Racial Bias:
Systemic v. Individual
ARE THE DISPROPORTIONATE
STOPS AND ARRESTS OF BLACK
MEN A RESULT OF RACIALLY
BIASED INDIVIDUAL OFFICERS
OR SYSTEMIC RACIAL BIAS?
Different Influences
Individual
Opinion/views
Behavior
Oversight
System
Policies
Laws
Culture
Economy
Media
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime:
“Johnson noted that because the community refuses to condemn such criminal behavior, the
deterrent effect of condemning or reporting such behavior is not present and thus implicitly
‘endorses either the behavior itself or supports its members against the unique social system.
These new crimes worsen the differential involvement of the group in criminal activity, and
hence, the over-representation of the group in the criminal justice system.” (Gabbidon 95)
The media portrays criminality biasedly by focusing on crimes committed by poor people, who
happen to be disproportionately black. This shapes how the American people view blacks. If this is the only
exposure white people have to black people then many of them will view blacks, particularly black men, as
criminals. It is important to recognize that the media has influence over everyone in society, including police
officers. This means that police officers’ lack of exposure to black people, and their culture, can influence them
to be racially biased. The lack of integration between blacks and whites in American society is caused by
socioeconomic disparities between the two races and cultures. For example, a disproportionate number of
black people live in impoverished urban areas, whereas whites primarily live in the suburbs. These racial
biases, which are the products of the media, also influence officers and the decisions they make on the job.
Policing policies within the criminal justice system call for more intense police patrolling of these areas. The
culmination of racially biased decisions made by individual police officers damages the police’s relationship
with the black community. These racially biased actions by police might include pulling over black men more
often than others due to the police’s perception of black men as criminals. Due to this type of mistreatment of
blacks by police officers, black communities view the police as untrustworthy. The distrust between the two
groups creates significant tension, which leads to police acting in biased and irrational ways. Since the entire
community sees and is affected by this mistreatment they do not condemn these actions, even if they are
breaking the law, because they see it as a way to strike back at the police. Although this individual bias is
created in systemic ways, the actions of individual officers show that this is an issue of individual racial bias.
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
Black Skin, White Justice: Race Matters in the Criminal
Justice System:
“The trouble with the official crime picture is that it has the effect of grossly distorting the
average citizens image of what crime is all about. It minimizes and deflects attention from
one kind of crime (the common kind that ones neighbors commit) and exaggerates and
spotlights another, less common, kind (the code name is crime-in-the-street which is
presumably committed by criminals).” (Highsmith)
Black skin, White Justice addresses many of the ideas from the previous reading,
including distorting the public’s perception of criminals, but goes a bit deeper into why
systemic racial bias is not addressed and fixed by those who hold power in the US. Gary
Highsmith argues that racial bias in the criminal justice system is not being fixed because
whites, who do not experience this racial bias, see the criminal justice system as
“colorblind,” or equal for all people. This is to say that the criminal justice system does not
explicitly discriminate black people on purpose. This is true if we were to strictly look at
the criminal justice system just on paper. For example, laws and policies in our criminal
justice system do not explicitly tell police officers to pull over more black drivers than
whites or to patrol poor black neighborhoods more than white neighborhoods. However,
white people who are the majority in the US and, who hold the most power, have not
experienced the mistreatment that black people have. Therefore, white people cannot see
the true causes of this racial bias, part of which are economic disparities that
disproportionately effect blacks and how the police mistreat them.
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
Discrimination, arrest history, and major depressive disorder in
the U.S. Black population:
“Our findings suggest that mental health prevention and treatment programs
that provide services to the Black population in the US, specifically those
with major depressive disorder, should also target individuals with an arrest
history and/or those who have experienced discrimination, environments
that may increase the probability of arrest.” (Anglin et al)
This study takes a broader look at the things that come with economic
disparities between black and white populations in the US and provides a solution. As
previously mentioned, the black population in the US is disproportionately poor,
which leads to higher arrests than other race. This study looks at some of the things
that are the result of high arrest rates, discrimination and economic disparity, the
most prominent of which is lack of access to quality healthcare, particularly mental
healthcare. In order to decrease the extremely high rate of arrests of blacks, the study
suggests that there should be a specific focus on treating mental illness in people with
an arrest history. The majority of these people happen to be black, as well. The study
finds that people with an extensive arrest history develop major depressive disorders,
which are the result of discrimination and negative social treatment throughout
society. Depressive orders can lead to a hard-to-escape cycle of criminal activity.
