Racial Profiling
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Catalyst Circle Bringing Racial Equity Into Focus for St
Catalyst Circle Bringing racial equity into focus for St. Louis A reality in which a person is no more or Racial less likely to experience society’s benefits or bur- Equity: dens just because of the color of their skin. We operate in our world and live our lives unaware of many things happening around us – until there is a catalytic event. For St. Louis, for many people in St. Louis, the catalytic event to put racial equity at the forefront was the shooting of Michael Brown. Throughout its history, St. Louis has long wrestled with race relations. Today, through the diligent work of the Ferguson Commission, we can better understand our role in making our community more equitable. The goal of this work, undertaken by individuals, small groups, and organizations throughout St. Louis, is to raise the level of understanding and identify a path toward racial equity. Racial equity can come through system-wide policy changes. It can also come through YOU. By having potentially difficult conversations about race with your friends and family, we can all play a part in stemming the tide of racism. No longer being comfortable remaining a bystander to our community’s racial inequities, this work will equip you to engage in those conversations, to share insights from a mismatched history, to radically listen to those who are different from you, and to become an individual catalyst for change in our community. Why does this matter to you? To our community? Racial equity provides each of us with individual enrichment and exposes us to diversity of thought, making us each more knowledgeable and effective members of our community. -
Excessive Use of Force by the Police Against Black Americans in the United States
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Written Submission in Support of the Thematic Hearing on Excessive Use of Force by the Police against Black Americans in the United States Original Submission: October 23, 2015 Updated: February 12, 2016 156th Ordinary Period of Sessions Written Submission Prepared by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Global Justice Clinic, New York University School of Law International Human Rights Law Clinic, University of Virginia School of Law Justin Hansford, St. Louis University School of Law Page 1 of 112 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary & Recommendations ................................................................................................................................... 4 I. Pervasive and Disproportionate Police Violence against Black Americans ..................................................................... 21 A. Growing statistical evidence reveals the disproportionate impact of police violence on Black Americans ................. 22 B. Police violence against Black Americans compounds multiple forms of discrimination ............................................ 23 C. The treatment of Black Americans has been repeatedly condemned by international bodies ...................................... 25 D. Police killings are a uniquely urgent problem ............................................................................................................. 25 II. Legal Framework Regulating the Use of Force by Police ................................................................................................ -
Searching for the Denominator: Problems with Police Traffic Stop Data and an Early Warning System Solution
Problems with police traffic stop data • 63 * Searching for the Denominator: Problems With Police Traffic Stop Data And an Early Warning System Solution Samuel Walker University of Nebraska at Omaha * Abstract In response to widespread allegations of racial and ethnic discrimination in traffic stops, a practice that has been labeled “racial profiling,” law enforcement agencies are now collecting data on traffic stops that include the race or ethnicity of drivers. Interpreting these data to determine whether a pattern of race discrimination exists poses enormous difficulties. Specifically, it is not clear what baseline (often referred to as “the denominator”) should be used to assess the racial and ethnic distribution of people stopped. Using the first traffic stop data reports from the San Jose Police Department as a case study, this paper examines baselines that are commonly used or discussed as appropriate. The paper argues that resident population data and/or offi- cial crime data are not adequate as baselines. As an alternative, the paper proposes an approach based on police early warning systems. This paper is based in part on research supported by a grant from the National Institute of Justice (98-IJ-CX-0002). The views expressed are those of the author and do not neces- sarily reflect those of the National Institute of Justice or the U.S. Department of Justice. The author would like to thank Matt Zingraff of North Carolina State University for suggesting the title. JUSTICE RESEARCH AND POLICY, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 2001 © 2001 Justice Research and Statistics Association 64 • Justice Research and Policy Allegations that the police in the United States stop motor vehicle drivers on the basis of race or ethnicity rather than suspected law violation has rapidly emerged as a major national controversy (Ramirez, McDevitt, & Farrell, 2000). -
