Race make you a victim - Assignment Example

Race and Victimization Race and Victimization It is almost unfathomable to consider that race should play a part in howvictims in a developed country such as America are treated, yet statistical evidence bears out that this is exactly the situation that many members of society find themselves in today. Consider the case of Lisa. She comes a poorer demographic background just struggling to make ends meet. Unlike many in the wealthy class, when she was the victim of a crime that she had no fault in causing, she simply got little to no police response.

In fact, she was further victimized by the reality that a traffic accident she did not cause was going to end up costing her in more way than one. The very system that is designed to protect and defend has obviously let Lisa down in this situation. In this case, the race of the victim could have played a role in the fact that the police gave little consideration to Lisa’s plight. We know that the average response time for poise to resound to African American victims, for example, is higher than that of victims from predominately White neighborhoods (Gorner & Mac, 2011).

We also know from Lisa’s recounting of the event that when the police did finally show up at the scene, they really offered little assistance to the victim. From her own recounting of the incidence, she seems to take this in stride and is used to being the victim and receiving little assistance from those in society who have sworn to serve the community. If this is true, then it is certainly vicious cycle that creates a self-defeating environment amongst minority groups where they begin to feel that they are simply left to endure certain hardships in life because of their race, It is neither right nor proper, yet it appears to be the direction that society has headed for quite some time now.

In addition, while culprits of hit and run accidents may not take race into consideration when deciding to flee the scene of the accident, the very reality that minority victims receive less attention from the policy may quite likely play a role in their split second decision. It could be viewed as a high likelihood that they will never be caught simply because of who the victim is, so they see little incentive in doing the right thing, stopping, and taking ownership for the accident that they caused.

This speaks to the reality that African Americans and Latino in the United States are more likely to be victimized than are Whites (Truman, 2011). Because of this, people like Lisa are less likely to pursue their case because they view that the system is already stacked against them. They do not see the criminal justice system, as a whole, as being on their side so many simply do not wish to go through the difficult and painstaking motions of making a case against what happened to them, only to be viewed in a negative light by many in authority (Miller, 2010).

In Lisa’s case this certainly appears to ring true, which is, in all honesty, a sad reflection of how we have regressed in many areas as a society. ReferencesGomer, J. and Mack, K. (2011). ACLU suit alleges police slower to respond in minority areas. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://articles,chciagotribune.com/2011-10-28/news.ct-met-aclu-police-lawshite-20111028_1_aclu-suit-mayor-rahm-emanuel-officers.Harrell, E. (2007). Black victims of violent crime. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special report.

Retrieved from http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/bvvc.pdf.Turman, J. (2011). National crime victimization survey: Criminal victimization, 2010. Retrieved from http://bjs.osdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv10.pdf.