Police Racial Profiling - Essay Example

Police Racial Profiling

Racial profiling is the act of targeting or suspecting individuals of a certain race because of their race. It involves such an instance as when a police officer stops, searches, arrests and questions an individual based solely on their ethnicity or race. Alternatively, it might be an event where race is routinely being used by the police as a factor that, alongside other factors, that prompts the officer to take action. Research has systematically shown that the police are more likely to view minority groups, such as Latinos, with suspicion. This happens in workplaces, schools and even shopping centers. But do Latinos experience racial profiling by police officers in San Mateo? If it does, what impact does it have on Latino San Mateo residents? This study carried out a survey that attempted to answer these questions in three cities in California; San Mateo, Foster City and Half Moon Bay. Professional, statutory and constitutional protocols prohibit police officers from racially profiling minority populations. But as presented below, the data proves otherwise; police are routinely involved in racial profiling of the minority populations, especially the Latinos (Carmen 2008, 155). Prompted by the survey, the paper expounds on the various methods of racial profiling, its causes, and possible solutions. Solutions that come up include harsher punishment for non-compliant police officers, keeping up to date with racial profiling data, diversity training for police officers and implementation of community policing, where the community is empowered to know whenever they are being profiled.

Central Issues

Police reporting

The war against racial profiling faces a major drawback because police officers do not accurately report the races of individuals they pull over. According to Collister and Ellis (2015, p 1), a recent investigation by KXAN found out that Department of Public Safety (DPS) troops intentionally recorded the incorrect race of drivers from minority groups as white. The racial profiling law requires police officers to find out and document the race of every individual arrested during a traffic troop, issued a written warning or a traffic citation. This law provides that “the police officer must report the ethnicity or race of the individual as confessed by the individual or as the police officer shall determine to the best of their ability if the individual fails to mention their ethnicity or race” These discrepancies in police recording were revealed when the KXAN reviewed more than 15 million citation records of the DPS (Collister and Ellis 2015, p 1)

The KXAN report mentions examples of such instances, such as in the case of Richard Kai-Tzung Chang, to whom a traffic troop gave a traffic license in Austin. Being from Taiwan, Richard feels that his Asian is obvious, but was astounded when on the citation; the trooper had recorded him as white. Asian and white are quite different, and as Chang says, it is completely inexplicable how he got mistaken for white. These findings thus spur more doubt on the reliability of the DPS racial profiling reports. This investigation shows that the number of Latino drivers stopped by the police is far much bigger than those in the agency’s reports. Collister and Ellis further state that in the past five years, nearly 1.9 million individuals who had distinctive Hispanic names were documented as white. Those reported correctly as Hispanic were about 1.6 million (1). The inaccuracy in the DPS reports is a challenge to the analysis of the trends of racial profiling incidences. Whatever analytical is the method used, the results are not true since the data provided is not correct. It is thus challenging to come up with valid conclusions on what specific measures can be taken to reduce police racial profiling (Collister and Ellis 2015, p 1)

The causes of Latinos racial profiling

Poor Education and Poverty

Poverty is prevalent in most Latino families as a result of insufficient education. The white society hence regards Latinos as poor and uneducated which translated to being viewed with suspicion and scorn by whites, including the police. This lack of education is the result of historical discrimination of Latinos in schools. Some were frustrated to the point of dropping out. The school setups enabled the dominant race to designate the minority races to inferiority, and the curriculum ensured that they absorbed this inferiority at settled on it throughout their education (Gandara & Contreras 2009, p 47). The system of the minority individual appeared like some prison, with the teachers acting policemen. In fact, Canadian Independent School District situated in Texas, allowed teachers to carry guns to school to deal with ‘naughty’ minority students. The closest option was dropping out. For those who persevered, what they got was not quality education (Carmen 2008, p 155)

The racial profiling of minority groups in U.S.A. is because they are mostly less educated and unemployed. Employers in America are another group of racial discriminators. In their book ‘freakonomics’, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levit (2011), carried out a study to find out the effect of a person’s name in securing a job interview. Their finding was that people with distinctively non-white names had a lower chance of receiving a call for an interview than their white counterparts (Levit & Dubner 2011, p 210). This means that Latinos and other minority groups will continue living in poverty. Poverty means they will not afford a quality education. The police, in effect, knowing that non-whites are less educated and poor, make racial profiling routine, and then misreport about it; another cause of continuing racial profiling (Gandara & Contreras 2009, p 47).

Latinos and Crime

Proponents of racial profiling claim that it is an effective way of fighting crime and terrorism. They assume that majority of the people who are illegally in the country tend to commit crimes and that mostly, they belong to some ethnic groups, such as the Latinos or Blacks. Hispanics in America have experienced harsh persecutions in the hands of immigration police (Holbert & Rose 2008, p 91). Racial profiling might work in reducing the number of illegal immigrants, but it fails to increase the efficiency of fighting terror and crime. This is because racial profiling is a waste of public resources as was proved in New Jersey where police officers stopped almost all Hispanic pedestrians, motorists, and passengers (tens of thousands of them), but among whom only 1400 were charged with immigration offenses (Salinas 2015, p 59). This was a waste of both time and resources by the police, who ought to have concentrated more on the individual behavior of the suspects rather than their races.

