Thursday, October 17, 2013

Rethinking society: Race and Crime



When society thinks of criminals, African American or Hispanic males come into mind, because that is often what is portrayed by the media. Racism and crime can be seen throughout different instances and unfortunately, in many ways. For example: it can be seen when police officers pull minorities over with different treatment than with Caucasians, when judges give harsher sentencing to Hispanics or African Americans versus whites, and the outstanding number of incarcerated minorities
            One way race and crime interact with each other is through racial profiling. Racial profiling can be seen in traffic stops when law enforcement targets minorities and pull them over based on their skin color. Minorities are often stopped and searched more than whites even though whites are more likely to be carrying drugs on them, but get let go because of their skin color. Even when law enforcement tries not to be biased, they unconsciously are and any means of discrimination is denied.
            Another way race and crime interact with each other is through sentencing in the courts. Minorities receive more mandatory sentencing compared to whites. Also, with death penalties, more minorities are given death penalties for murdering a white person, than a white person getting the death penalty for killing a person of color. This can be seen with the incident of a group of white men purposefully harassing African American men in Jackson. Their harassment eventually led to a black man getting killed by running him over with their truck. Only one white man has been given life in prison and the other four are still awaiting sentencing. These white men intentionally harassed black men and still did not get the death penalty. But if it were switched around and black men were harassing white men, the black men would surely either get harsher punishment or the death penalty.
            Lastly, although these three points aren’t the only way race and crime interact with one another, race and crime can be visualized interacting with each other through the outstanding number of incarcerated minorities. Many Caucasians don’t see the significantly large amount of incarcerated minorities as a way of racism. One big reason why there are so many incarcerated minorities is because of the crack/cocaine disparity which is a way in which the criminal justice system targets minorities. Racial profiling and discrimination by the police is another reason why there are so many incarcerated minorities. Another reason is corrupt police practices such as “flaking”. Police have quotas that they need to meet, and often, feel pressured to meet them. They often feel so pressured that a former New York Police Department detective admitted that it was common to pull fake drug charges against innocent people to meet the arrest quotas. Corrupt police practices can also be seen through racist police taking matters into their own hands. One example is the Oscar Grant III case in which Grant had been shot and killed by a police officer for no legit reason.

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