main variable in establishing whether a man poses a public threat....
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...Los Angeles, this movie probed social and cultural stereotypes, race and social biases, and the conflict perspective that often ensues as a result. The blatant manner in which these sociological issues are revealed is often startling for the viewer, but the shocking nature is intentional in order to promote self-examination and reflection. The conflict perspective is presented in this movie dons on tension between groups over power or the allocation of resources, including housing, money, access to services and political representation. This movie uses tension to advance the story line of each character forcing them into positions of conflict as well as dependence, and emphasizes the status of equality in America. In order to progress to a more equal society it is essential that Americans examine the biases presented in the movie Crash, especially those most often seen in modern society such as stereotyping, hate crimes, color blind racism and ethnocentrism. Stereotypes are defined as unreliable generalizations about all members of a group that do not recognize individual differences within the group. From the opening scene the movie depicts a car crash involving two police detectives and an Asian woman. The stereotyping begins immediately when the Asian woman tells the police officer writing the traffic report that Mexicans don’t know how to drive. She blake too fast! A verbal struggle ensues between Ria the Latina police detective, who is driving and the Asian woman. Ria...
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...Unconscious Racial Stereotypes about Adolescent Offenders Are Police Officers and Juvenile Probation Officers racially biased? Siobhan L. Healy July 1, 2014 Author Note Summary of the article “Priming unconscious racial stereotypes about adolescent offenders” by Graham, Sandra, Department of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, US, shgraham@ucla.edu Lowery, Brian S., Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, US, 2004, retrieved on July 1, 2014 from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.lib.kaplan.edu/eds/detail?vid=8&sid=607e6528-f5a4-4930-86e8-de2972012034%40sessionmgr198&hid=116&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=pdh&AN=2004-20470-001. Abstract This paper summarizes the main ideas of the article “Priming unconscious racial stereotypes about adolescent offenders” by Graham, Sandra, Department of Education, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, US, shgraham@ucla.edu Lowery, Brian S., Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, US. The main question asked is whether decision makers within the juvenile justice system harbor unconscious racial stereotyping. For this purpose, two studies were developed to examine the above question. Experiment 1 was performed on Police Officers and Experiment 2 involved Juvenile Probation Officers. Both groups were “subliminally exposed” to words either in the Black or Neutral Race category before being given tasks unrelated to the sublime race reference and without...
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...exclusion of ethnic minorities, who face higher levels of unemployment, poverty and poor housing. This means that these minorities then get things they cannot usually get by illegitimate means. Delinquent subcultures are made especially by young unemployed black males; this produces higher levels of utilitarian crime, such as theft and robbery, as a means of coping with relative deprivation. Furthermore, because these groups are marginalised and have no organisations to represent their interests, their frustration is liable to produce non-utilitarian crime, such as violence and rioting. Lea and Young also acknowledge that the police often act in racist ways and that this results in the unjustified criminalisation of some members of minority groups. However, 90% of crimes are reported by the public, not police, therefore it is unlikely that the police do not act in discriminatory ways under these circumstances, it is unlikely that this can adequately account for ethnic differences in the statistics. They then conclude that the statistic’s represent real differences in levels of offending between ethnic groups and that these are caused by real differences in levels of relative deprivation and marginalisation. However, Lea and Young can be criticised...
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...Steven Rousse English Composition Professor David Mook September 15, 2014 Is Law Enforcement Racist? Racism, stereotypes, racial profiling, discrimination, no matter what you call it it’s all the same thing, and it has been around for years. Lately racial discrimination has been greatly decreased, yet not completely eradicated. One would think that the last place there wouldn’t be a single shred of any discrimination in law enforcement, however, there is and the fact that there is racial discrimination makes for some very controversial cases; such as the case of the shooting of Michael Brown, the brutal beating of Rodney King, and the wrongful beating of Abner Louima. All of these incidents happened because of an unfair percentage that police are to show more brutality to a minority group than to whites and there are plenty of facts that support this such as the amount of white officers over colored ones, and the biases and stereotypes that are to blame for “racism” in law enforcement. The case of Michael Brown in Fergusson, Missouri a predominantly black society, with a predominantly white police force, there are multiple stories that both tell stories of what people saw. One account states that the teenager Michael Brown had his hands in the air and was surrendering whilst unarmed; the officer opened fire and killed him. However, what the authorities say is the exact opposite in which Michael Brown actually attempted to attack the officer in his car and tried to...
