Policing and Minorities - Essay Example

African-Americans and Latinos are the victims of racial profiling in most cases. Certain officials like customs officials and airport officials also do racial profiling, disturbing the passengers. Policing targeting minorities are widespread. Thousands of complaints from African-Americans, Latinos and Asians have proved that racial profiling is a real happening. Victims of racial profiling are not only common people but also famous and rich people, celebrities, sports stars and people from all walks of life.

There were cases when respected members of the society, like judges, lawyers, state legislators, and even representatives claimed that they were victims of racial profiling. This discriminatory stopping and checking by the police is disturbing thousands of pedestrians, innocent drivers, and shoppers and other helpless people across the nation. ‘War on Drugs’ as well as ‘War on Terror’ have given the police an excuse to suspect and check people whom they doubt as a terrorist or drug courier.

This has resulted in several racial profiling issues. People will get humiliated and will lose their valuable time when they are unnecessarily stopped and checked by the police. Police has got a general belief that non-white people are mostly drug users and sellers. But studies (reports regarding police stops and checking) have revealed that people who are considered to be racially inferior are less likely to be having drugs or weapons with them compared to whites. Law enforcement agents are people who are having the policing authority for private or public purposes.

Security guards at main offices or private institutions, police officers, and officers like airport security agents are having policing right which they misuse to create yet another racial discrimination issue. There were cases when airline pilots demanded people to disembark from the flights, as they suspected passengers because of their ethnicity. Nearly 10 million Asians (4 percent of the population) have already been victims of policing according to reports. Indians in America also had testified their complaints about stops and searches of local police.

They complained about the vehicle check, (demanding license and registrations) and other checks done by police without any reasonable suspicion. Blacks as well as Latino pedestrians are stopped, questioned and checked without any reason (Juarez 2004). Non-white youths traveling in bikes are simply stopped and questioned for doing nothing wrong. There were incidents in which police dogs attacked non white civil rights protesters. Highway patrol canine units unnecessarily stop the vehicles claiming that they carry drugs.

There exists a practice of threatening people of color by releasing dogs. Dogs are trained to attack and maul and are sent to attack people. Several hundreds of blacks and Latinos were attacked in different incidents. ‘Driving while black’ is a kind of policing that affects minorities. This is an act of police haunting African-Americans for traffic stops as they think they are likely to be indulged in criminal activities. Even though racial profiling is illegal, Supreme Court (according to a decision taken in 1996) permits police to stop and examine motorists (their vehicles) to see whether they have weapons or illegal drugs with them (Juarez 2004).

Stopping these people frequently will result in large number of arrests,