-By Alex Rose
Near the conclusion in The Stories, the Statistics, and the Law: Why “Driving While Black” Matters David Harris suggests possible solutions to resolving police racial profiling, and two, traffic stop statistics and local action, are being implemented in Oakland and San Diego. Despite attempts to address racial profiling, citizens in both cities feel the issue is not actually being resolved. This unrest suggests that no single procedure for confronting racial profiling is sufficient, and instead multiple should be utilized.
The first method of addressing racial profiling, put into action by Oakland, is gathering data on public law enforcement stops. Data collected by the Oakland Police Department showed that 62% of all stops between April and December of 2013 were Black. It is worth mentioning that this ongoing study is not being conducted under Oakland PD’s free will, but mandated by a court order, because the data can be trusted with federal oversight. Since Blacks only comprising 28% of Oakland’s population, the disparity in the data is alarming, and it is beneficial for the community to realize this from an objective standpoint. However, the SFGate suggests the reason the community is not satisfied solely on this raw presentation of data is that no immediate solutions to fixing this problem accompanied the data.
Harris suggests that simply “gather[ing] solid, comprehensive information” on racial profiling will further the discussion, which may in turn lead to new solutions. A critique on this belief is that while Oakland’s mayor, Jean Quan, has made this data available to the public, she has yet to provide spaces for a community discussion to continue. Regardless of the mayor’s inaction, community leaders and the police department need to help facilitate a dialogue on this sensitive issue. Data has proven that racial profiling is happening, but citizen’s need comfort that police are taking action on these issues.
The second way of addressing racial profiling is through local community action. Recently, San Diego’s Police Chief, Shelley Zimmerman, has achieved this by holding two city meetings. Although Harris states that San Diego was voluntarily collecting data on traffic stops in 1999, KPBS reported that San Diego stopped gathering data. This contributed to a local community activist, Josh Funn; feel that the police were only trying to improve their public perception. Funn claimed that the police were merely attempting to “do a better job communicating why [they] were violating people's civil rights” rather than fixing the actual problem. Zimmerman responded to this accusation by stating that the police are going to resume collecting data on traffic stops and require officers to use video cameras during stops.
In summary, Oakland is collecting and presenting data without offering a place to discuss why this is happening, and San Diego is creating a space for community dialogue, but does not have any tangible data to present. Both SFGate and KPBS proposed that citizens were not fully satisfied in either city. This information suggests a solution requires cities to use multiple ways to address racial profiling. Attempts to resolve racial profiling are just getting started and are small steps on the long path to resolving the community’s concerns.
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I also agree that some form of discrimination is inevitable since every individual has bias, and racial profiling is difficult to eliminate altogether. Even though there may not have been concrete data that proves that the local community meetings improve the officers' effectiveness, I am in support of community action, and I believe it is a method that will train officers to both improve their communication skills, but also their cognitive skills to alter their perceptions and bias. Actually exposing the officers to the community and interacting with them before policing on the streets might mitigate racial profiling.
ReplyDeleteCognitively, all individuals hold biases and stereotypes, but people with 'high prejudice' allow these stereotypes to guide their actions, which leads to discrimination. However, based on psychologists studies of prejudice and discrimination, I strongly believe that it is possible to minimize discrimination by training officers to learn how to alter their perceptions, and local community meetings may have some influence to helping officers become more objective when policing.
I think racial profiling is a subjective issue and is judged case by case. Professor Musheno mentioned that we not only need to be critical on what the issue is, but also what could be a possible solution. Racial profiling is definitely a complicated issue and it seems that currently there’s not been a solution good for both the public and the law enforcement agency. As Alex says, there’s still a long path to go.
ReplyDelete-Yu Fu
As I read your blog post, I was alarmed to see the high number of police racial profiling cases that occurred in Oakland last year. The high disparity in the percentage of Blacks that are stopped by the police and the percentage of Blacks that are part of the Oakland population is alarming. If I were a resident of Oakland, I would be concerned about the legitimacy of my local police force. I think one large step in helping solve the problem of police racial profiling cases in urban cities is having research done on the city's police stops. Data such as the one that has come forth about the city of Oakland, awakens residents of the cases of racial profiling that are occurring and they will be more likely to pressure city officials to take action.
ReplyDeleteWhile in Oakland, the data on racial profiling has been presented to the city council and mayor, no action has been done. The city officials need to start forming committees/commissions to demonstrate to the local citizens that actions are being made, this will allow for legitimacy to be restored to the police department by city residents.
-Michaela Acebedo
I really enjoyed your article. It seems that the two approaches to deal with racial profiling have been misused by these police departments, or in some way doing incomplete work. I do agree that police departments should use various way to address racial profiling like community engagement and use stats. But community engagement takes time, but its results may be prominent.
ReplyDeleteKevin Ramirez