Since the era of slave shipment from Africa, there exist a widespread perception about what people think of the crime rate and the race of the person committing the crime. The blacks have been for a long period, due to the feature of the culture of the white people, been linked with higher rates of crime. This stereotyping has arisen due to pure skin color and has been extended beyond the citizens’ level to the authorities’ level. It is common to see police officers who are expected to remain neutral while executing their duties having biased opinions about the possibility of different people committing crimes. Mostly; they will associate the black skinned people especially the youth boys with higher chances of committing a crime more than their fellow white counterparts.

Background

The perception about the blacks being mostly involved in most of the crimes has evolved with time. Originally, most of the black people were associated with low class levels which translated that they had a difficult time in surviving. For this reason, they were mostly involved in unclean businesses that involved smuggling from the rich. However, even after the black people developed and started having stable economic framework, the perception about their association with crime did not change, and it is for this reason that there many cases of continued perception of the high crime rate committed by the blacks. The whites used the backs as the commodities for trade exploiting them. In justification for their actions, the whites claimed that the blacks were criminals who had to be punished so that they were discouraged to perform more crimes, with time, this perception changed as there were more people who were born to both African and white couples. The perception was extended to a half black people who were seen, just like the purely Africans, as criminals who needed to be punished.

The biggest reason for stereotyping people according to their skin color is a common belief that some people are more civilized than the others. Most people will have the belief that white people are more civilized than the black people (Thernstrom, 1997). There has been a widespread argument that people are prone to the crimes according to their physical states which include skin color and physical size. The origin of the racial discrimination originated in the slavery era. The whites

As a result of this mentality about black people being gangsters, there has been a rise in crime rates as the idea about the crimes settles in the minds of the black people. The black people will mostly take part in violent activities as a result of the society having the mentality of their violence beforehand.

The widespread perception about the rate of crime prompted a research to be conducted seeking to explain the relationship between the crime rate and race of an individual. For this reason, a research was conducted across all major UK prisons determining the number of the people in the jail and their race. Research shows that the white population, which makes up 95% of the UK population, made up 82% of the jail population while the rest who were the blacks and Asian who only contributed the 5% of the UK population made up 8% of the total jail population. The results proved that the minority groups which are mostly the blacks are mostly over-represented in the jails.

The over representation of the blacks in the jails contributing 8% of the total jail population yet they represent 5% of the population is what prompted this research in a bid to explain why the number of black people would be that high in jails yet everybody in the society is prone to crime. From the research results that were released, it is clear that members of the black community are more likely to engage in crime than their fellow whites. The research would like to establish the credibility of these findings so as to establish whether the above claims are true or not.

As much as both the blacks and the white people have the same level of vulnerability to crime, it was found that black people have higher chances of being taken as the perpetrators of crime. While the findings might be true, it was found that the police force is the first major discriminatory unit which will be more discriminative for the back boys than the white boys (Thernstrom, 1997). The police will be more willing to prosecute the black people twice more than they may be willing to bring the white boys in the book as the term it to be easier to provide evidence to the relevant authorities against the blacks more than the whites. The police racial stereotyping has played a major role in the number of black people that have been prosecuted as some cases are tried with insufficient evidence of their crimes.

On this connection, there has been a widespread view that the blacks are more involved in the crimes more than their fellow white boys in an attempt to continue with the anti-colonial struggle. The thought was held for a very long time with the whites terming thee blacks as enemies since they were continuing with their struggle for independence and fighting for status quo (Nelson, 2009). However, it was noted that support against the continued fighting for independence is the fact that most of the crime cases conducted by the blacks were against fellow black people. It is clear that most of the blacks will live as a community on certain designated places away from others. For this reason, they mostly only interact with fellow black people. The crimes committed will be against their fellow black people of which they are not for robbery scenes as previous studies had suggested but rather the crimes committed will range from robbery to violence cases.

There has been also some explanation as to which most of the black people engage in the crime activities. Previously the high crime rate had been attributed to the laziness of the black people. The black people are perceived as lazy who cannot work for themselves and hence decide to settle on crime. However, it has been established that the high rate of crime has been attributed to the lack of jobs. Most black people suffer this phenomenon where they do not secure jobs tha6 can maintain their lifestyle. Research has confirmed that the high rate of unemployment comes about due to discrimination. Most employers have not been able to appreciate the ability of the young black boys with the ability they poses (Nelson, 2009). They will associate the black boys with crime and hence they will not hire them. As a result of the disappointment, most black people will resolve to other means of getting their income, some of the means might be legitimate while others might be illegitimate which will land them to the prisons.

