Racial Profiling in Policing

The Recent Problem in Policing



One of the most recent and problematic problems in policing is how people of color or minorities are treated by the police. The recent death of George Floyd in the hands of the police, along with deaths of other people of color, has once again shined light as to how minorities are treated and has urged the police for change. With Los Angeles being a hub of so many different cultures and people of color, it is vital that the LAPD learn of ways to avoid racial bias and racial profiling to be a better and more understanding police department that truly serves the community of Los Angeles and not target people of the community.




How Racial Profiling Affects Me and My Community

Los Angeles is home to so many races and cultures. Due to the large amount of cultural differences, the police department must learn to cope with the cultural differences. The police department's job is to protect and serve but it is really hard to when they mistreat the people of the communities they serve. With my family and I being people of color, we sometimes feel like we can't trust the police or are scared to reach out to help because of the many negative stories and anecdotes we've heard that puts the police in a bad light. The police should not be an organization that instills fear in people. The police needs to be an organization that reassures people that they can come to the police whenever because ultimately they are there to help the community and to make it a better place. For the police to successfully carry out their job, they must have a positive relationship with the community.






Solutions

One of the solutions that I was able to find was the strategy of community policing. Community policing is when the police becomes more involved with the community. Hall, Hall, and Perry (2016), state, "Since community policing is a strategic partnership between police and civilians that requires officers to become more embedded in the communities within which they work, it may help to bridge the divide between officers and civilians (i.e., counteract the 'us vs. them' dynamics)” (181). When officers are placed in the community and are actually involved, such as interacting with community members, the "us vs them" mentality as mentioned in the quoted slowly starts to fade away. The reason for this is because officers are slowly started to be seen as actual members of the community and officers adapt to cultural differences.




A second solution I was able to find was to eliminate shooter bias. Kovera (2019) explains shooter bias as, "Experimental studies confirmed that unarmed Black men face a greater risk of being shot by mistake than do unarmed White men, a phenomenon known as shooter bias (Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002)". Whether we like it or not shooter bias is usually the cause of the majority of deaths. When looking at the death of Breonna Taylor, it was found that he was unarmed which explains perfectly in with the shooter bias that is explained by Kovera. One of the reasons for shooter bias is because of stereotypes that officers often believe. In order to remove shooter bias officers must go through diversity training to eliminate it. Officers must enter the police force with a clean slate and try to remove all bias that they have because they have the ability to mistakenly take the life of someone which holds a lot of responsibility.


Importance to Me

As stated previously, this issue affects me because I am a person of color so I can easily be racially profiled as well as my family. I also have the possibility of receiving great bodily harm, again because I am a person of color, so it is important to me to look for solutions to prevent innocent deaths in my community. Another reason why this is important to me is because in the near future I want to become a detective so learning of ways to eliminate bias is important to me



                                                                       References

Hall, A. V., Hall, E. V., & Perry, J. L. (2016). Black and blue: Exploring racial bias and law enforcement         in the killings of unarmed black male civilians. American Psychologist, 71(3), 175-186.                           https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040109

Kovera, M. B. (2019). Racial disparities in the criminal justice system: Prevalence, causes, and a search         for solutions. Journal of Social Issues, 75(4), 1139 1164. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12355