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
The salience of skin tone: effects on the exercise of police
enforcement authority
“For example, Hunter (2002) found that black women possessing the
lightest skin tone earn over $2,600 dollars more per year and complete
one full year more of education than those with the darkest skin tone.
This affects how they are perceived by others as well: blacks and Latinos
with light skin are perceived as more attractive and even more desirable
for marriage.” (Karletta 994)
This article argues that skin tone is very closely related to how blacks are
treated in American society. Karletta White found that black people with lighter skin
were treated better than their darker-skinned counterparts, which shows people with
skin tones closer to white are typically treated better, especially when it comes to
accessibility to different things like education and employment. This is related to
socioeconomics because lighter skin was attributed to higher income within the back
community. For example, White found that black women with the lightest skin
typically earn $2,600 more per year than black women with the darkest skin tone
(White 994). This is an example of systemic racial bias because it is a group of beliefs
that have been ingrained in American society and over time distorted the average
American’s, including police officers’, perception of black people and culture.
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
Police Killings of Blacks: Here Is What the Data Say:
“But what the data does suggest is that eliminating the biases of all police officers
would do little to materially reduce the total number of African-American
killings. Police bias may well be a significant problem, but in accounting for why
some of these encounters turn into killings, it is swamped by other, bigger
problems that plague our society, our economy and our criminal justice system.”
This New York Times article is most closely related to my inquiry question
because it specifically addresses both system and individual police officer racial bias.
Mullainathan argues that looking at institutions, such our economy and criminal
justice system, is the most effective and informative way to address the
disproportionate number of blacks represented in the criminal justice system.
Mullainathan believes that even if we were able to completely eliminate the bias of all
police officers it would have little effect on the mistreatment of blacks because these
issues are caused by our institutions and the way they are structured. The article
follows many of the same ideas I have already addressed, the biggest of which
concerns the fact that many blacks live in impoverished areas where they are more
likely to have encounters with the police and be arrested. Essentially, these
socioeconomic disadvantages related to the economy, are the reason why blacks are
disproportionately arrested in the criminal justice system.
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
The NYPD Officers Who See Racial Bias in the NYPD:
“The testimony also included an anonymous retired detective who alleged that a
superior officer said of minority suspects, ‘They are fucking animals. You make
sure if you have to shoot, you shoot them in the head. That way there’s one story,’
and that on raids in black neighborhoods.”
In this article Conor Friedersdorf talks with NYPD officers, many of
whom are minorities, to hear about the racial bias they have seen while working
in the NYPD. One officer who was interviewed said that a superior officer told
him that minorities are “fucking animals” and that he should shoot them in the
head if he has to so that there is only one side to the story. Although the article
doesn’t address this directly, I think this goes back to a point addressed earlier
about the lack of integration between blacks and whites, which is the result of
socioeconomic policies within the US. Due to the little exposure that police
officers have to black people outside of work, they are more likely to develop
these types of hateful views that can lead to more significant systemic racial bias.
This shows individual bias but I think its systemic because it shapes the culture
of the NYPD as an institution. Since it was said by a superior officer, who has
power to control and regulate, it effects the actions of many other police officers
who may not even be racially biased, which is why I consider it to be systemic.
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
Skin Color Is Not a Crime: Why Stop and Frisk Doesn’t Work
“Another popular approach is called ‘focused deterrence,’ which is more-or-less the
opposite of stop-and-frisk. This approach operates from the standpoint that there is a
small proportion of young men responsible for the majority of violent crime, and it
seeks to target these individuals for criminal prosecution… This policy has the added
benefit of bolstering community-police relations because it avoids harassing innocent
bystanders, and places emphasis on actual criminals.”
This article focuses the most on systemic bias out of all of my sources.
DeFilippis argues that stop and frisk does more harm than good because it hurts the
relationship between police and black communities by stopping and harassing
innocent people in black communities. I consider this systemic racial bias because it
is legislation/strategy that the police use. That said, this legislation instructs all police
officers, whether they are racially biased or not, to stop and frisk minorities. Instead
DeFilippis suggests police use an approach called “focused deterrence,” which strictly
focuses on stopping the select group of young men who commit the majority of
violent crimes. This is tied to socioeconomics because stop and frisk policies focus on
stopping minorities in poor neighborhoods as opposed to patrolling all
neighborhoods and stopping people of all races equally.