Another factor attributed to rise on criminal activities among the blacks is the fact that there is generalization of people as a result of performance of one individual. Different people will behave differently and for this reason, it has been clear that people will have different behaviors while put under different conditions. However, many people have failed to realize this; they do a mistake by failing to realize that past mistakes are not supposed to have influence on the current judgment of an individual. However, this has not been the case. Many individuals who have suffered in the hands of black people are more likely to have a negative perception about the black people than those that have not suffered the same.

Police officers are not fair in their arrests while on duty and off duty. The unfairness can be mostly attributed to the few cases of rough ups that they mostly face from the black people. There is a perception that black guys are more likely to be violent while dealing with the police officers when arrested than a white boy is likely to be (Higginbotham, 1978). For this reason, police officers will mostly develop a negative attitude towards the black people as they term them as more violent than the average white boys. Out of this reason, a police officer is five times more likely to arrest a black guy if suspected of doing a crime more than he would like to arrest a white boy.

There has been a perception that more black boys are involved in crimes more than the white boys because they get arrested more than the white boys. The perception was supported by the only fact that there will be more job differences that they acquire. While most of the white boys will acquire white collar jobs and due to the racial discrimination that is present in most places, the blacks will acquire the blue collar jobs. However, this does not make the white boys clean from crime. Most of the white boys will are involved in malpractices in the course of their employment (Duncan, 1976). The white people are mostly involved in corporate crimes where they will fraud the company some money. In a society, this is viewed as more acceptable than the black boys who will be involved in physical crime that might result to physical injuries.

Most organizations have institutional racism where the whole organization will fail to provide their services with no biases. Most organizations will offer services on discriminatory grounds where they offer their services better to the white skinned people more than the black people. As an example to this case, an enquiry that was set to investigate the case of Stephen Lawrence who was a black Briton who was murdered concluded that the police institution was institutionally racist as they failed to conclude their investigation in a manner that was to suggest that they had been fair on their activities. There have been also many cases of discrimination within the police departments; most of the black officers have accused the top white officers of either sidelining them or discriminating them while assigning their duties (Higginbotham, 1978).

In UK, police officers have the power to stop and search anybody they suspect is likely to commit a crime. Besides the notoriously known white boys, there is a higher chance that the rest of the people that the police officers will stop will be black people. For no particular reason, the police officers seem to have a greater suspicion to the black individuals more than they have to the white individuals. Basing on the evidence, it is clear that officers will most likely get the black people off-guard with some suspicious items of which they did not necessarily have with plans to carry out any form of crime. If found with some form of suspicious items, they will have lower chances that they can explain themselves to the police officers who will have mostly made up their mind. The perception about the black people being more involved in crime has led to more black people that have been arrested as more police officers continue developing a negative attitude towards the blacks than towards the whites.

The stereotyping of the black people in violence is further fuelled by the misrepresentation of the picture of crime by the media. Most people will depend on the media to get their updates on what is happening around them, for this reason, it becomes an integral source of information. However, the media has not been up to its role, the media has reported the statistics beyond the official figures (King, 2000). Despite being the most reliable source of information even more reliable than the government, they will mostly inflate the values that they release to the public so as to create a negative image of the black people in the minds of the whites. The discrimination further widens the gap between the white and the blacks with whites terming the blacks as criminals while the blacks feel secluded from the discrimination.

Poor grades in school are attributed as a major factor why the blacks will result in streets most of the time. Due to some form of discrimination in school, children will be poor performers in school and for this; they will opt to be involved in crime rather than specialize in reading. Whereas claim of poor performance has some sense of truth in it, it is clear that that is stereotyping the blacks. Most of the black people will be bright in class, and whereas some might be unsuccessful in securing jobs due to racial discrimination, the still excel in books.

Positive Steps towards Handling Discrimination

There exists few cases where the holder of a particular position will be required to be from a particular race but most of the jobs will offer equal opportunities to people from all races. Such cases that require a person to be from a particular race will be an occupational requirement on the rare cases where the services to be offered by that particular individual will be limited to a particular location and for this reason, it will be required that the person handling the service be from the neighborhood.

