Law enforcement - Research Paper Example

? Law Enforcement Table of Contents I. Introduction 3 II. History, Issues 3 III. Discussion- Balancing Competing Law Enforcement Aims, Challenges 5 References 9 I. Introduction This paper addresses the question relating to how law enforcement balances competing needs to on the one hand, effect the reduction of crime and pursue the fight against terrorism, and on the other hand resist from becoming guilty of accusations relating to policing based on race, stereotyping, and discrimination. These are both valid claims and roles that the law enforcement authorities have to address at the same time, and speaks of the challenges facing the authorities as they try to secure the peace while making sure not to trample on the civil, human and political rights of citizens. The paper includes a discussion on the key issues relating to the topic, as well as its history (The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, 2013). II. History, Issues It is to be noted that as early as 2002, formulations that balance the interests of states to protect the citizenry against acts of terrorism and against the proliferation of crimes on the one hand and the respect for human rights and the shunning of practices that lead to the trampling of such human rights such as racist policies and arbitrary and unequal application of the law have been in place in different parts of the world, including Europe. Committee of Ministers, 2002). On the other hand, taking a step back, discussions on human rights and terrorism have historically not been framed as being on opposite sides of the fence, where such framing implies that advancing the interests of anti-terrorist causes within governments does not always mean trampling on the human rights of ordinary citizens. On the contrary, the United Nations recognizes that terrorism is counter to the very idea of human rights. By using terrorist means to achieve ends, terrorists basically make use of people and the threat of the total annihilation of the lives of people and their fundamental rights to life. This is contrary to the very heart of the respect of human rights. Moreover, such counter-formulations realize that terrorism at its root strikes at the idea of the rule of law, and undermines the rule of law. On the other hand, there is the very valid set of notions too tied to concerns that anti-terrorist and anti-criminal activities fostered by the states of the world have the capacity to inflict real harm on people and to transgress the basic human rights of people, against arbitrary and unequal law treatment, against racism, against practices that amount to unfair treatment from racial profiling biases, and law enforcement work that targets people of certain religions, nationalities, and color. Where counter-terrorism activities are present in different countries, the United Nations has placed the standard of the respect for human rights to balance out the competing interests of anti-terrorist and anti-criminal forces to achieve their ends. In other words, the way the United Nations sees the balance between the two competing interests being achieved is via the adherence to existing laws and the respect for the civil and human rights of all people. This means not going the route of racist practices in order to ferret out criminals from the crowds, and to go after terrorists and their supporters. Human rights is the crucible on which the legitimacy of counter-criminal and counter-terrorist activities and programs are measured and judged (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, n.d., pp. 1-22). Meanwhile, in the United States, the history of issues relating to human rights, racism and racial profiling vis a vis law enforcement is said to be marked by the intertwining of race and slavery issues from the early onset with the establishment of police organizations to establish the peace and to enforce the law. Where the brutality of the police and the reality of the criminal profiling of people based on race are concerned, their roots are traced back to the very early times of the establishment of police forces. Studies through the centuries are said to corroborate these findings from history. For instance, studies are said to reflect the fact that incidences of police brutality, unequal treatment, racism, and racial profiling are more pronounced in correlation to increasing concentrations of African Americans and non-White Americans in general in certain geographies, states, cities and communities. People in such communities are the disproportionate victims of greater amounts of law-enforcement related transgressions of human rights, including harassment, verbal abuse, too much force, torture, shootings that have no basis and justification, and frisks and stops that are based on nothing more than appearance, ethnicity, and color/race. The September 11 events are said, meanwhile, to further put teeth on police power and the corresponding heightened degradation of the protections of people against such named police abuses. The history therefore highlights the key issues relating to the escalation rather than the taming of the problems of the trampling of human rights as law enforcement zealously wages its wars against criminality and terrorism (OHCR, 2007, pp. 3-4). III. Discussion- Balancing Competing Law Enforcement Aims, Challenges It is important to note that issues relating to the competing interests of the fight against terrorism and the rights of ordinary people have become more pronounced in light of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center known as 9/11. In general, due to the intensified counter-terrorist activities and related intelligence work by the