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...the problems that make racism hard to conquer in America is; racial profiling in police authority and entertainment television which is ultimately in direct correlation with stereotyping. These are some of the reasons why racism is still relevant in some cases now and this answers the question of if America has conquered racism. The main focus of racism now come from stereotyping each racial ethnicity. Each race has their very own vague descriptions based on culture and beliefs. These stereotypes becoming well known in today's society it comes with the price of racial profiling in police authority. There are such events involving racial profiling especially through the police procedures such as “stop and frisk”. Stop and frisking is described as racial profiling mainly because police officers often stop people based on physical...
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...We both chose our participants because we knew them and felt like they would be able to feel comfortable speaking to us. In order to get them to engage with us positively we described the class and what was the purpose for our research. We also assured confidentiality of their identity. After receiving their consent to be interviewed, we conducted semi-structured interviews, of about an hour long for each interview. Prior to the interview, we prepared some open-ended questions for the interviewees instead of simply ‘yes’ or no’ questions. This way we would be able to allow them to go as much in depth as they would like and get more insight on their first or second hand experiences with the justice system. As they spoke we asked follow up questions...
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...Tupac was an actor and rapper born in Harlem, N.Y and who moved to the California who later became one of the faces of the East and West Coast rivalry. One of Tupac Shakur’s most popular songs is, “Changes” which was released in 1998 two years after his death, despite his death this song still had an impact on people because it addresses racism in society and the negative sides of being black in America. In this song he talks about police killing blacks and the prison system and addresses the negative stereotypes people associate blacks with. In the song Tupac...
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...Discrimination and stereotypes have been a problem in the United States for a while now. There are many stereotypes for different races and there have been many cases of discrimination throughout history. In the United States, most discrimination cases are against the colored community, this includes the African American and the Hispanics. It is really easy for the police to believe that colored people are the ones responsible for many of the crimes that happen in the United States. In 1989, five young boys, Korey Wise, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Yusef Salaam, were falsely accused of raping a twenty-eight year old white jogger in Central Park, New York and served up to thirteen years in prison without people questioning their innocence because they had colored skin. In April of 1989, a white female went for a jog at Central Park. She was raped multiple times and was beaten up at 10:30 pm. Her rapist left her in very critical conditions. She was found at 1:30 am by two other joggers. The joggers found the victim unconscious and almost nude. Five young colored boys were accused of raping the woman. On April 21, 1989, the Daily News newspaper in New York printed an article called “Wolf Pack’s Prey”. The article gave details about the case. The news paper used quotes that police officers would say when they would talk about what they heard in the confessions. For Example, the Daily News says, “ One youth admitted to rape and several others told police they sexually...
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...of diversity, especially those in the criminal justice field where situations caused by religion and ethnicity can lead to a problem. Stereotypes are ideas held by some individuals about members of particular groups, based solely on membership in that group. Stereotyping is one of the biggest problems that we deal with, particularly in law enforcement. Stereotype threat can result in a self-fulfilling insight whereby a person comes to resemble his or her reputation, living up or down to social expectations. Over the years there have been many allegations of police officers accused of going after individuals and accusing them of a crime based on the sole fact of what their religious beliefs might be. This has been going on for a long time; however in recent years, it has gotten worse. The main job of police officers is to uphold the law, not to break it. Although stereotyping is not against the law, police officers have taken an oath to protect all human beings, regardless of their race or religion and stereotyping based on religion should not take place. Just because an individual is of a certain race does not give us the right to stereotype them as a bad human being. Thus stereotyping one’s religious beliefs is wrong, and it goes against what America is all about, that everyone is equal. The book American Dervish is a perfect example of diversity and religion in the United States. The book is good but some of the characters the author creates who are practicing Muslims...
