Reading this week’s CQ reader chapter, I found it interesting to actually place statistics around information which I had general ideas existed.  Considering the recent racial issues within our country, the activities of Black Lives Matter and the race riots included, had obviously been influenced by some type of action which raised flags amongst these offended communities, it was somewhat refreshing to put a face to these offenses.

The most interesting portion of this section was the piece regarding the success of prosecutors in convicting the police involved with these racial shootings as of late.  As far as charged litigations go, these cases are seeming dynamite, in that whatever verdict, an entire community is likely to be outraged.  This is a primary issue with the racial profiling problem, that it pits two communities, that of law enforcement and their supporters against those victimized by racial profiling. So, that a focus in moving towards progress should be education towards both communities, where everyone is given an understanding of the law, and what they can expect from their interactions with each other.

To proceed from this point, as it is evident to me from the facts given over that our law enforcement does have a racial profiling problem, is to work with law enforcement in order to find a method of enforcement, where is not nearly as much distrust between the communities, where the police are still comfortable enforcing the law.  This can be done through education primarily, simply because it will take time in order to shift the instincts which people have at their disposal, and at this time, those instincts lean towards distrust of minorities and a quick trigger finger as a consequence.  However, and this is the key issue in my mind, it would be far more damaging to law enforcement as a whole if we were to begin convicting all officers charged of these crimes, in that it would disillusion the officers from their given tasks. If this were to happen, our communities would be in much worse shape than it currently is in.  Paul Butler, Professor of Law at Butler University asserts that even though there is racial profiling taking place, this is not necessarily against the law.  If this assertion is correct, it is quite important that we do not begin locking up police officers simply to appease the protesting masses, as in the long run, this will cause an increase in the adversarial relationship between the communities involved.

Of the issues, which we’ve been speaking of in class until now, this seems to me to be the most complex, as it involves nuances within nuances.  One of the only courses of action to be taken, which costs little but may yield high results, is to increase education amongst every community involved.  Law enforcement must become comfortable interacting with these minority communities, while these communities must be made comfortable and acknowledge that generally, with very distinct outliers, the law enforcement community is simply trying to keep the public safe.  We must move towards a future where these facts are appreciated and acknowledged.