Police Brutality
In recent years there has been an increase in the number of cases of police brutality reported. It is important to look at police brutality against Hispanics and African-Americans to gain a better understanding of this serious problem.
History of Brutality
The contrast between "law-abiding and lawless people is racialized, making the depreciation of liberty it legitimates equally racialized (Roberts, 1999)." This in turns creates a racist pattern of police brutality. The "social norm theory helps to explain why this pattern strikes most Americans as benign. Myths of Black criminality are so embedded in the white psyche that it seems perfectly natural to many Americans that Blacks are disproportionately stopped for traffic infractions, arrested for drug offenses, swept off the street for loitering, and sent to prison (Roberts, 1999)."
New York City's police department has a history of racial abuse. Police officials there report a decrease in crime rates, however they often fail to mention that "civilian complaints of police abuse has risen almost 40% since 1993 and the amount the city has paid to settle these claims has doubled (Roberts, 1999)." Between 1997 and 1998, out of the 45,000 people detained, only 9,500 were arrested. This illustrates the point that over 35,000 people were stopped for no reason, most of whom were African-American or Hispanic. Some of these innocent citizens have been the subjects of appalling "cases of police brutality which has heightened resentment toward the police and concerns about the city's policing police (Roberts, 1999)." survey in 1999 found that "43.8 million people - including people who called to report a crime - had contact with...
How the Black Lives Matter Movement Changed the Law Enforcement Landscape Abstract Today, the United States faces multiple existential threats from a global Covid-19 pandemic and the concomitant economic downturn as well as rising racial tensions following the murder of an African American man, George Floyd, on May 25, 2020 by officers with the Minneapolis police department. This event, taking place amidst a once-in-a-century global pandemic with many Americans already nerve-wracked, served
Police officers are authorized to use force when necessary, a policy that is generally used to protect innocent people from violence and abuse, and protect the general public from harm. However, the authorization to use force can be easily abused. Police abuse of power in the form of police brutality is an ethical problem because it constitutes abuse of power, and also leads to mistrust of law enforcement. Mistrust of
While no one is immune from police brutality, statistics show that African-Americans are far more likely to be the victims of police brutality than are whites. As Lopez notes, “Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in 2012, even though they made up just 13 percent of the US population.” Moreover, of the people killed by police who were not attacking, 39% were black (Lopez). These statistics
Second World War (WWII) witnessed an outbreak of activism, a form of resistance, by Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Chicanos, as the campaign for civil rights inspired other racial minorities in America to demand total equality for themselves. The era from the 1950s to 1970s saw dramatic changes to United States (U.S.) society, especially for ethnic/racial minorities who rallied and protested against their subordination, demanding total political and civil
Racism in professional sports has been documented for decades. However, only in recent years has it been more noticeable. The recent ‘Take the Knee’ Movement ahs sparked outrage on both sides as people fight for equality and others fight for patriotism. However, this is just one symptom of a much larger disease that is institutionalized racism and how it crossed over into sports. Certain theories like critical race theory and
The cases only took approximately four to five minutes implying to an unseen assembly line of justice. The study also brought to light the fact that minority cases from outside New York were listened to by an all white jury (Ingram, 2009). The other part of the criminal justice system that witnessed high levels of racial prejudice is the correctional departments. Discrimination has been witnessed in the way prisoners of
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