Sunday, March 11, 2012
Theresa on Racial Profiling
According to this news report, racial profiling is on the rise in the United States—that is, “using someone’s race as the primary reason for suspecting them of criminal activity”. The report employs East Haven, Connecticut, a city where 4 officers were charged last month with racial profiling, as a case in point. Here, the community claims that racial profiling is a systemic problem. A grocery store owner, for example, says that the police would wait outside of her business just to target and harass her Latino customers. Additionally, Father Manship, a local priest, asserts that racial profiling has also manifested itself in unwarranted traffic stops, violence, racial epithets, and the like—all on the part of the local law enforcement agency, an organization supposedly put in place to protect and serve its citizens. The priest goes on to claim that the problem is so severe that when he attempted to engage in counter-surveillance by videotaping the police, he, too, was falsely arrested and “roughed up”.
The news report suggests that rises in racial tension has a lot to do with changing demographics. In just 30 years, East Haven’s Latino population has increased from less than 1% to more than 10%. Similarly, there appears to be a national trend at work. According to census data, Hispanic/Latino is the fastest growing minority group in the U.S. and, in cities where this population concentrates, there have been correlating increases in racial profiling by police. In fact, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is now launching investigations against 17 law enforcement agencies, including Seattle and Los Angeles.
Initially, I was drawn to this newscast because it resonates with Beckett and Herbert’s
Banished and Zimring’s “Policing in New York City”, wherein the authors argue that the majority of those targeted for exclusionary practices and aggressive stops are often poor people of color. Our class discussion regarding the futility of gang injections added another dimension to the issue of increasing marginalization. However, I also found Cops, Teachers, Counselor relevant. Here, Maynard-Moody and Musheno observe that in listening to street-level accounts—such as through the presentations provided by the Oakland and Berkeley Police Departments—one cannot help but recognize and sympathize with the difficulties of this line of work: “Street-level workers are the coal miners of policy: they do the hard dirty, dangerous work of the state” (157). At the same time, though, the authors also note that we area government of people, not just laws. Thus, given the inevitability of discretion/ “cultural judgments” in policing, there will always be a danger of abuse: “racial and ethnic profiling is just one example of how stereotyped identities and misguided moral judgments can lead to the misuse of state power” (157).
As Eldorado and the state in which it resides, Western State, continue to experience an influx of workers from Mexico and Central America, the topic of race will surely pose significant challenges for public law enforcement agencies. Indeed, SB 1000, a new law that essentially legalizes racism for the police, has already been enacted. In what ways will this law (and undoubtedly similar laws to come) affect officers? How should residents respond? Are there better ways to address the issue of undocumented immigration?
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I think this was an interesting story on the issue of racial profiling and its relation to the constant change in demographics that we see in the United States. I think it is important to note that this news story was framed from a business perspective. The store owner emphasized that racial profiling by police was hurting her business. She also spoke about the injustice and inhumanity of it, but the program really highlighted the business aspect, which I think ties to our everlasting discussion of Neo-liberalism. Aljazeera has published countless stories on racism as a human rights issue, with examples from all over the world. But this story, appropriately set in the US, I think is aimed more towards those in our society who might not care about issues of racial tolerance, but would care more about the failure of market values or social disorder and disintegration of a small community due to improper police practices. The United States is infamous for putting capital interests in front of human interests and I think that the business spin on this human rights issue is a perfect example of this.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this theme of racial profiling in Theresa's post made me think of this completely insane news story that came out last week. Might make a good blog post for anyone looking for something to write about. Issues about racial profiling and gated communities/culture of fear.