How socioeconomics influences
individual & systemic racial bias:
‘Police Culture’ at Work: Making Sense of Police Oversight
“Her findings reinforce that police culture is often presumed a monolith because, it is
argued, the core police ‘function’ remains largely unchanged over time and across
space: police are appointed a unique position in the law, hold a monopoly on the
sanctioned use of coercive force and are obligated to perform society’s ‘dirty work’ on
a routine basis.”
This journal article looks at the different typologies of individual officers and the
culture within police departments. The article argues that it is evident that police mistreat poor
people, especially blacks, because the police have a unique “monopoly” of power that allows
them to act in ways that may or may not be legal and then justify their actions later, if they are
caught doing something wrong. I think this article proposes an interesting idea about why black
people are mistreated by police, which is related to socioeconomics. Since blacks are
disproportionately poor and thus less educated, police officers, who already have few
restrictions against their power, think they can get away with mistreating blacks. Due to the
disproportionate number of black people who are of low socioeconomic status, police feel
comfortable with abusing black peoples’ rights because they know that the systemic bias, which
exists in our country, will most likely not stand up for blacks who are mistreated. Essentially,
the police know that they can easily arrest poor blacks because they most likely do not know
their full rights (lack of education) and even if they did and were to complain, there would be
little, if not anything, done to correct the incident. This source acknowledges both individual
and systemic racial bias, but puts more of the blame on individual police officers since they are
ultimately the ones who decide to stop, arrest or abuse a minority’s rights.
Racial Profiling
Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime
“Johnson noted that because the community refuses to condemn such criminal behavior, the
deterrent effect of condemning or reporting such behavior is not present and thus implicitly
‘endorses either the behavior itself or supports its members against the unique social system.
These new crimes worsen the differential involvement of the group in criminal activity, and
hence, the over-representation of the group in the criminal justice system.” (Gabbidon 95)
“psychology research showing that, among black defendants, those with more Afrocentric facial
features receive harsher sentences than those defendants with less Afrocentric features”
(Gabbidon 118)
When black men are constantly being labeled as criminals by the society
they live in, they begin to embody these labels, especially if they are denied
accessibility to things in society, such as quality education or meaningful
employment. According to Gabbidon, the community not condemning these crimes
makes the situation worse. The black community tends not to condemn these actions
because they are mistreated in the criminal justice system and thus see it as “us
versus them.” Gabbidon also argues that blacks with more Afrocentric features are
more likely to be mistreated in the criminal justice system, which shows how
extensively officials within the criminal justice profile black Americans. Profiling is
more systemic because it is a strategy used by just about all police.
Racial Profiling
Black Skin, White Justice: Race Matters in the Criminal
Justice System
“The profiles purport to describe common characteristics of drug
couriers by basically encouraging officers to stop, at random and with no
reasonable suspicion, people of color (usually Black males) traveling on
Interstate 95 and engage in a search of both the vehicle and passenger.
While just a small percentage of the motorists traveling the highway were
black . . . blacks constituted nearly two-thirds of the detainments.”
In this article Highsmith shows how racially biased the police are
by providing some specific insights into how police use profiling to
unfairly target black men more than others. In the example given in the
article, police use profiling to describe common characteristics of drug
couriers travelling on a highway in Florida, which usually describe young
black men. However, no white people were profiled even though the
majority of drug abusers in the county were white. This example of
systemic racial bias also shows the bias of police to pursue criminals who
commit relatively small crimes.
Racial Profiling
Discrimination, arrest history, and major depressive
disorder in the U.S. Black population
“Our findings suggest that mental health prevention and
treatment programs that provide services to the Black
population in the US, specifically those with major depressive
disorder, should also target individuals with an arrest history
and/or those who have experienced discrimination,
environments that may increase the probability of arrest.”
This study points to the profiling of blacks as a major cause of
depressive orders, which lead many black men to remain poor
throughout their lives while constantly in and out of jail. The authors
suggest that these depressive disorders are not only caused by police
profiling, but also general mistreatment and profiling throughout our
entire society. The mistreatment and profiling by society overall
includes the way many people view black men as “thugs.”