Secondly, racial profiling is a misleading technique; it diverts public resources to the needless concentration on harassing Muslims, Arabs, and Hispanics, instead of utilizing the resources to deal with the criminals against whom credible evidence has been provided linking them to terrorism. Thus, a more efficient use of law enforcement resources will be achieved if racial profiling stopped being used (Holbert & Rose 2008, p 91). In October 2012, senior law enforcement officials in U.S.A. circulated a memorandum to all agents worldwide headed “Assessing Behaviors", which emphasized the needlessness of concentrating on the racial traits of people, terming it a waste of law enforcement resources. Instead, it emphasized the need to focus on the individual’s present or past suspicious behavior (Salinas 2015, p 59).

Solutions to racial profiling

Harsh punishment for officers involved

All law enforcement agencies including police officers are prohibited by state law from engaging in any racial profiling. As a result, they are not allowed to stop, interdict, detain or search an individual based singularly on their race or ethnicity. In sum, treating people differently is a crime in the federal agencies. Further, none of them is allowed to use race or ethnicity alone as justification for arresting and individual, or the probable proof of an individual’s intention to and possibility of committing a crime. According to the law, race cannot prompt detention or motor vehicle stop. Sadly, this law does not spell the penalties applicable to those who break it, and courts resort to the provision of CGS § 54-195, that anyone who is found guilty of having violated a law with no particular penalty is liable to a penalty of $100 in fine (Wadman 2009 p 125).

In this law also, police departments are obliged to;

1. Embrace written policies that illegalize detentions, searches, and stops that are based solely on ethnicity and race.

2. Gather and present yearly statistics of all traffic offenses, traffic stops, dispositions and public complaints about racially-inclined stops to the Chief State Attorney and the AAAC (African American Affairs Commission).

The punishment spelled above ($100 fine) is not enough to completely bar the police from racial profiling. Officers convicted of racial profiling should be suspended indefinitely with no pay as further investigations are carried out. If they are found guilty, a jail term should follow and even more severe punishments. This may ensure a reduction in the rates of racial profiling incidences in the San Mateo, and U.S.A in general.

Building stronger relationships with the community

It is pleasing to mention that in the 21st century has seen a change, albeit slow, in the public opinion of the police especially among the non-whites. This has been enhanced by a general national shift in the societal attitudes towards discrimination and racism. But still, the relationship between the community and American police requires mending. Community policing is the philosophy most police departments are adopting now, as a common-sense method of approaching this repair. At such times, community oriented policing nearly achieves the aim of bettering the relationship between police and community; a crucial component of good policing (Holbert & Rose 2008, p 91).

According to the office of the Community-Oriented Policing Services located at the Justice Department in the U.S, community policing is the “philosophy that that enhances administrative strategies anchoring the systematic use of problem-solving methods and partnerships to deal actively with the immediate circumstances that lead to public safety problems such as crime, fear of crime and social disorder.” In practice, this philosophy entails the coalitions with community organizations (neighborhood policing), making transparency a priority and actively seeking feedback and coming up with plans to enable an interaction between the police and the community; off the law enforcement platform (Wadman 2009, p 125).

If efficiently adhered to, community policing will make the residents feel respected, listened to and motivated to assist the police in combating crime in their localities. This will completely allow them to shake off the feeling that police officers are there to use aggressive questioning, incarceration, stopping and arresting.

Cultural Sensitivity training for police officers

The population of California is diverse. It is made of 64% Caucasian, 26% Hispanic, 7% Black 2% Asian and 1% other (Price 2015, p 1). With an ever-increasing minority population, the state is cognizant of the employees’ need to advance their understanding of this diversity and how to address the needs of the minority races. Bob Price, the Mayor of Bakersfield city, confirmed that the state of California has adopted a cultural awareness and diversity training for its police officers (Price 2015, p 1). All officers of the department are required to participate in the training academies on a continuous basis. The training is conducted by the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) of California State. The Academy has been operating in Los Angeles at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance. The training entails discussions on how best to deal with particular situations, regarding of the elements of racism, prejudice and stereotyping (Wadman 2009, p 125).

This training has benefited individual officers, the community and also the Police Department. The department’s image is feeling a boost as the complaints about lack of courtesy by police and incidences of racial profiling are gradually falling. The tension between law enforcement agencies and the communities is gradually relaxing as the community receives quality service from the officials. The officer is safer since he has more support from the community and his ability to reach the information housed by residents is made much easier (Holbert & Rose 2008, p 91).

The State runs this process freely for the officers during duty hours to avoid further expenditure on overtime. All instructors are individuals who are employed by the state, so no more costs are incurred.

Conclusion

It is evident that racial profiling is still alive in the streets of San Mateo. Police intentional misreporting of people’s races, the belief that Latinos are uneducated, unemployed and poor, and the existence of no spelled punishment for racial profilers are the major fuels for the vice. Numerous studies in the past have attested to this fact. The solutions to this problem are tougher punishments for the officers, community-based policing and diversity awareness training for all police officers. The last two methods have been applied in California, and the impacts are slowly developing. The Police Department is experiencing increased cooperation from residents of all races. Latinos are continually enjoying improved freedom in the United States of America. But in San Mateo, more of the above remedies need to be applied to make the city freer for the Latinos.