Policing Space and Race: Prejudice, Policies, and Racial Profiling
issue 11/space & culture 12/11/01 11:32 PM Page 177 Policing Space and Race: Prejudice, Policies, and Racial Profiling Greg Elmer Seemingly overnight, the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States have caused Americans to question their steadfast belief in broad civil liberties. The rethinking of racial profiling, in particular, has occurred in light of allegations that the September 11th hijackers lived counter intuitive lives while in the U.S. and also significantly deviated from the single and economically marginalized profile of the (Israeli constructed) Palestinian suicide bomber. Subsequently, as fears of the ‘Other’ in the U.S. grow, the near universal opposition to racial profiling across the country continues to erode. However, despite re- emerging public support for racial profiling, the term itself contin- 177 ues to elude simple explanation or definition. Initially, the term was circulated in response to a slew of complaints from African American and Latino communities who found them- selves disproportionately stopped on U.S. Highway 95, the major North South Interstate in the Eastern U.S.. In the 1980s the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Department of Transportation had singled out the Interstate as a key North-South drug trafficking route. Early definitions thus generally focused on the act of “…police stop- ping black and Latino motorists or pedestrians solely because of their race.” (Hurley 2001). Such definitions therefore called into question the practice of literally “policing” the spatial mobility of America’s racial minorities. In the past few years though instances of racial profiling have seemingly appeared in all aspects of society, not solely on one or two key Interstate highways. -
The Freedom of Speech Vs the Right to Discriminate; American and French Policy on Banning Muslim Religious Attire”
“The Freedom of Speech Vs the Right to Discriminate; American and French Policy on banning Muslim Religious Attire” Cortni Holthaus A New Middle East Spring 2016 3/31/2016 From hijab bans to TSA patdowns, the American and French government have shown no tolerance whatsoever to the people in the Muslim community in the aftermath of terror events such as 9/11 and the 2015 Paris Attack. In my essay, I explain why the American and French government have responded to these events the way they did, how it negatively affects Muslim people, and how the problem should be solved instead. The first and fourteenth amendments of the U.S Constitution, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, gives religious Muslim women the right to wear hijab, because there can be no state or federal law which prohibits this activity. However, there is a major caveat in this amendment; Sometimes, in a building like a school or an airport, hijab is not allowed, along with headscarves. This is because these public buildings often have a rule of no head coverings, and wearing hijab can be perceived as a safety issue, as the garment is loose, and items could potentially be stored under it. In the US' laws and French laws surrounding the right to religious attire, the laws are often contradicting, and can be interpreted many different ways by the governments and other national institutions. My goal is to explain why the U.S and French are inherently Islamophobic towards Muslim clothing, and explain what can be done in order to ameliorate this problem, taking in mind the recent terror attacks in Paris, and of past events such as 9/11. -
“Access”: Rhetorical Cartographies of Food
TROUBLING “ACCESS”: RHETORICAL CARTOGRAPHIES OF FOOD (IN)JUSTICE AND GENTRIFICATION by CONSTANCE GORDON B.A., San Francisco State University, 2011 M.A., University of Colorado Boulder, 2015 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Communication 2018 ii This dissertation entitled: Troubling “Access”: Rhetorical Cartographies of Food (In)Justice and Gentrification written by Constance Gordon has been approved for the Department of Communication Phaedra C. Pezzullo, Ph.D. (Committee Chair) Karen L. Ashcraft, Ph.D. Joe Bryan, Ph.D. Lisa A. Flores, Ph.D. Tiara R. Na’puti, Ph.D. Peter Simonson, Ph.D. Date The final copy of this dissertation has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. IRB Protocol #17-0431 iii Gordon, Constance (Ph.D., Communication) Troubling “Access”: Rhetorical Cartographies of Food (In)Justice and Gentrification Dissertation directed by Professor Phaedra C. Pezzullo ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the rhetorical and spatiotemporal relationships between food politics and gentrification in the contemporary U.S. developing city foodscape. Specifically, I explore a seemingly innocent, yet incredibly powerful key term for the food movement today: “access.” The concern over adequate food access for the food insecure has become a national conversation, as everyone from governments to corporations, non-profits to grassroots advocates, have organized interventions to bring healthy food to those most in need. In rapidly developing cities, however, these politics have become particularly complicated, as new food amenities often index or contribute to gentrification, including the displacement of the very people supposedly targeted for increased food access. -