Racial Profiling
The salience of skin tone: effects on the exercise of police
enforcement authority
“Skin tone differentials affect many different aspects of the lives of
blacks and Latinos in the USA. Black men and women with lighter
skin have, on average, more education and more income than their
darker skinned peers.” (Karletta 994)
Karletta White found that the skin tone of black people
determines the degree to which they are profiled by police and
generally mistreated in society. As mentioned before, lighter skin is
seen as more innocent while those who have darker skin are viewed
negatively by police and many citizens in general. This is related to
systemic racial bias because it is an institutionalized belief that can be
seen throughout US society, which effects how people in the US view
black people.
Racial Profiling
Police Killings of Blacks: Here Is What the Data Say
“But what the data does suggest is that eliminating the biases of all police officers
would do little to materially reduce the total number of African-American
killings. Police bias may well be a significant problem, but in accounting for why
some of these encounters turn into killings, it is swamped by other, bigger
problems that plague our society, our economy and our criminal justice system.”
“Police killings are a race problem: African-Americans are being killed
disproportionately and by a wide margin. And police bias may be responsible.
But this data does not prove that biased police officers are more likely to shoot
blacks in any given encounter.Instead, there is another possibility: It is simply
that — for reasons that may well include police bias — African-Americans have a
very large number of encounters with police officers.”
In this article by Harvard economics professor, Sendhil
Mullainathan acknowledges that there is biased profiling by police in
our society, but sees the structure of our society as the main problem,
not individual officers, because institutions in our society create the
laws that are racially biased.
Racial Profiling
The NYPD Officers Who See Racial Bias in the NYPD
“Around the same time, Adil Palonco, born in the Dominican
Republic, was secretly recording his superior officers in the
Bronx to document that ‘supervisors constantly harangued cops
to hit quotas for arrests, summonses, and stop-and-frisks, even
when it meant harassing innocent civilians who were doing
nothing wrong.’”
In this article the NYPD uses “stop and frisk” as their form of
profiling. The NYPD stops younger minority males in hope of being
able to find something illegal that they have done. This policy
essentially gives NYPD officers the ability to stop any person for any
reason so that they’re able to fill arrest quotas. These arrest quotas are
used by governments to see if police departments are being effective.
The stop and frisk strategy is a systemic issue because the policy
specifically profiles minorities, including young black men.
Racial Profiling
Skin Color Is Not a Crime: Why Stop and Frisk Doesn’t Work
“That being said, the most sophisticated analysis on NYPD's stop-and-frisk
procedures finds that there is ‘no evidence that misdemeanor arrests reduced
levels of homicide, robbery, or aggravated assaults.’”
“Another popular approach is called ‘focused deterrence,’ which is more-or-less
the opposite of stop-and-frisk. This approach operates from the standpoint that
there is a small proportion of young men responsible for the majority of violent
crime, and it seeks to target these individuals for criminal prosecution… This
policy has the added benefit of bolstering community-police relations because it
avoids harassing innocent bystanders, and places emphasis on actual criminals.”
Evan DeFilippis attacks the NYPD’s stop and frisk strategies, citing
studies that conclude that stop and frisk does not lower violent crimes.
Rather than hurting community relations DeFilippis suggests that police use
“focused deterrence,” which is a strategy that focuses on stopping the select
group of young men who commit the majority of violent crimes.
Racial Profiling
‘Police Culture’ at Work: Making Sense of Police Oversight
“study culture with a focus on the symbolic ‘means’, which Swidler
(1986) identifies as one’s ‘tool kit’ or ‘repertoire’ of skills, styles and habits—a
set of resources—which people may use in varying configurations to
problem-solve and make sense of everyday life… Like Swidler, neoinstitutionalists ‘view culture as the symbolic-expressive aspect of human
behaviour’, which are ‘not confined to the subjective, inner thoughts or
values of individuals or to some amorphous notion of a collective
consciousness’ (Scott 1991: 168). Rather, culture is a ‘resource’ that serves as
link between structure and action.”
This article doesn’t explicitly address profiling. The study argues that
culture within police forces determine how individual officers act on the job. This
means that if a given police force practices racially profiling people then the
officers within that police force, even if they are not racially biased, will feel
forced to profile based on race in order to fit the culture of the institution. Since
this has to do with culture, I would consider this a form of systemic racial bias.