Police Community Relations in Minority Communities

 

 

Abstract

Police abuse of minorities has been a common practice in America. This research has presented various scholars' views on police and community relations, especially the minority groups, to discover the effects of police relation in the minority group in the society, providing remedies to the issue. Some five scholarly articles have been reviewed which address the following areas: 1) global police relations, 2) police legitimacy on disengaged minorities 3) police relations and liberalism limits, 4) police corporation and gun violence, and 5) changing policies in the police departments. The quantitative research was done on the literature on the issues affecting police relation on the minority community where the result indicates that the police mishandle the minority community.

This is mainly through law enforcement officers being involved in the discrimination of the minority community to the extent of mishandling, which is done by the people who should maintain law and order in the community. The altitude of the white towards the black also has led to the mistreatment of the minority group in the community. All these articles discuss how the relations between the minority communities and the police can be built and strengthened. In conclusion, the development of policies that can help enhance the relationship between the policer and community among creates awareness toward all people as the same despite the differences in races among them. The increased discrimination that has been witnessed in the current days in the united states acting as an example of the effects of racism and its impact on the community.

Keywords: police, community, minorities

 

 

Introduction

The police play a significant role in our communities a role that cannot be taken for granted. Primarily, their role is to serve and protect the community, to maintain law and order. However, there are some occasions, which have left the locals and the whole world worried about whether this is part of the police obligation. The worry gets to higher heights following how the police force, interacts with the minority group. The latter group consists of African Americans, non-Hispanic Whites, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and American Indians, who have been witnessed to face torture and discrimination at the hands of the white police officers. This treatment ruins the community relations between minority groups and the police, in the local and global contest. Commonly, the primary cause of the bad police interactions with this cohort is based on ethnic and racial issues, which are worth discussing to seek a solution to the differences. In this essay, we would present background information on scholarly articles that have attempted to present the relation between the police and the minority groups.

Literature Review

Global Police Community Relations

Primarily, this article addresses police relationships in the global context. According to Albert (2019), the role of the police in the community is to address crime and control disorders. He presented and examinations on public perception of the police, and found that the attitudes and police performance could be used to develop the agency policies.  He states that the government should incorporate the community policies related to security issues. Additionally, he addressed the building process of confidence and trust between the minorities and the whites that assures them protection despite the disparities in the race or social-economic status. In the global view Albert highlights that people have much confidence in their local police officers and thus extension on democratic practice. The role of the police is, therefore, affects public confidence and trust both in micro-and macro-levels.

Police Legitimacy on Disengaged Minorities

According to Madon and colleagues (2017), procedural justice is critical in enhancing police legitimacy. These scholars highlight that the stated procedural justice depends on the individual's case as each has a different feel the procedures effective while others feel that they are less effective.  They carried out a study aimed at examining the contingency of the procedural justice effect on certain individuals using the disengagement concept. In the research, they hired a group of 1480 participants belonging to distinct ethnic minority group members and examined whether disengagement would affect the police legitimacy. From the research, the results revealed that disengagement reduced the perception of legitimacy among the minority groups.

 

Police Relations and Liberalism Limits

According to Schneider et al. (2020), there are various scenarios of reported abuse of African Americans by the police. The abuse is attributed to the cause of urban instabilities in 1960, more so the police abuse led to the need for review by the civilian to examine the police actions as the central cause of the liberalism rights. They address the liberalism following the failure of the Philadelphia Police Advisory Board (PAB) in 1958, and the tensions prevailing between the police and the community. During the same time, these scholars state that the police were confronted with dirty works that needed to be checked. This review presented that the African Americans belonging to the working class were the most prone to police brutalities, thus the need for adjustment to overturn the racial hierarchy.

Police Corporation and Gun Violence

Brunson and Wade (2019) researched to investigate gun violence in the urban setting. The two carried out interviews on black men on individuals who had information on the illegal gun markets that led to bloodshed. Addressing a disadvantaged community of color, the finding was that distressed milieus reliability did not corporate as they feared retaliation and high rates of becoming victims. Also, they found that there were low clearance rates for the minority groups as they don’t care about keeping their neighbors safe. The policy should primarily focus on strategies that would help reduce gun violence by launching campaigns against the fight against the violence and thus improve the police-community relation with the minorities.

Changing Policies in the Police Departments

The police department needs to make racialized changes that would help in de-policing and making police officers active. Shjarback and colleagues (2017) conducted a study that was aimed at exploring the police departments that had been currently involved in withdrawing active policies from work. In this research, they decided to use 118 police department who were in service to examine the change in the quality and quantity of policing alongside the changes in crime rates. From the sample collected on the number of traffic stops, serving the African Americans. It was found that a negative attitude and increased strictness in the enforcement of law negatively impacted total violence and crime rates. The two argue that it is important to increase mutual trust between the police and the African American communities, which will result in morale and motivation in the policing field.

