department of justice research paper Civics

Submitted By kedeanG
Words: 575
Pages: 3

Kedean green
November 20,2014
Civics 1A
Mrs. Milroy U.S Department Of Justice: Racial Profiling On African­Americans There are more African American males being incarcerated and stopped and searched by law enforcement officials, maybe it is because the police are just racially targeting them.
Racial profiling by law enforcement is commonly defined as a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. Creating a profile about the kinds of people who commit certain types of crimes may lead officers to generalize about a particular group and act according to the generalization rather than specific behavior.
Imprisonment is a big enterprise in the United States. More than one and a half million are locked up on any one­day. It is also a growing enterprise, but the racial differences are large, there are more African American men. African –American males have fallen prey to law enforcement agencies, as they use racial profiling as a technique to selectively enforce law and regulations. The term driving while black has been used to describe the practice of law enforcement officials to stop African­American drivers without probable cause. The practice particularly targets African­American males.
African­American males are not only singled out while driving, but also while schooling, eating, running for political office, walking, banking, serving as a juror, getting a taxi, shopping, and just being black and a male. Why should they have to go through such racist cruelty? We are all human beings. They have the stereotype that particularly
African­ American males are engages in criminal activities; therefore, they are stopped and searched without probable cause or any type of reasonable suspicion.
Negative
stereotypical biases of African­American males overshadow any appearances that they are law­abiding citizens. Indeed in the eyes of many law enforcement officers’, an

African American male driving a Mercedes Benz projects the assumption of illegal activity. Not the presumption of a hard working citizen. However a white American driving a Mercedes Benz, would not project the assumption of any criminal illegal activity, they would be titled as a regular hardworking citizen, unless they had an African
American along with them. African­American males were, and remain, singled out for harassment, Interestingly, racial profiling is not isolated to just black male youths in urban areas with a