Blog #1 Criminology - Institutional Bias and Racial Profiling

Institutional Bias and Racial Profiling

  Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4th of 1968 (A&E Network, 2017).  He was the leader of a movement that began because a black woman refused to give up her seat to a white man. This stand taken by Rosa Parks made her a catalyst that initiated a movement that Dr. King later lead a nation to bring around social justice and change (A&E Network, 2017). Today, racism and prejudice still plague our nation.  One of the problems that has been in the media nearly every day is racial profiling. Our textbook describes racial profiling as; the practice of stopping and searching African Americans without probable cause and/or suspicion (Siegal, 2017:47). Due to our nation’s history, there is an institutional bias. Institutional bias is defined as, procedures rules and norms lending a positive or negative bias to certain social groups (Oxford, 2017).

The video above shows a segment from the news station The Young Turks. In that segment the news anchors talk about Chris Rock’s post on “Driving While Black”.  Chris Rock has been cataloging the times he is pulled over. At one point, they begin to talk about how Black people have to have a certain kind of car to not get pulled over and make sure they put certain details on their car: such as putting a sign on the car showing that the person is educated. The anchor suggested to his cousin to put a USD Alumni placard around his license plate. In the other video above a compilation is shown of Black’s being pulled over for no reason or scapegoat reasons. 

Per Gallup only an estimated 12.5% of the United States Population is Black (Gallup, 2001). 1 in every 15 African American men are in prison. In contrast 1 in every 106 whites are incarcerated (Gallup, 2001). 35% of jail inmates are black. 37% of prison inmates are Black (US Department of Justice, 2014).  People of color are more likely to serve jail time and receive harsher sentencing than whites. Some of these statistics are not recent but they are the most recent.

 The numbers are only climbing. As of 2010, Non-Hispanic Black males from the ages of  18-29 made up 37.2% of the young adult prison population (Child Trends Data Bank, 2012).  With the Black Lives Matter Movement came the Blue Lives Matter. The problem is not that “Blue Lives” don’t matter. It is that Blacks are being profiled and treated disproportionately to the dominant group population and the entire social group is paying the price of negative bias at an institutional level. 

Works Cited

                    Gallup, Inc. "Public Overestimates U.S. Black and Hispanic Populations." Gallup.com. N.p., 04 June 2001. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

                    "Institutional Bias - Oxford Reference." Institutional Bias - Oxford Reference. Oxford Dictionary, 17 Mar. 2017. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

                    "Martin Luther King, Jr. - Mini Biography." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 24 Feb. 2017. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

                    "Rosa Parks." Biography.com. A&E Networks Television, 18 Feb. 2016. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

                    Siegel, Larry J. Criminology: The Core. 6th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2017. Print.

                    WEITZER, RONALD, and STEVEN A. TUCH. "PERCEPTIONS OF RACIAL PROFILING: RACE, CLASS, AND PERSONAL EXPERIENCE." Criminology. Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 07 Mar. 2006. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

                    Welch, Kelly. "Sign In: Registered Users." Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. Sage Publishing, 01 Aug. 2007. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

                     "Young Adults in Jail or Prison." Child Trends. Child Trends, 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.