Racism in Police Departments

Many Americans simply believe that racism is a thing of the past and that the integrated police departments are not bastions of racism as some critics charge. As the O.J. simpson case showed, however, the perception of blacks as opposed to whites can be very different when viewing an institution of social control such as the police. The racism of the past had as its method and its result segregation, keeping the races separate. This was replaced by the doctrine of separate but equal--blacks were still segregated, but they were supposed to be treated equally in their separation by government, as in the public schools. Integration was the method used by reformers to force the end of segregation. Discrimination continued, though, as individuals and groups would discriminate agai

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--the incident was videotaped, and American were appalled to see the fervor of the beating with police batons. The Christopher Commission was formed to investigate this matter and examined the question of racism and bias as it might affect the use of excessive force in cases like that of Rodney King. The Commission first notes the difference in perception between blacks and whites concerning the role of the police: Within the minority communities of Los Angeles, there is a widely-held view that police misconduct is commonplace. The King beating refocused public attention on long-standing complaints by African-Americans, Latinos and Asians that LAPD officers frequently treat minorities differently from whites. . . (Christopher Commission, 1991, 70). The Commission also notes that racism had been charged against the Los Angeles police before after the Watts riots and that it had been shown that there was a deep and long-lasting schism between much of the black community and the Police Department. As part of the Rodney King case, it was demonstrated that the police had commonly used racial epithets and racist language in communicating with one another over the police communications system, the MDT system: The officers typing th
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Approximate Word count = 2456
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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