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/11/2689107/family-of-teen-killed-by-neighborhood.html
AJD
In El Dorado and Emerald City, there have been many employment opportunities compared to the rest of Western State. These jobs have attracted many Mexican and Latino immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. They have moved into areas near Oakville where there is a big African-American population. The African-Americans in this community have already struck out against the public law enforcement's use of aggressive tactics. Theresa comments that racial profiling is on the rise, especially racially profiling Latinos in places like Connecticut. We also see this in Arizona with their SB1070 law. I expect that the immigrants moving into El Dorado and Emerald City will be greatly affected by the increase in racial profiling. Western State has implemented a law similar to SB1070 that increases the risk of racial profiling for Latinos and Mexicans as the government is trying to keep undocumented workers out of the state. I also assume that racial profiling has probably been around in Oakville for a long time, considering the rise up of African-Americans against aggressive policing - a large, common consequence of aggressive stops is racial profiling. I hope that with the new chief of the El Dorado Police Department will implement an Internal Affairs Department to overlook the behavior of public law enforcement agents. This should help with the problem of racial profiling as cops will understand the consequences of such actions.
ReplyDeleteEG
This video just reminded me how in El Dorado it has tended to be a sanctuary city and how SB1070 uses race as a proxy to immigration status. SB1070 uses race as a proxy for immigration status and legality of being a deserving or undeserving citizen. The racial profiling in the county of El Dorado do not seem to be only racial profiling in terms of SB1070 but also when they face drug cartels and prostitution cases. I think racial profiling will continue to occur but institutions will need to find more clever ways to describe it.
ReplyDeleteI think racial profiling is a problem that will always exist. Statistics show that poor minority groups make up a majority of the crimes and as a result will always be considered more suspect. I think they are also watched much more closely which contributes to why the make up a larger percentage of those committing crimes and serving prison sentences. I also believe that many people especially the white middle class do feel threatened in some way with the influx of immigrants into their communities. Some reasons may be fear of losing jobs to those willing to receive less wages or in some way something is being forced on them and their children that they don't like. A lot of people are close minded and protective when it comes to their way of life and what their kids are exposed to. I feel like this may be in some way be creating a sense of pressure on local law enforcement to ensure this influx of minorities in areas such as El Dorado doesn't change emerald city too much. People do not like change that does not directly benefit them and I see this racial profiling as a way to further marginalize latinos and african americans and in some way combat this change.
ReplyDeleteErik Kriessmann
I think racial profiling is definitely a problem worth addressing. But it's one of those things that are ingrained or institutionalized within the police force. Due to the nature of their profession, officers tend to have preconceived notions about particular racial groups, and what activities they may or may not be engaging in. I am not justifying this or saying that it's okay. But another issue with racial profiling is that its occurrence can't really be proved on a case by case basis. If a ticket is issued or a person is searched on the basis of racial profiling, what's not to say that it was not "probable cause"? At that point, it's the citizen's word against the cop's word, and law enforcement will typically take precedence. As Professor Musheno stated in class, most African Americans who are stopped believe that the reason is racial profiling. At the same time, cops are equally adamant in saying that it is not racial profiling. Is it a reality in our society? Yes. History has proven so. Two largely impacting incidents of this are Rodney King and Oscar Grant. Racism is inevitably institutionalized within law enforcement, whether or not people admit it. There is white supremacy among certain officers whether or not people admit it. The best solution for this is to attempt to change police cultures that are inclined toward favoritism of certain ethnicities; to recruit more educated, more pro-diversity officers to the force. Even so, can the problem be completely eradicated? Highly unlikely, in my opinion.
ReplyDelete- G.K.N.
