Justice
This is an excerpt from the paper...
The Court’s authority—possessed of neither the purse nor the sword—ultimately rests on substantial public confidence in its moral sanctions. The issue of justice is complex and any effort to deduce whether justice in the U.S. is fair or foul not an easy one. When the issue of justice is race and traffic stops, many individuals in the U.S. are divided as to whether justice is fair. Typically, law enforcement agencies, some legislators and those who support them believe traffic stops are made based on actions not skin color. However, also as typically, minorities, groups like the ACLU who support justice, and some legislators and those who support them believe traffic stops are subject to racism and the color of a driver’s skin. The debate has become so entrenched in the national consciousness and vocal on both sides of the issue, that many state governments and the federal government have proposed or passed legislation. Some of this legislation is aimed at eliminating race as an aspect of traffic stops, while other legislation is devoted to giving police more power to stop and search drivers. When it comes to justice being fair on this issue, does race play a role in traffic stops? Many blacks and Latinos contend they are regularly pulled over by police officers with their only crime being their race and the color of their skin. Law enforcement agents argue actions not skin color prompt traffic stops. The following
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hat the majority of robberies are committed by black males. I’m playing the odds.”
Justice is supposed to be blind but this viewpoint certainly seems to have minority-colored glasses on when it comes to viewing crime and making traffic stops. In fact, the officers in this article admit that most officers they work with believe the same thing and do the same thing, but they are afraid to discuss the issue because they feel people unfairly target them as racists when they are just going with the odds and basing their perceptions on personal experience. From this viewpoint we can see how those who are supposed to administer justice equally and fairly often allow their viewpoints to become biased based on their own limited personal experiences. One officer argues that the only reason he stops drivers is based on behavior, but then immediately causes this to be suspect when he explains his views on black drivers, “Behavior is why I stop people. But, when I see a person acting suspiciously, more often than not they’re black males. Other officers are scared to say it because they don’t want to be labeled a racist. To be honest, my sense of suspicion is greater towards black males than any other race of people—not Asian males, no
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Shadows Police, Felix Frankfurter, Scully Darden, Viewpoints Courts, House Bill, Ann Bowman, Portland Democrat, Christopher Darden, African-American Latino, Christopher Dardens, traffic stops, law enforcement, skin color, black males, probable cause, police officers, race traffic stops, enforcement officials, race traffic, racial profiling, scully argues, law enforcement officials, law enforcement agencies, believe traffic stops, racial profiling exists,
Approximate Word count = 2289
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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