government of the United States, issues such as racial profiling have come to the fore, with the victims of the profiling being Muslims as well as Arabs living in the United States and other parts of the world. The observation is that several of the government initiatives that have been enacted in response to the terrorist threat have been overtly leaning towards racial profiling and race-based policing, an understandable development given the zealousness of the authorities to protect the peace and foster the security of the United States. On the other hand, the counter-push against this over-zealousness on the part of the civil rights activists also highlight the complex dynamics concerning the delicate balancing act that needs to be successfully undertaken to deal with the competing forces of counter-terrorism and civil rights advocacies against discrimination, policing based on stereotypes, and law enforcement that encourages profiling based on the race of individuals (The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, 2013). Another form of the way law enforcement is trying to balance out its drive to weed out terrorism and criminality and the counter-pressure from civil rights groups and global organizations such as the United Nations for governments to respect human rights and to move away from racist practices is through the on-going public debates on the potential merits of racial profiling, among other things. There are arguments for racial profiling, for instance, that posit that some states, such as Israel, have had a large amount of success securing the internal peace and security of Israel by targeting young Arabs entering Israeli territory for searches and more intensive procedures to make sure that they do not pose threats to Israel's peace. There are counter-arguments, meanwhile, from a purely pragmatic point of view, with regard to the impossibility of achieving the same amount of success in the United States, which is much larger than Israel, and which has a more complicated border and immigration problems than Israel. Taking a step back, still related to the debate on the merits of racial profiling, there are arguments that favor such racial profiling, on the merit of its reasonableness in face of the threats and potential harm that terrorist actions can inflict on Americans and the US. The reasonableness of profiling, this line of thinking argues, stems from the fact that past history dictates that terrorists have a certain known profile, and that therefore it makes sense to target people fitting certain profiles. On the other hand, the ill-effects of profiling in America, as experienced in the context of the persistent and chronic racial profiling of African Americans targeted for discrimination and abuse, makes moot the arguments of those in favor of profiling. Meanwhile, both camps in the debate acknowledge that behavioral profiling has some ways to go, and can work, in terms of abetting crimes and potentially neutralizing the threats from terrorists. The take here is that behavioral profiling and similar profiling methods can address some of the concerns relating to law enforcement being able to balance out the competing demands of anti-terrorist and anti-criminal work and the demands from citizens to have their human rights respected (International Debate Education Association, 2013; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights). Meanwhile, while enlightened global organizations such as the United Nations have come to recognize that anti-criminal and anti-terrorist work must have human rights as their balancing principles, the reality on the ground seems to suggest that not much progress has actually been done to protect ordinary citizens, and disadvantaged and discriminated against groups such as African Americans, from suffering due to overzealous law enforcement work and anti-terrorist work. The insights one gets from a review of the literature in these related areas include that there is an ideal, as proposed by the United Nations and other organizations, with regard to achieving that balance. On the other hand, the reality falls far short of that ideal, with human rights abuses rampant, and the historical ugly realities of racial profiling and racism persisting (Bahdi, 2003; Bennetto, n.d.; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, n.d.). References Bahdi, R. (2003). No Exit: Racial Profiling and Canada's War Against Terrorism. University of Windsor. Retrieved from http://www.ohlj.ca/archive/articles/41_23_bahdi.pdf Bennetto, J. (n.d.). Police and racism. Equality and Human Rights Commission. Retrieved from http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/uploaded_files/raceinbritain/policeandracism.pdf Committee of Ministers (2002). Guidelines of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on human rights and the fight against terrorism. Council of Europe. Retrieved from http://www.coe.int/t/dlapil/cahdi/Source/Docs2002/H_2002_4E.pdf International Debate Education Association (2013). Ethnic Profiling is a Just Means of Preventing Terrorism. Securing Liberty. Retrieved from http://securingliberty.idebate.org/arguments/profiling Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (n.d.). Human Rights, Terrorism, and Counter-Terrorism Fact Sheet No. 32. OHCR.org. Retrieved from http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/Factsheet32EN.pdf OHCR (2007). In the Shadows of the War on Terror: Persistent Police Brutality and Abuse of People of Color in the United States. The United States of America’s Second and Third Periodic Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Retrieved from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/ngos/usa/USHRN15.pdf Read More