1 Racial Profiling and Street-Level Crime the National Significance Of
Racial Profiling and Street-level Crime The national significance of the Trayvon Martin case has ignited a heated discussion about bias and racial profiling in this country. The prologue for this conversation was established in communities across the country where racial profiling by law enforcement has been commonplace for years. Notwithstanding the fact that racial profiling is unconstitutional, and despite the emphatic declaration from the federal government that the practice is “invidious,” “wrong,” “ineffective,” and “harmful to our rich and diverse democracy,” quantitative and qualitative evidence collected at the federal, state, and local levels confirms that racial profiling persists. Empirical evidence confirms the existence of racial profiling on America’s roadways and that police actions taken during traffic stops are not uniform across race and ethnicity. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that for the year 2005: • Black drivers (4.5 percent) were twice as likely as White drivers (2.1 percent) to be arrested during a traffic stop, while Hispanic drivers (65 percent) were more likely than White (56.2 percent) or Black (55.8 percent) drivers to receive a ticket. • In addition, Whites (9.7 percent) were more likely than Hispanics (5.9 percent) to receive a written warning, while Whites (18.6 percent) were more likely than Blacks (13.7 percent) to be verbally warned by police. • Black (9.5 percent) and Hispanic (8.8 percent) motorists stopped by police were searched at higher rates than Whites (3.6 percent). Quantitative evidence reported in several states confirms this nationwide data. • A study in Arizona shows that during 2006–2007, the state highway patrol was significantly more likely to stop African Americans and Hispanics than Whites on all the highways studied, while Native Americans and persons of Middle Eastern descent were more likely to be stopped on nearly all the highways studied. -
Racial Disparities in Traffic Stop Outcomes
Baumgartner et al Maro Final (Do Not Delete) 5/16/2017 11:52 AM RACIAL DISPARITIES IN TRAFFIC STOP OUTCOMES FRANK R. BAUMGARTNER, LEAH CHRISTIANI, DEREK A. EPP, KEVIN ROACH, KELSEY SHOUB† INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 22 I.PUBLICLY AVAILABLE DATA ........................................................................................ 26 I.DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ............................................................................................... 30 II.DISPARITIES IN SEARCH RATES BY RACE ..................................................................... 31 A. Search Rates Among White Drivers........................................................ 31 B. Search Rates Among Black Drivers ......................................................... 33 C. Search Rates Among Hispanic Drivers .................................................. 35 D. Black-White Search Rate Ratios ............................................................... 37 E. Hispanic-White Search Rate Ratios ......................................................... 39 III.A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS ...................................................................................... 43 IV.CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................. 47 V.APPENDIX: DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS. .......................................................................... 48 Copyright © 2017 Frank R. Baumgartner, Leah Christiani, -
Assessing the Roles of Race and Profit in the Mass Incarceration of Black People in America
ASSESSING THE ROLES OF RACE AND PROFIT IN THE MASS INCARCERATION OF BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA WILLIAMS C. IHEME* “And in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. So in a real sense, our nation’s summer’s riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.” —Martin Luther King Jr, The Other America, a speech delivered on April 14 1967, at Stanford University. Abstract: Shortly after the alleged discovery of America and its vast expanse of land waiting to be cultivated with cash crops using cheap human labor, millions of Africans fell victims and were kidnapped to work as slaves in American plantations for about four centuries. Even though it has been over 150 years since the official abolition of slavery in America, the effects of the 400 years of enslavement continue to reverberate: irrespective of the blackletter rights protecting Black people from injustices, the deep racist structures typically decrease the potency of these rights, and thus perpetuate oppression. -
Black Lives Matter: Eliminating Racial Inequity in the Criminal Justice
