Ending Racial Profiling
The federal government should end racial profiling by requiring policemen and other law enforcement officers to keep detailed records of each individual they stop to question or search. These records should include the person's race; the reason stopped; how long the car was detained; and whether a ticket was issued, the car searched, or any illegal goods or weapons were found when the traffic stop was made. Racial profiling is the police practice of stopping and searching African-American and Hispanic drivers at rates far disproportionate to their numbers on the road. I personally, have repeatedly been an innocent victim of racial profiling in the city in which I reside and while visiting other cities in the United States. Famous African-American men such as Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. of Tennessee, Wesley Snipes, Blair Underwood, Christopher Darden, and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume have also been stopped by police, allegedly for no other reason than the color of their skin. Robert L. Wilkins, a Harvard-educated Washington attorney, was traveling along U.S. Interstate 68 in 1992, returning from his grandfather's funeral, when a Maryland state trooper pulled the families rented Cadillac over
The attitude of certain high-ranking law enforcement officials also helps to compound the problem. The Wilkins family was completely humiliated. "Policing the Police" Black Enterprise June 2000: 38-40. Statistics such as these make it seem as if racial profiling is not the result of bigotry, and that the factual claim upon which the practice rests is sound. And, because demographics show that in the United States, whites tend to live longer than blacks, it would be perfectly rational for insurers to charge blacks higher life-insurance premiums. Haggerty, who was about to announce her engagement and who had a bright future before her, was shot and killed as she sat in the car. Racial profiling should be ended even if the generalizations on which the technique is based are supported by empirical or factual evidence. According to the police version, the officers broke the back window of Russ' car and pointed a gun inside. This is a sociological fact, not a figment of a racist media (or police) imagination. A new rule prohibiting racial profiling might be made just to be broken, but it could set a new standard for legitimate government. Racism is a deeply entrenched disease that is almost incurable. " Utne Reader January- February 2000: 70-74. The NAACP recommends withdrawing federal funds from police departments with high levels of unresolved brutality cases, or police departments that have been slow to react to complaints.
Common topics in this essay:
African Americans-particularly,
Union ACLU,
Bill Clinton,
Harvard-educated Washington,
Tonya Haggerty,
Racial Profiling,
Robert Russ,
John Lamlberth,
racial profiling,
Carl Williams,
Maryland Police,
police departments,
traffic stop,
law enforcement,
kinnon 62-66,
federal funds,
funds police departments,
driving black,
wilkins family,
funds police,
traffic stop data,
kennedy 70-74,
stop data voluntary,
withdrawing federal funds,
data voluntary basis,
|
Acceptance Essays
