Racial Profiling
Racial profiling is when the law enforcement, the justice system, and groups of people judge certain individuals based on their skin color, skin tone or attitude and they are ever suspecting that they are the ones who have committed crimes. In the US the police officers usually target the blacks suspecting them to be the ones who have committed the crimes. They always see black people as perpetrators and white people as the victims and that judgment is unfair because even the white people commit crimes.
The Role of the Media
The media plays a major role in racial profiling in that they can either create awareness against racial profiling or stand with racial profiling based on how they will report their news (Edwin 2016). The media gets to cover the news pertaining the racial profiling and also the perpetrator who commits the crime. How the media report the news is how the public is going to interpret it. The media tends to cover only sensational stories that will increase the public views and leave out the daily stories; for example a cop stopping a motorist and just taking them to jail just because they are black and driving their cars in the night, the police beating up black youth because the suspect they have drugs and other cases that relates to that. If the media talks about racial profiling to an extent of creating awareness of how people are being treated just because of their color or race, it will play a big role in educating the public hence racial profiling will be able to reduce.
The Role of the Police
The police have also played a major role in racial profiling by judging the minority groups. The police officers always judge the blacks or Hispanic people to have committed crimes as compared to the whites. A police officer is most likely to stop a black person driving a car and start searching his car for drugs and the police officer will handcuff him and take him to jail compared to a white person. Police officers in the US are unlikely to stop a white man and start searching his car for drugs and any evidence of crime material (Reshma " Davis 2003). The police officers also can beat a black man committing a crime but are unlikely to beat up a white man committing a crime like in a case in the US where three police officers bet a black man to death just because they suspected that he was committing a crime. Another case is when a police officer suspected that a black person was the one who raided the mall and started looking for evidence to support their claim only to find out it was not the black person who committed the crime.
The Public's Opinion
The public has a major opinion in regards to racial profiling. Majority of white people view black people as people who are likely to commit crimes, people who use drugs and violent people of which that's not the case because not all black people are violent, commit crimes or use drugs even white people can use drugs and be violent. Most white people perceive the black people as violent (Kelly 2007). This happens not only in the US but also in other countries. A survey was done in Canada of how the citizens of Canada perceived the blacks and in the research, it was found that almost half of the people believe that the black people commit a crime and they associate crime with race. Most white people discriminate the black people. This should not be the case because it causes misjudgment of people and the innocent can be punished for a crime they have not even committed.
The Role of the Justice System
The justice system also plays a major role in racial profiling. How the justices system judges the cases that are brought to them will determine whether they have ruled a fair judgment or not. When the police take the lawbreakers to court, the judicial system is supposed to b fair and rule the case without biasedness of which that is not always the case. Times the justice system is not always fair; like in the case of where three police officers beat an African American to death just, they suspected him of crime. When the case was taken to court the police officers were acquitted of the crime (Keith 2005). After the court's judgment, there were riots all over because the ruling of the court was not fair. People demonstrated against the ruling. In this case, the court used racial profiling to make their judgment and that was not fair instead they would have used the law to pass their judgment.
Drawbacks of Racial Profiling
Racial profiling can lead to death, its expensive and time-consuming, violation of rights, insecurities and it's no guarantee that by racial profiling crime can be stopped.
Death
The police can handle an innocent person harshly and even beat them to death just because they suspect that they are the one who has committed crimes. People can also carry out mob justice and kill people in a particular area just because they suspect they are the one who has committed crimes. Suspects are supposed to be treated well by public and police to avoid the past cases where various people have been killed by police and public just because they are being alleged to have committed certain offends.
Expensive and time-consuming
The law can spend a lot of time and money looking for a black man who committed the crime and yet maybe it's a white person who committed the crime. Just because they suspect a black person the police waste resources and time to find evidence against the black person. Once they find evidence proving the black person is innocent they start focusing on the real perpetrator of the crime. They have wasted time and money looking at the wrong suspect and that is just wastage of resources.
No sense of security
People will not feel safe in their own homes especially the targeted minority because every time they will feel they are being targeted by people or the law enforcement. If people walk on streets they feel they are just being suspected of committing crimes and hence they do not feel safe at all wherever they are.
No guarantee
There is no assurance that by targeting a specific group crime will reduce in a particular area. Judging people by how they look, their attitude or race may not be able to solve the crime and this is because some people can look very innocent or they may have good attitudes and yet they are the ones who have committed the crimes.
Work cited
Edwin Rubenstein. The Color of Crime: Race crime and justice in America 2016
Keith, Maddox, Skin Tone. Crime News and Social Judgment: priming the stereotype of the dark and dangerous black criminal (2005)
Kelly Welch. Contemporary Criminal Justice (2007)
Reshma Saujani " Davis Polk Wardwell. The Implication of Association Test: A measure of unconscious racism in legislation decision-making 2003