BLACK LIVES MATTER: ELIMINATING RACIAL INEQUITY IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM For more information, contact: This report was written by Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D., Research Analyst at The Sentencing Project. The report draws on a 2014 publication The Sentencing Project of The Sentencing Project, Incorporating Racial Equity into Criminal 1705 DeSales Street NW Justice Reform. 8th Floor Washington, D.C. 20036 Cover photo by Brendan Smialowski of Getty Images showing Congressional staff during a walkout at the Capitol in December 2014. (202) 628-0871 The Sentencing Project is a national non-profit organization engaged sentencingproject.org in research and advocacy on criminal justice issues. Our work is twitter.com/sentencingproj supported by many individual donors and contributions from the facebook.com/thesentencingproject following: Atlantic Philanthropies Morton K. and Jane Blaustein Foundation craigslist Charitable Fund Ford Foundation Bernard F. and Alva B. Gimbel Foundation General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church JK Irwin Foundation Open Society Foundations Overbrook Foundation Public Welfare Foundation Rail Down Charitable Trust David Rockefeller Fund Elizabeth B. and Arthur E. Roswell Foundation Tikva Grassroots Empowerment Fund of Tides Foundation Wallace Global Fund Working Assets/CREDO Copyright © 2015 by The Sentencing Project. Reproduction of this document in full or in part, and in print or electronic format, only by permission of The Sentencing Project. TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 3 I. Uneven Policing in Ferguson and New York City 6 II. A Cascade of Racial Disparities Throughout the Criminal Justice System 10 III. Causes of Disparities 13 A. Differential crime rates 13 B. Four key sources of unwarranted racial disparities in criminal justice outcomes 15 IV. -
A Response to #Livingwhileblack: Blackness As Nuisance
RESPONSE RACE, SPACE, AND SURVEILLANCE: A RESPONSE TO #LIVINGWHILEBLACK: BLACKNESS AS NUISANCE LOLITA BUCKNER INNISS* TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................ 213 I. Nuisance, Trespass, and the Interaction Between the Two ............................................................................ 219 II. #LWB Incidents as Legal Geography: Race and Space ................................................................................ 225 III. #LivingWhileBlack and Surveillance .............................. 229 Conclusion................................................................................... 231 INTRODUCTION In #LivingWhileBlack: Blackness as Nuisance, Taja-Nia Henderson and Jamila Jefferson-Jones examine incidents wherein white people called 911 to report Black people for occupying spaces that callers believed the Black people in question ought not to occupy.1 Sadly, these incidents * Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Professor of Law, University Distinguished Professor and Inaugural Robert G. Storey Distinguished Faculty Fellow, SMU Dedman School of Law. Ph.D., LLM with Distinction, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. J.D., University of California, Los Angeles. A.B., Princeton University. 1. Taja-Nia Y. Henderson & Jamila Jefferson-Jones, #LivingWhileBlack: Blackness as Nuisance, 69 AM. U. L. REV. 863, 863 (2020). The phenomenon of white people calling the police or personally accosting Black people based on unfounded allegations of wrongdoing -
MOVEMENT and SPACE MOVEMENT and SPACE Creating Dialogue on Systemic Racism from the Modern Civil Rights Movement to the Present
Creating Dialogue on Systemic Racism from the Modern Civil MOVEMENT Rights Movement to the Present AND SPACE ABOUT THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1971 to combat discrimination through litigation, education and advocacy. The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with com- munities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people. For more information about THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER visit splcenter.org © 2021 SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER LEE / KIRBY AP IMAGES 2 MOVEMENT AND SPACE MOVEMENT AND SPACE Creating Dialogue on Systemic Racism from the Modern Civil Rights Movement to the Present WRITTEN BY CAMILLE JACKSON AND JEFF SAPP EDITORIAL DIRECTION BY JEFF SAPP, TAFENI ENGLISH AND DAVID HODGE AP IMAGES / KIRBY LEE / KIRBY AP IMAGES 4 MOVEMENT AND SPACE TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface .................................................................................................................................................7 What Do We Mean by Movement and Space? .......................................................................8 Objectives, Enduring Understanding and Key Concepts ..................................................9 Audience, Time and Materials ................................................................................................. 10 Considerations .............................................................................................................................