Racial Profiling It Seems That Thesis

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And just what do officers see that indicates to them that there might be something amiss in an automobile, enough so to justify pulling that car over to the side of the road? The authors remind readers that officers have, with each encounter, a "wide scope for numerous acts of on-the-spot discretion." Basically, a traffic stop is "an interpretative act," the article explains. The officer has to determine and identify the "physical and behavioral clues that indicate a violation of the law" (Vito, 91). The officer has to "translate those cues into legal procedures and rules of evidence." This takes training, and when the dust has settled, the question that is important is was their "probable cause" to justify the stop, the search, the ticket or the arrest?

An article in the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle (Fagan, 2008) refers to a situation in Palo Alto, California, in which the police chief, Lynne Johnson, was forced to apologize after issuing a directive to her officers "that appeared to order officers to stop African-Americans on the streets in an effort to solve a rash of robberies" (Fagan, 2008).
In fact there had been 16 street robberies in the Palo Alto area since June, 2008; the chief (who is Caucasian) told her officers that, when in a neighborhood where a lot of robberies had been committed, if they "...see an African-American, you know, in a congenial way we want them to find out who they are" (Fagan). This seems clearly to be racial profiling, and when it comes through an order from the chief of police, it is very serious. In this case, the apology from the chief of police was helpful, but the article pointed out that "the wounds" from the racially charged order will "take some work to heal."

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"Racial Profiling It Seems That" (2008, December 05) Retrieved April 28, 2024, from
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"Racial Profiling It Seems That", 05 December 2008, Accessed.28 April. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/racial-profiling-seems-26115