**KIM WOODS** Ethnicity and the Police Part II: Final Deliverable

Police Influence on Society

Marcela R. Montoya

Professor Brain Bugge

March 9, 2014

CJA 344

How the historical development of policing in the United States relates to the current relationship between police and different ethnic groups and social classes.

Policing in America today has grown from different economic, social and political forces. In order to understand how policing in the united states relates to the current relationship between the police and the different social classes and ethnic groups, one needs to know how the history of policing has developed in order to become what it is currently. This paper will discuss the views of the momentous background of the united states police and this will help us to have a better understanding of how the different social classes and ethnic groups relates with the police.

Police development has evolved over different eras. The first era was the era between 1840’s and early 1900’s. During this era, local political leaders are the ones who governed the police. The policing of these times was decentralized and this paved way for fraud through politics. The social and political worlds were closely connected police departments. There was a lot of disorganization and in efficiencies. This was caused by the lack of governmental control over the police officers that was resulted by the political nature of the positions of the police and decentralization. There was discrimination against ethnic minorities, racial groups, strangers and the people who violated the laws which was caused by the close relationships that existed between the police and citizens (Kelling and Moore, 1989).

The other era was between the 1920’s to 1970’s. During this time there was a middle class growth that grew together with corporate bureaucracy and the growing industry. During this period, the bases of police legitimacy were police professionalism and criminal law. Policing grew to be more centralized during this period. The social distance between the community and the police also increased during this period. Police officers were more efficient and organized as a result of increase in technology that enabled them to have communication radios and patrol cars. During this era, corruption went down drastically as the police became less politicized and more rationalized (Kelling and Moore, 1989).

The other era of development in policing is known as the community problem solving era. This period was between the 1970 to the present. The community is commonly supporting the police and the police are legitimized by law. In some aspects of policing, the current policing have become more decentralized whereby the officers need prudence in their day to day activities. Police usually gather some of their information from the members of the community in order to deal with the problems of the general public. The members of the community are also more engaged with the police where by they are even society partnerships with the officers. Police are in some places going back to foot patrols and they are also trying to be the ones who solve problems for the society. There is a lot of technology advances in technology for instance the GPS and 911 services that have helped the police to be even more organized when dealing with the issues affecting the society. (Kelling and Moore, 1989).

According to Williams and Murphy, racial minorities had little or no legal standing or political power during the earliest era of policing. During that time there were no black police officers. This made the protection and attention of police in places dominated by racial minorities rare. In the following era, some minorities had started to become police officers. This was brought about by the reconstruction and civil war which led to changes in the political and legal status of most of the minorities. The changes however were that the blacks and minorities moved from lack of political power to lack of support from the law and this only means that there was very little support for blacks and other minorities to enter in policing.

The relationship between the police and an ethnic group like the African Americans can be described as biased as he police are involved in a lot of racial profiling. There is a most common used term if racial profiling called driving while black where the police usually aim the Africans Americans to stop them for traffic since the police believe the Africans Americans are more likely to become involved in crime activities. This has caused battles against air piracy. This was used to end the hijacking of commercial airliners of America to Cuba in the late 1960’s (Harris, 2002).

According to Kenneth Meeks (2000), racial profiling is a way of stopping somebody just because of their color and a transitory suspicion that that person is involved in crimes. This scheme is generally targeted mostly towards African Americans who are young, both men and women. Young whites with long hair, Latinos and Asians are however recently being also targeted. Many people consider racial profiling a justified form of detective work and law enforcement. Racial profiling has been endorsed by many administrations and lawmakers (Harris, 1999). For instance it has been endorsed in New Jersey and its practice has been proved beyond reasonable doubt. Another example of racial profiling happened in Seattle Washington. There have been many suspicions that an uneven number of drivers who are of African Americans origin are mostly stopped at least once.

Racial discrimination is one of the serious problems experienced in policing today though it is less of a problem in most of the rural areas. Police mostly practice racial discrimination in the large urban areas. African American males who ride while listening to loud music or gather themselves into groups are usually key targets to police as they usually ask themselves what they could be up to.

References

Harris, D. (1999). Driving While Black.  American Civil Liberties Union Special Report.  Prepared by the Department of Education.  Washington, DC.

Harris, D. (2002). Profiles in Justice. The New York Press. New York.

Kelling, L. & Moore, H. (1989). The evolving strategy of policing. Purdue University, U.S department of justice press: United States.