Public And Private Policing Race: A Comparative Analysis
1484 Words6 Pages
Public and private policing can at times be very distance from the public perception of their jobs. Often they portray forms of inequality-based policing due to racial profiling that they may or my not realize they are engaging in. This can be due to the fact that social views of minority groups in society, force false perceptions and over generalize these groups, thus making them larger targets by default. Many authors have taken on the task of examining these inequalities, and how both public and private police systems treat these issues. Secondly, new policies and methods have been adopted by these systems in order to hold public and private police more accountable in situations of racial profiling to help prevent these inequalities. This…show more content… This is the key thesis of Sandra Bass’s article “Policing Space, Policing Race: Social Control Imperatives and Police Discretionary Decisions”. Although her article works on minorities groups such as Latino’s, and Mexicans, her main focus is on African Americans due to their high levels of discrimination throughout history. Police discrimination against African Americans dates back to the slavery era, which comes as no surprise. Not only were they highly monitored, polices developed special task forces to further increase controllability of this minority groups. There is no wonder as to why African Americans are marginalized in present day. Police culture has developed a negative cognation around them for many decades; it is only natural that this belief system is still rooted in basic training and work experience. Secondly the development of special task forces such as the Black Codes, whose’ sole job was to regulate the domination of the African American population, contributes to the idealization of white supremacy. Bass specifically lays out the events responsible for the start of moving away from the era of segregation: the legalization of discrimination, how federal, state and local levels of governance have contributed to these patterns of social inequalities,…show more content… Many believe that public police are able to “get away” with many difference forms of injustices such as discrimination, and brutality, due to the aspect of the “he said, she said” encounters. However, it is evident that there is a new way of viewing the policy in the modern day. According to Andrew Goldsmith, the development of new technology has in turn favored the community and increased police accountability. With the emphasis on video recording available to most cellular phones, police are being video tapped in all sorts of situations that the public find to be an abuse of their power. However, seeing as many recordings do not start until the public perceives a misuse of power, these recordings often do not include many leading factors that contribute to the outcome, or deliberated conclusion of necessary action carried out by the police. This has increased police accountability, and forced police scholars to look more at this “new visibility” of the police. Goldsmith turns to the sociologists Goffman, and his conceptualization of the front and back stage performance of the social actor. Goldsmith finds it important to note that police no long only focus on their “front stage” performances, or the ways in which they appear to the public, but they must also take into consideration their “back stage” performances, “in which the performer can act ‘out of role’ in ways that