The issue of ethnicity and racial biases by police through traffic stops, arrests and searches has raised different controversies in the United States of America for more than ten years. The controversies have raised concern seeing that; a large number of American citizens tend to believe that the police treatment is based on ethnicity and race. In other words, a large number of citizens believe that police are corrupted based on the minority groups in the United States. Hence, the issues have brought about data recording in the police departments, to observe the pattern of arrests and police interrogations in the U.S.A. However, the police departments have been against data recording.
The issue has contributed to monitoring of police conduct on corruption issues. According to the Nation’s Premier civil and human rights coalition (civilrights.org, n.d), 95 police stops by the Maryland state Police were monitored. In the year 1995 to 1997, the percentage of drivers stopped varied according to their ethnicity. 70% of the searched drivers were black while the overall percentage of arrested drivers, 17.5% of them were black. In the year 1992, 70% of drivers stopped on a particular highway in Volusia, Florida were black and Hispanic. Also, the time the drivers were detained by the traffic police varied in that; the White were detained for less time while the Black drivers were detained for a long time. Hence, such evidence presented the history of corruption by police officers as rampant and based on ethnical groups.
However, the past events as outlined above vary from the current events of the police conduct. The levels of corruption have subsided seeing that, the ethnical groups has taken the step of standing for their rights. Also, the government has outlined guidelines on how to handle such occurrences. Hence, the current corruption events attributed to ethnical groups has shifted to equal and just treatment thus promotion of justice according to the law.
Nevertheless, the media has been giving information to the public referring to the “Black Lives Matter”. However, the media has been overstating the issue to a point that the Black Lives Matter is said to be driven by the media. Rather than covering the positive side of the matter, the media gives much concentration on the negative sides that include arrests of the blacks and the murder of members of the ethnical groups. Hence, the matter still stands critical even with the current change of events in the issue.
Evidence for the media overstatement is clear seeing that use of excessive force by law enforcement agencies is more equitably spread across ethnic lines rather than how the media presents it. The Fox news recently said that the Black Lives Matter is a movement that has been promoting the execution of police officers (mediamatters.org, 2015). However, the statement was quoted by a conservative pundit by the name Katie Pavlich. Also, the Fox News said that a sheriff from Texas attributed the death of a deputy sheriff to the misconduct of the Black Lives Matter termed as ‘a hate group.’
Hence, the criticism issue of the Black Lives has raised the concern of the media overstatement seeing that, it portrays the law enforcement agencies as being ethical and conducting their law enforcement based on racial discrimination. Also, the media has portrayed the law enforcers as corrupt seeing that, they are attributing the Black Lives Matter to violence and destruction of property during demonstrations even without the evidence (mediamatters.org, 2015).
Besides the media being said to overstate on the law enforcers conduct, the law enforcers do go unpunished for misconduct and excessive power enforcement on all ethnical groups. For example, James Blake a former tennis star in the United States of America was arrested for a mistaken identity theft (thinkprogress.org, 2015). However, the arrest was brutal such that; a New York Police Department officer attacked him, picked him up in the air and later slammed him on the floor. During the arrest, several other officers came and mishandled James Blake where he was handcuffed and taken into police custody. After investigations, the police realized that they had made a mistake and had arrested the wrong person. However, Mayor Bill de Blasio apologized to James Blake. Though the mayor apologized, no action was taken towards the officers in the name of carrying their duties as usual. Hence, such evidence portrays how law enforcers use excessive enforcement on citizens and do not face legal consequences.
However, the attribution of police to target the minority groups based on their financial status does not have any clear evidence. The fact remains crime can be conducted by any person no matter their worth. Hence, the police conduct their activities according to the guidelines and the job ethics hence no evidence of financial status arrest. For example, popular celebrities have been arrested besides being rich and famous. The various crimes they are arrested for include fraud, homicides, and violence. The same case applies to the poor and unpopular groups in the society seeing that young men, street drug peddlers, and thieves are arrested.
However, arresting the rich people in the society has different controversies seeing that the police fear arresting them with fear of threats of their unlawful actions. Also, they fear that the rich people have connections with popular politicians and law enforcers who can lead to investigations of the officers behind the arrest hence exposing their worst secrets during in their job conduct. Nevertheless, justice must be brought forward, and the criminals brought behind bars.
The same issue of excessive power use saw the U.S. Department of Justice conduct investigations on Escambia Co. FL. Sheriff Office. The analysis of the investigations included; the policies lacking accuracy, lack of details and clarity that leads to the inappropriate application of force (justice.gov, n.p). The investigation amounted to the writing of remedies that the ECSO should adopt hence promote the relevant use of power by the law enforcers. The remedies were; writing of a policy that would dictate the use of power, a crowd control policy and a policy that would outline the effectiveness of the force matrix use.
