The Police Officers in Crime Involving Minority Communities Issue

Module 4 discusses diversity and law enforcement, covering many different topics including 1) challenges that different minority groups face when dealing with law enforcement and 2) issues related to police response to minority victims and offenders.

Choose one issue discussed in Module 4 that relates to one of the above topics. Identify what minority group(s) are involved (clearly discussing the minority status of the group(s) identified with specific and cited facts and statistics), what the issue is, and what challenges face both law enforcement and the minority group(s) you introduced.

The module textbook and learning unit readings discusses different programs that involve law enforcement-community relations, and that provide internal (within a law enforcement agency) and/or external (outside of a law enforcement agency) oversight of law enforcement actions. Identify and discuss one of the community-law enforcement programs/initiatives discussed or that you research separately. What type of oversight (internal, external, or both) is provided with such a program, and in what way(s)?

Based upon what you learned in the module readings about law enforcement and diversity, what are some challenges to successful minority recruitment in law enforcement? How can some of these challenges be addressed?

POST

Classmate 1:Community policing is an issue related to challenges that minority groups face when dealing with law enforcement. The problems with community policing comes from the different approaches by different departments to address public concerns. We hear more and more on the news about white officers engaging in interactions with black males. For example, the 1992 Los Angeles riots that acquitted a mostly white jury of the Los Angeles Police Department that was seen beating a black motorist. Cincinnati rioting of April 2001 following the shooting of 19 year old Timothy Thomas who was killed by a white officer. In July 2014, Eric Garner was killed by an officer, and a month later Michael Brown was killed by an officer. The issue is racism and bias is presented from community policing that affects many minorities. Conflict between police and society has grown strong and there is little to no trust for procedural law. Building trust and legitimacy (e.g., treating people with respect, and being neutral in decision-making) Having an external oversight can help improve community policing.Some challenges to successful minority recruitment in law enforcement is finding qualified individuals so they need to do more effective targeted recruiting.Muddiest point: I don’t have any questions.Furthering the discussion: What are some things that you think could help diversify policing and build better trust among society and the police? McNamara, R. H., & Burns, R. G. (2021). Multiculturalism, crime, and criminal justice. Oxford University Press.

Classmate 2:Of all minority groups, African Americans face the biggest challenges when it comes to law enforcement in the United states. This dates back to the Rodney King riots that happened in Los Angeles due to police brutality to African American citizens. After those riots and the most recent tragedy of the death of George Floyd there has been a bigger fear to minorities from the police. Minorities have started to fear for their life as most encounters with officers tend to lead to some unlawful use of force, with some of it possibly being from the polices implicit/explicit bias of minorities. Issues minorities face is racial profiling, it is assumed that most minorities due to the communities they live in are always causing and committing crimes. While a lot of Black Officers disagree statistics say that out of all minorities African Americans have a higher fatality rate when it comes to police encounters. Some programs that Law Enforcement offers are things like neighborhood watch, explorer program, Citizens Police Academy, etc. These programs help the younger generation learn what it’s like to be an officer. This has been something that has been offered to minorities to give them a chance to join the force if it’s something they want to pursue. With these programs it’ll deffinetly make progress to help make change to the police in the future. Some may feel that police officers are racist, others may think it’s hard to be an officer and that they’re misunderstood. However, having programs like these especially have a ride along with an officer helps better understand the situations officers are thrown into. Evolving and creating more programs for minorities in law enforcement will spike change and change the way police are looked at today. Hopefully this will also build better relationships with minorities and officers in lower income communities.To continue the discussion, Do you feel that change is coming sooner than later to law enforcement? Do you think that more minorities while join the police force? Will tension between officers and minorities ever go down?Referenceshttps://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s/ (Links to an external site.)https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/02/solving-racial-disparities-in-policing/ (Links to an external site.)