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Racial profiling is when an individual’s ethnicity is used by law enforcement personnel in determining whether or not to engage in enforcement. In the twentieth century, punishment and crime have provided powerful symbols of the racial divide in the United States of America (
Cochran &
Warren, 2012). In the past, chain-gang style penal practices and lynchings alongside judicial bigotry proved to be common, especially in the criminal judicial systems that existed in the south (Maarten, 2012). Throughout America, racial minorities were mostly tried by white juries found in white courtrooms. This is clearly seen in the Scottsboro rape case trial of 1931-1932.
Sentencing laws were discriminatory. Harsh sanctions were imposed on black people who were found victimizing white people. The police played a major role in racial violence by participating actively and failing to restrain mob actions. Over the last centuries, the police participated in racial riots in American cities and their behavior promoted hostility and violence towards minority communities (Maarten, 2012).
However, over the last fifty years, the United States Supreme Court’s cases and its legislature have made racial discrimination unconstitutional. This has been inspired by civil rights activists and other reforms movements. Various states of the United States have reported requirements that cover incidences of racial profiling. For example, Texas requires all agencies to give an annual report regarding its Law Enforcement Commission. In September 2001, the state of Texas passed a law that required all law enforcement agencies to start collecting data. This was in connection with pedestrian and traffic stops that were to commence in January 2002. Even though in recent years discrimination has diminished, the perception of it and the reality of unfairness in the judicial system are still a matter to grapple with. Ethnic and racial disparities continue to persist in the criminal justice system in the United States of America (
Cochran &
Warren, 2012)
The police’s public image is measured in different ways. The means used to gauge public support towards the police vary greatly. It is accompanied with questions of if respondents trust or have confidence in the police. The questions asked are not specific, but are often of a general character. The terminology that is often used in public opinion polls makes a difference in estimating the general image of the police.
There are various important reasons for evaluating the general image of the policeman. First and foremost, the understanding of the general image of police officers by the public provides a crucial indicator of support for the police among their constituents. Being aware of the public image of the police force is a necessary element in improving the relationship between the police and the public (
Peterson, 2012). Hence, community surveys prove to be an important component of the community policing movement.
Another reason is that the general image of the police can greatly affect the kind of behavior of the public that is prone to greatly interest the police. Such behavior includes supporting tax initiatives that are designed to improve the resources that local police agencies harbor. Communities that have a negative attitude towards the police are likely to be less supportive towards the police in doing their jobs. They are also likely to be reluctant to file complaints, produce media problems, and prove to be rebellious (
Peterson, 2012).
Another major reason for measuring the general image of the police is that there is a small but growing amount of evidence that individuals who foresee the authority exercised against them as legitimate are probably likely to rebel against the authority and violate the law. As much as research remains to be done on perceived legitimacy of the police, evidence suggests that when the police institution loses legitimacy, this results in an increased percentage of crime and rebellion against legal and political institutions.
Given several highly publicized incidents, police misconduct has proved to be one of the most vigorous issues that have been debated over years. However, there is a lack of clear consensus among various groups including researchers of the prevalence of such misconduct. An example is seen in Los Angeles where not less than forty policemen were accused of several misconduct behaviors that ranged from shooting and framing an unarmed person to stealing drugs.
In American society, there are many instances in which minorities are not given the chance to prosper. The main contributors to this are the media and the judicial criminal system. Despite the fact that the television is considered the most dominant source of giving information, there have been several shifts in the consumption of news programming (Maarten, 2012).
The implications that concern agenda setting and the framing effects that are associated with crime are clear. Various associations of crime with race in news broadcasts could mean that news has the potential to cause in-group bias and trigger racial identity (
Peterson, 2012).
Policy makers and academics agree that there is a need for more research to enhance the understanding of racial disparities in criminal justice processes. Causes and consequences of criminal victimization and offending are not yet known. Due to this lack of knowledge, better innovative research models are required to disentangle complicated interactions between racial ethnicity and criminal offending.
The trends in demography show that the racial character of a country is changing with increases in the proportion of its population. However, new complex challenges for criminal justice are coming up. The American Sociological Association in 2005 in its presidential address gave an outline of various issues including the importance of closely scrutinizing the identification of DNA and the claims in classification that are on the increase of penetrating criminal justice processing.
References
Cochran, J., & Warren,
P. (2012). Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in perceptions of the
police: The salience of officer race within the context of racial profiling. Journal of
Contemporary Criminal Justice, 28, 206-227.
Craen, Van M. (2012). Determinants of ethnic minority confidence in the police. Journal of
Ethnic and Migration Studies, 38 (7).
Peterson, A. (2012). Trials of loyalty: Ethnic minority police officers as ‘outsiders’ within a
greedy institution. European Journal of Criminology, 9, 354-369.