 

 

            Discussion of the literature

Having police brutality in minority communities is the crucial aspect of all the pieces of literature. This indicates the police’s failure to protect the community and maintain law and order, which is their duty to the community. Harmony and peace become the opposite in the community despite the promise from police-community news, where the force promises to protect the interest of the minority in ensuring their safety and security in the community (Matter, 2020). Cases of violence towards the rules and regulations become common due to the police's failure to treat all peoples as equals. The possession of weapons becomes a way for the citizens to acquire the sense of security that the police institution offers. Mishandling of the community by the police due to discrimination has negatively affected the people instead of peace as they lack faith in them, predominantly the minority.

Reported cases on the community lack of confidence in the policing community through gun violence and their discrimination among the minors. The organization's running is left to the citizens' hands as reporting crimes to the police may cause them to be the wrongdoers. The need for fear is justified by the increased number of minority community group death through police brutality as they are passive them as violent (Holmes, Painter, & Smith, 2019). The police are viewed as a source of danger rather than the actual source of security to them. This causes an increase in criminal cases as the community members cannot report to the police making the community unsafe. The favors ‘are done on racial bases where Asians and black Americans are viewed as hooligans.

Analysis and findings.

            The reported cases include cases where the system has been used to discriminate the minority community.  The police officers' increase in brutality towards the minority was high compared to their counterparts, who are treated as the majority. Theirs is an increased case of minority people, especially the blacks, reported to have been mishandled by the police, increasing these victims' number. These cases are common to the Asians and other minor groups where even homicide cases are reported, and the police are involved as the law enforces. The race aspect is the most used criteria by law enforcers were the most affected are the blacks and the Asians as they have a different race from the others.

Findings

 law enforcement officers are involved in the discrimination of the minority community to the extent of mishandling, which is done by the people who should maintain law and order in the community. The cases are made evident by the shooting of a black man age twenty-nine in the year 2011 by the officer making police brutality to the minority community a global case (Hong, 2017). The minority group is viewed as criminals due to their race without consideration of their character. This has been made possible by the lack of policies that support this minority group making them prone to exploitation from law enforces. Discrimination is also the primary source of minority inequality from the white officers. They do not consider the individual economic life but only care about their violence.

The leading cause of abuse of the minority is due to white officers’ attitude toward the blacks where they don’t value their life like other human beings. This leads to developing a community where people do not seek the law enforcers for help as the police misconduct is high (Torres, Reling, & Hawdon, 2018). The case can be reversed if officers’ misconduct is reduced and their attitude towards the minority communities.  The brutality is the leading cause of the development of a society where the citizens take the role of enforcing the raw themselves despite the officers' availability. The increased cases of death have led to high alert to the minority community towards police shooting

The lack of policy protecting the blacks from this kind of violence gives the officers the go-ahead of acting on their free will to kill whenever a black or Asian is involved. The availability of policies that allow lethal violence for black people creates a threat to their life when exposed to the officers (Gray, & Parker, 2020). the guidelines give the police the right to use their weapon on the blacks as the law covers them. The lack of a policy defending the blacks exposes them to death, thus increasing blacks' increased death in the united states influencing the police and minority community relation.

Conclusion

The police relation in minority communities can be improved only through the consideration of the minority as a human being so that they can be treated with respect. The development of policies is one of the main ways of solving the issue faster by first protecting them through the law. Creating self-awareness among themselves using the media can make a faster way of getting to them. Media gives exposure to all the people to this right, reducing the fear of being gunned down. The vice of discrimination, when eliminated, helps in the treatment of people with respect, thus respecting life. The media's awareness through the media is the best means to remind people that all are the same, therefore better relations between the police and minority community.

 

 

 

References

Albrecht, J. F. (2019). Evaluating Police-Community Relations Globally. In Policing and Minority Communities. Springer, Cham. (pp. 3-10).

Brunson, R. K., & Wade, B. A. (2019). “Oh hell no, we don't talk to police” Insights on the lack of cooperation in police investigations of urban gun violence. Criminology & Public Policy, 18(3), 623-648.

Madon, N. S., Murphy, K., & Sargeant, E. (2017). Promoting police legitimacy among disengaged minority groups: Does procedural justice matter more. Criminology & criminal justice, 17(5), 624-642.

Shjarback, J. A., Pyrooz, D. C., Wolfe, S. E., & Decker, S. H. (2017). De-policing and crime in the wake of Ferguson: Racialized changes in the quantity and quality of policing among Missouri police departments. Journal of criminal justice, 50, 42-52.

Schneider, E. C., Agee, C., & Chronopoulos, T. (2020). Dirty work: Police and community relations and the limits of liberalism in postwar Philadelphia. Journal of Urban History, 46(5), 961-979.

Holmes, M. D., Painter, M. A., & Smith, B. W. (2019). Race, place, and police-caused homicide in US municipalities. Justice Quarterly, 36(5), 751-786.

Hong, S. (2017). Does increasing ethnic representativeness reduce police misconduct?. Public Administration Review, 77(2), 195-205.

Matter, B. L. (2020). POLICE COMMUNITY.

Torres, J., Reling, T., & Hawdon, J. (2018). Role conflict and the psychological impacts of the Post-Ferguson period on law enforcement motivation, cynicism, and apprehensiveness. Journal of police and criminal psychology, 33(4), 358-374.

Gray, A. C., & Parker, K. F. (2020). Race and police killings: examining the links between racial threat and police shootings of Black Americans. Journal of Ethnici