Racial discrimination is a crime enforceable by law. The law forbids any individual against discriminating each other on the basis of the race. The law will prevent any discrimination against any form, and there is a clear remedy to the person affected especially the black people who have for the most times been affected by the racial discrimination. The discrimination can range from, selective hiring on firms, unfair promotions and such scenarios.

The major remedy to the discrimination especially during job interviews and hiring is practicing free and fair interviews. Most of the black guys are turned away by the fact that most employers are racist and will underestimate their efforts by doubting their capacity to perform the duties. For this reason, the black people will be discouraged from a young level as even the children have no hope to the betterment of the condition. After realizing how hard it will be for them to make it with the job industry, they will mostly get discouraged and as a result, they will drop out of school. From the discouragement, they will be involved in various crimes that will further fuel the gap between the blacks and the white folks.

Public education can also be of great importance. As much as many of the people have grounds to believe that the blacks are criminals due to their past experiences, others pick up that theory out of ignorance. Many people will assume that the black people are criminals with no particular basis for their assumption (Duncan, 1976). Due to this, it is important to hold public meetings and also spearhead sensitization of the people about the similarity of different people no matter their skin color.

The police department has been worst hit by the racism issue with the police officers accusing most of the black people of committing crimes. The police officers will also use the fact that a person is black to raise their suspicions on the prevalence of crime commitment (King, 2000). To avoid the prejudice of the police towards the black people, the best thing to do is to equip the police officers with better ways and equipment for crime detection. The crime detection equipment can be particularly important to the police department as it will eliminate the police officers subjectivity in deciding the likelihood of a person to commit a crime.

In order to have a racism allegation case listened to, one has to pay a particular amount of a fee. Charging to report a case is fundamentally wrong since racism is a basic violation of human right which should be treated just like any other violation. For this reason, I would recommend that the fee that is charged to have a racism case listened to, removed and make it free of charge to present a racism case. Wavering of the fee of reporting a racism case will have a positive effect since more people will bring their cases to light, of which many have failed to bring up their issues due to high amounts of money required (Higginbotham, 1978).

There should be strict punishments for the offenders. There are notorious racists who will do the act repeatedly no matter what level of assurance about the black people they have. To cater for such people, there must be established clear rules of punishment and remedies for those that are involved. The racist people should receive heavy punishment such as termination in case it is a company setting or even prosecution if the person in question feels that he, or she was affected negatively and the effects are enough to have caused damages (Nelson, 2009).

The complainer should be respected when reporting of affected by the racism situation. Racial discrimination will on limited cases have tangible evidence, and hence most of the cases will involve the use of the word of mouth. Mouth messages are distorted before reaching those in a position to judge, and it is for this reason that the party handling the issue should be rational. The officer involved should respect those affected as they are the one feeling the impact and the effects may sometimes not be physical, but rather both emotional and psychological.

Education to the parties that are more prone to the discrimination can be a helpful tool. Most of the parties that suffer racial discrimination will not be aware of their rights and responsibilities. It is the role of the necessary authorities to make it known to them of their rights and responsibilities. The authorities should teach the victims on the available remedies if faced buy racial discrimination and the proper channels which they can follow up for them to acquire their justice.

Since most of the discrimination is verbal or by simple acts, it is particularly challenging to determine what were the actual events that occurred. For this reason, if faced with a decision to decide on the justification of a particular act or words (King, 2000). The party looking at it should look for other ideas to establish the truth. Other methods that might be used will involve checking whether a person was supposed to be in a position where the act took place and other ways.

 

References

Duncan, B, 1976. Differential social perception and attribution of intergroup violence: Testing

the lower limits of stereotyping of Blacks. Journal of personality and social psychology, vol 34 no4, p.590.

Equality Act 2010: guidance – Detailed guidance – GOV.UK. 2014. [online] Gov.uk. Available

at: <https://www.gov.uk/equality-act-2010-guidance> [Accessed 21 Apr. 2014].

Higginbotham, A, 1978.In the matter of color. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

King, P, 2000. Crime, justice, and discretion in England, 1740-1820. 1st ed. Oxford [UK]:

Oxford University Press.

Nelson, T, 2009. Handbook of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. 1st ed. New York:

Psychology Press.

Thernstrom, S. and Thernstrom, A, 1997.America in black and white. 1st ed. New York, NY:

Simon & Schuster.

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