I want this blog entry to examine the injustice that the 2011 American Justice System still shows even today. We seemed to bring up race and class inequality a lot this quarter. Most people associate racism and classism as manly a past event of the 18th and 19th century. Well there are plenty of racist and classist injustices still taking place across modern day America.
I read a story yesterday about police officers in Brooklyn and Queens who were routinely planting crack cocaine on people in African American lower income neighborhoods. What is shocking about this case is there are over 50,000 arrests being questioned on low level marijuana offences, and out of the 50,000 arrest 86% were either African American or Latino. The start of America’s racist system is the street cop. That officer is capable of arresting anyone on any kind of charge so a better system needs to help prevent wrongful arrest on young minorities in America. When you challenge the professional integrity of the police officers you are challenging the legitimacy of the entire Judicial System. Just like their fellow correctional officers, police officers need to keep the trust of the general public/jail yard. More officers need to step forward and show the dark secrets of so many corrupt police officers, mainly in order to get respect back amongst the people.
A solution to this kind of problem would be to FIRST pass legislation against unprofessional/corrupt police officers. With proper laws in place against dirty cops and their crooked counterparts, the system could regain control and punish the right people. Second the police agencies need to take away any type of quota for number of arrest needed. It is an injustice in itself to tell a police officer who’s real job title is “to protect and serve” to go out and arrest a certain number of citizens.
Written by: Lucas Hart
No comments:
Post a Comment