Police Racism Case Study

On October thirteenth Jasmine Rand was a guest speaker, along with four Mount Pleasant Police and Central Michigan University campus officers in Plachta Auditorium. Students were given the opportunity to write questions that Rand and the officers would be asked, however, I didn’t participate due to the high volume of questions that had already been obtained. Because Rand was Michael Brown and Trayvon Martins attorney in their civil rights case this presentation was expected to be about these cases that lead to the “Black Lives Matter” movement, race issues, and police brutality which have greatly affected both African American culture and views of police culture. Although, these expectations were exceeded by touching on Rand 's educational …show more content…
In these situations, it’s the police officers recollection versus the alleged perpetrators word and what’s at stake is the accused’s freedom, personal records, and most importantly their life in questionable situations like that of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin. Because of these huge stakes, the allegation of police brutality has turned into a major social issue with an emphasis on race and lack of attention on the power of authority. Police racism is being highly publicized, with questions arising about why these people with discriminative views are in these authoritative positions. Interestingly, it has been found that “police racism mirrors the racism of the working and middle classes which the majority of officers are recruited from, which explains the low levels of variation in racial prejudice between the public and officers” (Cockcroft,2012, P. 76). Therefore, this is a more large scale problem that’s roots lie in societal …show more content…
Equality was addressed in the sense that everyone deserves equal treatment from the police. Additionally, it addressed respect, of not only the oppressed group but also with all the issues in today’s society to avoid bias and making generalizations about officers that still deserve respect. Rand told a personal story about this topic, of how she though a police officer was harassing a homeless man only to find that the officer was helping the man (Rand, personal communication, October 13,2015). Social work values were also represented in the illustration of the importance of human relationships between the police and communities. It was emphasized how much communication between these two systems could impact a change. Additionally, social workers fight for social justice applies due to the fact that “they should have a sensitivity to cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice”(NASW, 2007, p. 2), which speaks directly to the