Thesis on "Police Ethics Racial Profiling Bias"

Thesis 11 pages (3478 words) Sources: 4 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Racial Profiling and Unlawful Discrimination in Law Enforcement

Law enforcement is a difficult science, with the impetus upon police

officers to uphold criminal and civil legislation often jarring with the

unique opportunities available to officers for deviation from such

standards. Though at one time the police officer was regarded by the

general public as a source of protection from the corruption of society,

that is a reputation which has been relegated to history and idealization.

In reality, there have been a great many high profile cases across the

United States where systemic abuses have rendered police officers highly

suspect to the general public. The study here is instructed toward

understanding the institutional characteristics of policing that make its

practitioners susceptible to deviation from mainstream ethical standards,

particularly where these standards concern upholding a constitutional

responsibility toward racial and ethnic equality. The use of racial

profiling as a form of discrimination omnipresent in American law

enforcement is here considered, both with respect to the racial inequities

which have long persisted in American culture and with respect to those

emergent in the wake of the attacks on September 11th, 2001.

By considering some visible examples of police corruption and

profiling as they have occurred on a broad and uninhibited scale, as well

as a consideration of the political and judical perspective that have also

enabled such corruption, the study will engage the question of law

enforcement misconduct as a function of corrupt and racist organizations

rather than individuals. The widespread association today between police

officers and the abuse of power, corruption, deception, narcotics

subterfuge and trafficking, and an overall reinforcement of inbuilt

American biases against minority races and ethnicities as well as the

impoverished is one that emanates from the gap between traditional ethical

values and those displayed by the institutions intended to preserve civil

order.

The primary aim of this study is to distill the professional,

cultural and economic pressures that create this ethical inconsistency. A

major problem today facing law enforcement is that its agents have earned a

regard, even in the eyes of law-abiding citizens, as servants to the state

rather than to the public. In this contradiction, the corruption

demonstrated by American law enforcement illustrates that the ethical

disposition of the public must be distinguished from a decidedly amoral

stance of the state in maintaining order. However, by undermining a set of

popular ethical values that reject criminality by civilians or police

officers, law enforcement is constantly at risk of subverting the doctrines

which it is dispatched to defend. The top aim, then, of this study is to

employ a diverse set of sources, culled from governmental and scholarly

databases, in order to define the problem. It is anticipated that such an

initiative could be informative to better aligning the ethical umbrella

which shades law enforcement with that which orients the U.S. Constitution

and the mainstream public.

Research tends to point with little deviation to stark evidence that

there is a categorical imbalance in the way that law enforcement is pursued

in the broad context of traffic stopping. According to a report from the

AELE (1999), for instance, we can see that even fully industrialized states

north of the so-called Mason-Dixon line have been guilty of this behavior

on a systematic level. This report documents the infamous cases of racial

profiling which influenced state trooper behavior on the New Jersey

Turnpike. Though the Attorney General review of the issue is focused on

New Jersey officers' proclivity to make traffic stops on the basis of race

or ethnicity, the report makes evident that the problem of profiling is one

which is omnipresent in American society. (AELE, 1) The tendency by NJ

troopers to target minority drivers speaks to the larger issue of an

institutionalized racism in law enforcement.

And to the point, the research encountered during this process has

tended to endorse the idea that there are institutional forces at play

which incline officers toward such biases and discriminatory behaviors. A

study by O'Conner (2005) indicates that there is indeed a sense within law

enforcement agencies and social groupings that there is a real and

appropriate benefit in targeting some racial groups with greater scrutiny

than others. In addition to providing a useful framework for studying

the ethical questions inherent to police misconduct by acknowledging the in-

group tendencies of uniquely cultured organizations, O'Connor presents an

analysis of police corruption that associates its pervasion with certain

aspects peculiar to law enforcement. The outline of themes prevalent in

the discourse over police misconduct suggests that the ethical grey area

which law enforcement agents enter is often a reflection of the hazy moral

parameters of the criminal worlds which they must infiltrate. The belief

that it is therefore appropriate to protect the public interest by using

methods that might be considered improper in mainstream interaction seems

to create a shared acceptance of racial discrimination as a tool in

fighting crime.

And in many ways, we can observe this condition to be directly

impacted, or perhaps even endorsed, by judicial decisions at the federal

level. Indeed, according to the decision in Whren v. Unites States (1996)

"the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is not unconstitutional for the police

to use a traffic violation as a pretext for investigating criminal

behaviors." (Roh, 2) Held in response to claims of racial profiling, this

decision would imply a protection of broad powers for law enforcement

agencies allowing for relative autonomy in causes for traffic stops and

searches. The implication is that profiling is largely dismissed as

irrelevant in the legal proceedings, implicating judicial support of such

unofficial enforcement methods. The Roh (2007) study catalogues what we

might deduce is the outcome of this set of biases, reporting that in 1996,

though black drivers represented only 14% of all road users, they were

nonetheless the target of 73% of all traffic stops. This is a stunning

incongruity that, without a clear admission of racial profiling, defies

practical or statistical rationality. So too is this pattern demonstrated

in Illinois, where in 2006, black drivers were 3.3 times more likely to be

searched in a traffic stop than were white drivers. (Roh, 3)

Similarly, the Whitehead (2001) piece is revealing to the ongoing

practices of brutality and racist enforcement policies in the notoriously

corruption-afflicted Los Angeles Police Department. Contrary to the

popular view outside of the L.A. metropolitan area that the Rodney King

incident and the subsequent riots of 1992 prompted some level of social

commitment to change, Whitehead's article asserts that excessive force and

criminal corruption are still characteristic to the L.A.P.D. Even more

important, the article delivers the central ethical quandary that relates

police misconduct with an institutionalized classism, racism and the court-

sanctioned departmental encouragement of both. (Whitehead, 1) In such

instances, little to no proof exists that the presence of legislative

changes has exacted much cultural adaptation.

These are findings which are generally supported in contexts

throughout the United States, where a mistrust of police officers descends

from a clear understanding amongst those races impacted that they are

subjected to greater scrutiny and police intervention than our white

populations. To the point, our research finds that the incongruity between

racial presence and representation amongst traffic stop targets for African

Americans does not appear to bear any true relationship to the nature of

one's traffic obedience. Accordingly, almost all available research

supports the statistic reality that "African-American motorists in the

United States are much more likely than white motorists to have their cars

searched by police checking for illegal drugs and other contraband. . . .

While it is conceivable that African-American motorists are more likely to

commit the types of traf?c offenses that police use as pretexts for vehicle

checks, traf?c studies and police testimony suggest that blacks and whites

are not distinguishable by their driving habits." (Knowles et al, 204)

In spite of this rather clear imbalance, there are many who in support

of the current structure and nature of law enforcement and judicial process

would make the argument that there is a statistical justification for a

form of discriminatory profiling. Some might make the argument that the

need to stop and search specific racial demographics is driven by a desire

to maximize the accuracy of criminal prevention based on assumptions about

the criminalities likelier in certain racial groups. Couched in arguments

concerning the sociological factors that may predispose one racial group to

criminal behavior with a greater intensity than other racial groups, this

perspective is nonetheless one that appeals to inherently racist

assumptions as a way of allegedly improving law enforcement accuracy. This

prompts the continuity of a debate not just on whether profiling of some

sort exists-as most on both sides of the debate will agree that it does to

some extent-but more importantly, on whether or not this approach should be

seen as valid. To the point, "whether discrimination is deemed reasonable

or not by the courts depends on assessments about the degree to which

discrimination assists in apprehending… READ MORE

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