Racial profiling is certainly something that can occur in the public sector and private sector. In lecture today Professor Musheno discussed the important role that cops, teachers and counselors play in our day to day lives and they can have a profound impact on our lives as well. Therefore, with regard to civilians and front line workers, our individual legal consciousness is an expression of how people interact with one another on a micro level and how we interpret and mobilize legal meanings and signs. Borne out of this collective legal consciousness, legal cultures are formed. That is to say that fragmented legal cultures are formed within law enforcement and local businesses that won’t necessarily compliment the legal consciousness or legal cultures of the communities they serve. Therefore, the relationships between the legal cultures and consciousness of front line workers in the public sector take on a neo liberalist temperament which also takes on a false sense of superiority. They have completely forgotten to appreciate that the tax dollars and disposable incomes of the people they serve are the backbone of their livelihood. Amazingly and simultaneously, the consolidation of power and resources of front line workers and local businesses almost create a monopoly on services and have inverted the supply and demand model to exploit the needs and circumstances of the working poor just trying to get by.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, in a historical context, racial profiling has been around for a long time. During his first year as President of the United States of America, Barack Obama had to invite a police officer and a Harvard Professor to the White House for a beer to ease tensions over the racial profiling the Professor experienced by the cop in question. It just so happened that the Professor was a personal friend of the President. People’s interpretations of race, religion and culture will always remain a diversified and unresolved issue. Historically, people have been killing each other in the name of religion throughout the ages. With respect to front line workers, there needs to be some serious reform, training and rehabilitation of front line workers with respect to orientations of the State Agent Narrative and Citizen Agent Narrative involved in the tasks they have to perform. This can clearly be seen in El Dorado in their attempts to “modernize” the department to address “new problems” they are facing. One can only guess how many taxpayer dollars it’s going to take to “modernize” in a way to actually protect the interests of the people whose paychecks are taxed in order for them to figure this out. One way to start is to make their budgets more transparent. Since Cities are Incorporated Areas, their tax returns should be posted on their website for the people to see how their money is being spent. Acquiring that knowledge will give the people more political capital and allow them make their representatives more accountable with regard to addressing the underlying issues of racial profiling.
Fred
Racial Profiling has challenge the legitimacy of police authority since a cop when stopping a black or latino person can be suspected of racial profiling. The pre-judgement that comes to our mind when someone of minority race is stop and frisk, it instantly leads to racial profiling than suspicion of probable cause. This is a major issue that could be brought with the immigrant population, as it was challenge by people as racial profiling latinos of being suspected of being illegal. SB1000 is always going to be challenge foe its unfainess and poor targeting since the topic of racial profiling will always come up. Race is so embedded into our culture that it will always spark up an issue considering the fairness of treatment of law with certain minority groups. I myself and other former Cal students were suddenly stopped once bt Berkeley PD for no reason. Just the the driver and the passenger looked like gang members and that gave the cops a probable cause to make the stop. To tell you the truth it felt humiliating to standing at the corner of the street hand cuff while they search the car. Meanwhile people pass by and seeing that it was a bunch of minority people being search.
ReplyDelete-AAA
I was quite surprised by this article’s claim that racial profiling is on the rise. In the story, the store owner complains that the police officers tend to harass and target her Latino customers. From the business owner’s perspective, this might be a practice of racial profiling. On the other hand, the police might simply see it as a necessary tactic of hotspot policing. When these two views clash, it can be difficult to draw the line between necessity and harassment. I can see similar problems arise in Eldorado as migrant workers begin to populate the city. The police force might try to protect the safety of neighborhood shops by engaging in hotspot policing, but if the officers do not receive adequate education and training, their tactics might turn into racial profiling and create more problems for the local businesses.
ReplyDeleteSiqiao
Racial profiling is becoming a tense issue for law enforcement these days. Law enforcement agencies are faced with finding the fine line between targeting suspicious individuals and focusing on minorities. As the use of surveillance technology and predictive policing are on the rise, it is becoming easier for officers to focus their attention on the appearance of individuals. Also, legislation has looked favorably on these tactics with the example of SB 1000 where officers can request immigration papers based soley on the appearance of the individual in question. In Eldorado with the changing demographics, racial profiling will probably become an issue. Also, since the city of Oakville is right next door police will probably be patrolling the border looking for people who "dont' fit in". This can lead to a mistrust of the police and reinforce suspicions of minorities. It is hard to break the vicious cycle but the easiest way is for police to stop using highly visible and assumpitive tactics when dealing with routine stops and the exercise caution before jumping to conclusions.
ReplyDelete-S. Toumanian