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...Patterns of Discrimination in Police Agencies Lauren Raven CJS/221 Alan Hazel 3-15-2015 Patterns of Discrimination in Police Agencies Experiences with social institutions and law enforcement agencies shape the worldview by influencing community-police relations through individual and group perception. The patterns and existence of institutionalized discrimination, contextual discrimination, and individual discriminatory behaviors within the criminal justice system carry considerable influence on public perception of police departments. The effects of social class, race, and ethnicity on citizen opinions of how law enforcement agencies operate include instances of corruption, systematic discrimination, and general misunderstandings of cultural diversities. Institutionalized discrimination describes a wider pattern of events regarding discriminatory practices incorporated into processes, procedures, and organizational structure (Walker, Spone, Delone, 2012). An example may include policies that permit judges to consider employment or domestic history in their decision making process.Whether these occurrences are due to prejudice or racism, or are the result of a general lack of consideration for the needs of various social identities, they essentially indicate a problematic system. Pure justice provides restorative justice for victims and their rights, yet attains an unbiased, unprejudiced...
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...over 4 decades, the first concrete effort taken by the federal government came in 2003 when the Bush administration stepped in to address the issue. Furthermore, the government involved the justice department to draft laws that made it clear on the seriousness of the offence. The government moved to stem the persistent use of general racial stereotypes when addressing crime by law enforcement...
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...As seen in item A, official statistics show that ethnic minority groups are more likely to be arrested. For example in 2007/2008 Black people were nearly four times more likely to be arrested than white people. Whilst sociologists like Lea and Young argue that statistics reliably show that ethnic minorities are more likely to commit crimes, other sociologists such as Neo Marxists and investigations into racist institutions such as the MacPherson report believe that official statistics are not a true representation of the level of ethnic crime and is socially constructed. Official statistics show there is a high level of ethnic minority crime in society for example blacks are five times more likely to be in prison than a white person. Left realists Lea and Young argue that statistics highlight that Black men are committing more crimes due to racism in society which is marginalising black people for example racism has led to high levels of unemployment amongst ethnic minority groups hence leading to poverty and poor housing situations. Lea and young believe that the Medias etherises on consumerism leads black men to feel relatively deprived as they are not able to maintain the goals of society via legitimate means hence they turn to delinquent subcultures as a means of gaining rewards through illegitimate means. This also links to Merton’s strain theory. However Neo Marxists criticise official statistics representation of ethnic minorities and crime, claiming that they are socially...
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...than the causes of the initial act. One labelling theorist, Becker, suggests the idea of crime as a social construct. He argues that an act only becomes deviant when it is defined as such by others, and that a criminal will only be labelled depending on society’s reaction to the crime. Becker argues that those people that have the power to create and impose their definitions on the rest of society such as the police are called moral entrepreneurs, reinforcing that crime and deviance is a construction of society. In addition to this, Becker argues that there is selective decisions as to whether to or how to deal with illegal or deviant behaviour. He calls this ‘selective law enforcement’ and suggests that police act on their own stereotypes and pre-conceptions on how to respond to the deviance and crime they come across. Labelling theorists are interested in who gets labelled most often and why. This is useful to our understanding of crime and deviance as it can highlight which social groups are most likely to be convicted or targeted by the police and why. For example, young black males are more likely to be stopped and search than any other social group; this theory allows us to understand why crime statistics may show specific...
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...The above assumption might lead to racialization, which is the treatment of certain groups of people differently from other groups based on abstract or actual physical qualities. A stereotype is a prejudiced view regarding a community. Racial profiling is a consequence of the stereotyping of a racialized people. This paper examines race profiling in Canada. Furthermore, it discusses how race profiling is evident in the process of “Carding” by law enforcement authorities. Racial profiling is the suspicion of certain individuals of law breaking due to a person’s faith, background, race, or nationality. It originates from racialization of ethnic groups since it occurs because of the stereotyping of racialized people by law enforcement officials. An instance of racial profiling is the halting of drivers for inconsequential traffic infringements based on race. In (http://torontolife.com/city/life/skin-im-ive-interrogated-police-50-times-im-black/) the police pursue the author’s father and eventually stop him just because the author’s cousin threw out a piece of Kleenex through the car window. The implications of racial profiling include sidelining of certain racial groups; hostility towards members of specific races; increased surveillance of distinct communities by the police and leads to the police losing faith and reliability from the citizens they serve. The first effect of racial profiling is the marginalization of communities that are more prone to race profiling....
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