Racial Profiling
The great era of civil rights started in the 1960s, with Martin Luther
King,
Jr.’s stirring "I have a Dream" speech at the historic march on
Washington
in August of 1963. At the same time Birmingham Police Commissioner
"Bull"
Connor used powerful fire hoses and vicious police attack dogs
against
nonviolent black civil rights activists. Although these years proved
to be the
highlight and downfall of civil rights in America, even with the
1964 Civil
Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act being passed, time
has repeated these
tumultuous events again in the present. Racial profiling
has been one of many
civil rights issues concerning the unnecessary stopping
and arresting of people
based on race, color, ethnicity and gender.
Skin-color has become evidence of
the propensity to commit crime, and police
use this "evidence" against
minority drivers on the road all the time. This
practice is so common that the
minority community has given it the derisive
term, "Driving While Black or
Brown" – a play on the real offense of
"driving while intoxicated".
Although many law enforcement officers
defend themselves by saying they are
fighting against the "War on Drugs" by
arresting these law offenders, recent
trials and reports show that no basis
of arrest have been found against these
minorities. Official skin-color
prejudice is still reflected throughout the
criminal justice system. Today,
skin-color makes you a suspect in America. It
makes you more likely to be
stopped by a law enforcement officer, more likely to
be searched, and more
likely to be arrested and imprisoned. Tens of thousands of
innocent motorists
on highways across the country are victims of racial
profiling, and these
discriminatory police stops have reached epidemic
proportions in recent
years. Fueled by the "War on Drugs", this fight has
given police a pretext to
target people who they think fit a "drug courier"
or "gang member" profile.
At many times, these minorities have been stopped
and arrested for illegal
offenses, however we are not sure if these stories have
been filed truthfully
by law enforcement officers. Many police departments face
issues concerning
racist law enforcement officers who cause the problems of
racial profiling.
One such example comes from the Hillside Police Department,
where several
racial bias charges have been made against them. Racial slurs have
become
common in the Hillside district, where even the department supervisor
does
background checks on minorities IN the squad, even to kick them off
the
squad. In this department, only two officers are Hispanic and one is of
African
decent. The officers, many of whom are white, are encouraged to
target
minorities first to fill their ticket quotas for the month. Hillside
officers
defend themselves saying that Hillside is 40 percent black and 20
percent
Hispanic. However, the actions taken by Hillside officer, such as
targeting to
fill quotas and background checking, seem disconcerting. The
Reverend Jesse
Jackson even needed to call for federal protection for
whistleblowing police
officers. Because of the Law Enforcement Trust and
Integrity Act, passed this
year, other officials who witness this
discriminating act are protected. It
says, "The identity of a law enforcement
officer who complains in food faith
to a government agency or department
about the unlawful practices of a law
enforcement agency shall remain
confidential and shall not be disclosed by any
person except upon the knowing
written consent of the law enforcement officer.
This section shall not
preempt any right of confrontation protected by the
Constitution of by
Federal, State or tribal law." In many cases, we can not
determine whether
the racial profiling comes from the individual law enforcer,
or the
department itself. Many policies have been suggested to either report
these
discriminatory acts, or to record the ethnicity, race, or gender of
the
person being stopped. However, without the correct supervision of
these
officers, we can not truthfully tell whether these policies will be
followed.
There have been bills proposed to even make the slightest
positive effect on
racial profiling, yet many have been overlooked. Former
California Governor Pete
Wilson served as best he could to fight key
civil rights issues such as
affirmative action and immigrant rights, however
Governor Gray Davis has had a
disappointing civil rights record. Although he
has helped establish new civil
rights gains for the lesbian and gay
communities, he has also vetoed a number of
bills aimed at reducing
discrimination against communities of color and
immigrants. SB 44, a bill
sponsored by Senator Richard Polanco, encourages state
and local governments
to conduct outreach programs. SB 44 had bipartisan support
and was previously
endorsed by former Attorney General Dan Lungren. Governor
Davis vetoed
the bill claiming that outreach toward minorities and women would
violate
Proposition 209, a position contrary to recent court decisions. Davis
also
vetoes what has been colloquially referred to as the "Driving While Black
or
Brown" bill (SB 78.) The bill was proposed to combat racial profiling –
law
enforcement actions taken simply because of the race of the driver –
by
requiring police officers to file reports on all motorists they stop.
Although
President Clinton has recently ordered federal law enforcement
agencies to begin
collecting this data, and a number of Bay Area police
departments have similar
plans, Davis saw little need to collect this
information. However, the
"Driving While Black or Brown" bill makes much
sense to part of the solution
I will propose to help decrease or even end
the crime of racial profiling.
Although there have been many ideas
brought up to solve racial profiling in
American, there still isn’t one
dynamic and problem solving solution. Many
bills have been passed to help and
protect minorities, who can bring their cases
all the way to court, however,
sometimes the officers being accused are not
found. All though my proposed
solution is not the most money conserving idea, it
will cover almost all the
faulty lines, the bills and the policies have
forgotten to mention. A
committee should be established within the United States
Government in
which the committee shall oversee each county and district and
department for
any racial profiling. These members should be made up of civil
rights
organizations such as the NAACP and the ACLU. Also, there should be
advising
law enforcement officers and people appointed from each civil rights
division
in the government. Within districts, officials shall be appointed to
oversee
the actions of the departments, and report to higher authorities in
the
committee. A committee similar to this has been formed because of the
Law
Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act of 2000, called the Task Force on
Law
Enforcement Oversight. Each department should first make an
independent audit.
There have been many policies made and almost approved
to make these audits
mandatory for all police departments. Each person should
record the following:
race, color, ethnicity, gender, and the reason for
being stopped. Every 4 months
or so, the committee shall evaluate each
district and their statistics on what
kinds of people are being stopped and
determine which city has higher minority
stopping, based on population of the
area and racial crime in the area. Because
Americans are segregated into
communities, as in the Greater Los Angeles Area,
more minorities will be
stopped in certain areas than others will. Because of
this problem, the
committee will evaluate the area, and observe data written by
law enforcement
officers, to see if plausible reasons have caused the stopping
of a minority.
Once all data has been evaluated, the districts with the highest
racial
profiling rating shall complete a full audit report for the following
months.
Also, individual law enforcement shall be evaluated as well, to see if
it is
only one individual who increases the rating, rather that the
whole
department. If the racial profiling is targeted and found, the
committee shall
be the one who files complaints to the Attorney General, and
that certain
department or law enforcer will be detained to consequences can
be established.
To be able to bring these racial profilers to trial,
people should not only file
a complaint to the department itself, fear of the
complaint being "lost",
but to the committee as well so the complaint can be
used as evidence. This
solution can only work if districts, departments, and
law enforcement officers
can truthfully carry out these procedures. No matter
how hard the outside world
tries to find the culprit, the officer can easily
protect or defend themselves
because of their high position as a law
protector. Many minorities are arrested
with valid reason by law enforcement
officers, just as white people are. But
these officers can also be the
targets of accusation of racial profiling. Racial
profiling has been a long
and disconcerting problem in the United States. It
will be a long time before
minorities will not serve as the targets to law
enforcers. The blame is
almost easier to put on the minorities because of their
difference to the
"American Culture", as almost to say that minorities are
not part of the
American Culture.