Is Racial Profiling the Reason for Excessive use of Force by Officers?
There’s a difference between self-defense and unnecessary use of force. Depending on how well one knows the difference, you may have been in a situation where you found yourself debating about the two. Excessive use of force by officers is caused by racial profiling black minorities and should only be permitted under specific circumstances such as in self-defense situations or in defense of another individual or group. Self-defense can be defined as a person defending themselves and/or another person of interest who may not be capable of defending themselves through the use of physical force. It is legal in our society only if a person reasonably believes that such force …show more content…
One counter point is that minorities are not targeted because of the color of their skin but they are actually victims of law enforcement more often than whites because statistics show that more black minorities live in poverty stricken neighborhoods than do whites. Also, poorer neighborhoods are also heavily policed compared to richer neighborhoods (white neighborhoods), because they do actually have higher crime rates. This combination of black minorities living in poorer neighborhoods that are often watched by police results in black minorities being arrested more than whites. The neighborhood in which they live causes black minorities to receive punishment not the color of their skin. For example, last year a man with a gold tooth was robbing and viciously beating up pedestrians in Mid-City. Victims identified him as either a dark-skinned Latino or a light-skinned African American. Accordingly, if an officer made a traffic stop in the area and noticed that the driver had a gold tooth and was black or Latino, the driver probably would have been asked to step out of his car, frisked and possibly even taken to the station house for a line-up. Some 15 men were stopped before a bike officer caught the actual criminal jaywalking (Heather Donald,
There’s a difference between self-defense and unnecessary use of force. Depending on how well one knows the difference, you may have been in a situation where you found yourself debating about the two. Excessive use of force by officers is caused by racial profiling black minorities and should only be permitted under specific circumstances such as in self-defense situations or in defense of another individual or group. Self-defense can be defined as a person defending themselves and/or another person of interest who may not be capable of defending themselves through the use of physical force. It is legal in our society only if a person reasonably believes that such force …show more content…
One counter point is that minorities are not targeted because of the color of their skin but they are actually victims of law enforcement more often than whites because statistics show that more black minorities live in poverty stricken neighborhoods than do whites. Also, poorer neighborhoods are also heavily policed compared to richer neighborhoods (white neighborhoods), because they do actually have higher crime rates. This combination of black minorities living in poorer neighborhoods that are often watched by police results in black minorities being arrested more than whites. The neighborhood in which they live causes black minorities to receive punishment not the color of their skin. For example, last year a man with a gold tooth was robbing and viciously beating up pedestrians in Mid-City. Victims identified him as either a dark-skinned Latino or a light-skinned African American. Accordingly, if an officer made a traffic stop in the area and noticed that the driver had a gold tooth and was black or Latino, the driver probably would have been asked to step out of his car, frisked and possibly even taken to the station house for a line-up. Some 15 men were stopped before a bike officer caught the actual criminal jaywalking (Heather Donald,