The Racial Profiling Issue in the United States

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Introduction

The complexity behind the concept of race and the discrimination associated with it has been long integrated into the paradigm of social justice and law enforcement policies in the US. For decades, the issue of racial profiling has been an implicit bias that destroys the lives of millions of African Americans across the country. The term racial profiling emerged at the end of the 20th century and is defined as the police practice of stopping black and brown drivers in disproportionate numbers for traffic infractions, in attempts to investigate other crimes for which the police had no evidence (Harris, 2020, p. 10). Although the issue was addressed by authorities at the time, the principles of racial profiling continue to apply to ethnic minorities. The aim of this paper is to look into the existing policies and instances of racial discrimination in order to eliminate this issue in the future. Essentially, to eliminate racial discrimination, introducing new rigid policies is not enough, as the ethical principle of justice implies the need for social education and assistance for everyone. Thus, by combining social education for law enforcement and the implementation of new anti-racial policies, racial discrimination rates could decrease significantly.

Ethical Principle of Justice

When speaking of racial profiling in law enforcement, the notion of justice is an integral component of the discussion. Being able to exercise justice for the community is one of the most common contributors to ones motivation to become a police officer. According to Caldero et al. (2018), justice for the community and dealing with crime are perceived as the noble cause for the police officers functioning as a social group. For this reason, it is rather challenging to comprehend how a person pursuing a noble cause is capable of harming and misjudging people on the grounds of skin color and ethnicity.

The core of the principle of justice is the ability to provide every individual with equal opportunities. This concept should not be misconstrued for equal treatment, as treating every individual equally leads to gross ignorance of ones unique struggles and issues. Thus, the principle of justice implies that cooperation with racial minorities should account for the socio-cultural context of an individual and their inherent right to be perceived beyond race and ethnic affiliation. Meanwhile, the community should realize that in certain cases, law enforcement officers subconsciously associate race with potentially criminal activity because they were exposed to an extremely biased and negative portrayal of race in the media.

Undeniably, a biased approach to criminal justice is an unacceptable behavioral pattern, as law enforcement needs impartiality to be at the core of their community service and protection. However, it would be unreasonable to blame police officers directly for implementing racist practices. The history of racism, both implicit and explicit, has been a part of American culture since the genesis of the US social practices. Nowadays, people, unfortunately, cannot resist racial bias and racism simply because they have been exposed to the media and society that associate racial minorities with violence, crime, and abusive behavior. As a result, to introduce the ethical concept of justice to law enforcement practices, it is of paramount importance to provide police officers with extensive training in cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Context and Recommendations

The Historical Context of Racial Profiling

Nowadays, the US history of criminal justice contains several serious precedents of hate crimes, racial profiling, and discrimination. The most notorious instance of police brutality towards African Americans is the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer named Derek Chauvin. Allegedly accused of paying for a cigarette pack with counterfeit money, Floyd was choked to death by the police officer (Hill et al., 2020). Although people gained justice for the victim, the incident has raised a series of questions concerning other cases of unpunished police brutality.

Indeed, evidence demonstrates that the US police officers, while driven by implicit prejudice towards ethnic minorities, tend to associate them with a higher predisposition to criminal activity with no reasonable arguments in favor of their opinion. According to Beall (2018), in the United States, approximately 42% of face-to-face interactions between individuals and law enforcement officers originate from suspected traffic violations, whereas the traffic violations are implicitly associated with Black and Hispanic drivers (p. 148). Incapable of issuing a search warrant on the basis of race, police officers use the gateway to potential arrests by pulling over Black and Hispanic drives with the intent to find evidence of a crime.

Based on the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, citizens of the US are protected from unreasonable searches and accusations. Currently, search, seizure, and arrest are only justified when a police officer has reasonable grounds to believe that an individual could have violated the law (Anderson, 2020). However, the issue with the Fourth Amendment and its reasoning is that law enforcements intent to stop a driver or a pedestrian can be rather subjective without explicitly pointing to ones race. For example, when pulling over a Black driver, a police officer may characterize his style of driving as suspiciously slow or fast without pointing to the race. However, unlike during the communication with White drivers, police officers searching the vehicles of Black and Hispanic people often allow things to escalate quickly, with a stop turning into a seizure in a matter of minutes.

Modern Legislation

Since the death of George Floyd, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act has passed the House in March 2021. According to this Act, law enforcement officers are now held more accountable for any unjust and abusive behavior, including violence justified by race and racial profiling (End racial and religious profiling act, 2021). However, apart from the evident legal punishment for racial profiling and abuse of power, the Act also encourages police officers to undergo an extensive training program on racial profiling and implicit bias.

Recommendations

The evidence above demonstrates that currently, the system of criminal justice does not perceive racial profiling to be such an alarming problem as it is today. In order to change the focus to a more efficient approach, it is critical to implement the ethical principle of justice for both victims of racial profiling and law enforcement workers. Evidence demonstrates that the police officers exposed to justice training have better attitudes towards others and promote justice in the workplace (Antrobus et al., 2019). Hence, it is highly recommended the law enforcement system implement a system of mandatory sensitivity and awareness training in order to minimize the negative impact of stigma and racism perpetuated in society.

Conclusion

Racial profiling has always been regarded as one of the central issues in US law enforcement and police practices in general. Born and raised in the context of a negative and toxic portrayal of race in society, law enforcement officers project racial bias on ordinary people and promote racial profiling in the criminal justice system. However, instead of solely increasing the punishment measures for racial profiling, it could be more beneficial to adopt a comprehensive approach to justice for everyone. Such equal treatment could be achieved by allocating enough resources to law enforcement officers education and equality promotion for racial minorities.

References

Anderson, A. J. (2020). Racial profiling: Constitutional and statutory considerations for Congress [PDF document]. Congressional Research Service Legal Sidebar. Web.

Antrobus, E., Thompson, I., & Ariel, B. (2019). Procedural justice training for police recruits: Results of a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 15(1), 29-53. Web.

Beall, M. N. (2018). Gutting the Fourth Amendment: Judicial complicity in racial profiling and the real-life implications. Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality, 36(1), 145-167.

Caldero, M. A., Dailey, J. D., & Withrow, B. L. (2018). Police ethics: The corruption of noble cause. Routledge.

End racial and religious profiling act. (2021). Human Rights Campaign. Web.

Harris, D. A. (2020). Racial profiling: Past, present, and future? Criminal Justice, 34, 10-17.

Hill, E., Tiefenthäler, A., Triebert, C., Jordan, D., Willis, H., & Stein, R. (2022). How George Floyd was killed in police custody. The New York Times. Web.

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