Multicultural Issues in Policing for

Multicultural Issues in Policing For the past 40 years, law enforcement in the United States has been accused of being ethnocentric and unable to accommodate cultures other than Caucasian white. In a country founded by ethnic groups and immigrants, it is difficult to conceive of a practice that is so insensitive to the needs of other cultures. In order to be an effective law enforcement officer one must understand other cultures in a personal way that goes beyond language barriers.

This research will examine cultural issues related to the law enforcement and issues that may affect the ability to deliver fair and just law enforcement for all cultures. Understanding Cultural Differences The formal definition of culture refers to a shared system of beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and the means that a group of people use to adjust to their world and others around them. Cultures are typically defined by their traits that make them different from other groups. All cultures have similarities and differences.

Culture refers to the uniqueness of each and every group. It may include the way they dress, the foods that they eat, family structure, and moral values. Often other cultures are judged only by those things that are easily observable, such as the way they dress, their language, or the foods that they eat. However, cultural differences may not be as apparent on the outside and the necessity of cultural understanding may be missed by an officer.

The ability to recognize what constitutes a multicultural experience and to recognize the diversity that exists is the first step to understanding differences. During the 1960s the United States was called the "melting pot." There is a general belief that the various cultures and races that made up the United States had blended together in such a way that they represented a sing unique culture. The difficulty with this way of thinking is that it implied that cultural differences had disappeared.

This process is called acculturation Where one culture dominates the other in such a way that the less aggressive disappears so they can they cannot be distinguished from the dominant culture. Conquerors often wish to acculturate those that they seek to control. In the United States it was believed that cultures other than Caucasian white had all but disappeared. It was believed that we were all "Americans" regardless of where we came from or any other differences that we may have.

The following survey results indicate how people indicated that they feel about racial profiling in recent years. Data Source: Gallup Pollls. In Jeffereson, a. (2003). As one can see, blacks feel that racial profiling exists much more than the white population. National averages are closer to the white population. This may reflect bias in the survey, or may indicate that the white culture dominates in this respect. Either way, this survey demonstrates a high degree of bias in the results.

The struggle in America has been for cultures to retain their identity and their uniqueness that ties them together. Many cultures resisted acculturation fervently and managed to keep their own identity to various degrees. There are many groups with an America that have resisted acculturation and retain much of their original culture. However, there is an expectation that all cultures will abide by certain customs at the expense of giving up some of the values that they truly believe.

There are several sources of cultural bias that could affect the judgment of a police officer. Every one is a member of different cultures in various areas of their lives. There are a part of their ethnic background, the culture of the nation in which they live, their regional culture, and the culture of their community (McDonald, 2001). They are also influenced by their religious culture, family culture, and other social activities.

Every organization has its own culture including the way members address each other, and what is considered acceptable behavior within the organization. Organizations embody a certain set of values that form the expectations of their members. Personal beliefs may also affect cultural understanding among the police officer. Understanding how these various levels and sources of cultural bias come together to create an understanding of a particular situation is the first part in being able to eliminate cultural bias in officer judgment.

Racism is learned from the community in which one lives (Coderoni, 2002). Often people are not aware that their viewpoints represent racism. In order to understand how cultural differences affect one's own personal beliefs and perceptions of others one must be able to step back and look at things from the other person's point-of-view. Police officers come from the community in which they work (Coderoni, 2002). Many times racial tensions are reflected in the biases of officers on the streets.

Training and cultural diversity must reflect the values and viewpoints of the local community in which the officer operates. For instance, diversity and cultural awareness and programs must reflect the minorities that are present within the community. They must specifically address issues that concern the dominant minority culture within the area. Law Enforcement and Community Relations Law enforcement must abide by certain standards and principles that are designed to make certain that every one is treated equally in the eyes of the law.

However, the law tends to reflect the culture of those that wrote it. Many times minority cultures may have practices and customs that appear to be in violation of the predominant law. As police officers one must learn to make the distinction between what is against the law in what is merely a cultural difference in interpretation.

The ability to do this is often difficult and it is the responsibility of every officer to educate themselves about other cultures and customs so that their judgment will be fair and equitable in their daily practice. Lawsuits over racial discrimination have a high price for law enforcement officials. It is the job of the police officer to make certain that civil order is maintained. The main concern is that human lives are protected and that the people can remain free from personal injury or property loss.

Maintaining the balance requires training and management of cultural diversity issues (Coderoni, 2002). Cultural diversity is an issue that affects every branch of the legal justice system. However, the police officer on the street is what the people see on a daily basis. The police officer on the street presents the image that the public will hold in their minds when they think of the law. The police officer must hold themselves to higher standards than those in other parts of the legal justice system.

What they do and how they act influences how the public perceives the government, and society as a whole. Racial profiling has become one of the hottest topics in the subject of cultural diversity and law enforcement. Racial profiling occurs when a police officer makes a judgment about an individual without any reason for suspicion other than the color of their skin or other clues about epic background or socioeconomic status.

As America becomes more culturally integrated the importance of recognizing our sameness rather than a differences becomes more important (Coderoni, 2002). Racial profiling damages the relationship between the police and the community. It damage is public trust and confidence in the ability of officers to maintain the peace (Coderoni, 2002). Racial profiling makes innocent citizens fearful of the law and law enforcement officers. Racial profiling builds animosity towards law enforcement, even among races that are not typically the target of profiling activities.

The African-American community has been the most obvious victim of racial profiling. This is largely because they can be easily distinguished by the color of their skin. There are many social prejudices that are imbedded in our society dating back to the days of the civil war. Although the 1964 Civil Rights Act made it illegal to discriminate based on the color of a person's skin, but it is difficult to erase 200 years of social memory. Often officers are unaware of these hidden biases within themselves (Smith, Makarios, and Aplert, 2006).

Perhaps one of the most important events to draw attention to the problem of racial profiling is the Rodney King case. It is difficult to understand how the officers could be acquitted of such a senseless act. However, more importantly, is the negative impact that it had on minority relations, not only in the Los Angeles area but across the entire country (Coderoni, 2002). Public trust is hard to attain and maintain. One must constantly to work at maintaining a good public image.

It is easier to lose public trust and even harder to get it back once it is lost (Coderoni, 2002). The Rodney King case did more to destroy public trust than any single incident in the history of law enforcement. After this important case became public knowledge more people started speaking out in cities across the nation about similar incidents. It soon became known that incidents such as this take place more often than any law enforcement agency wishes to admit.

It became apparent that we have a serious problem in this country and that this problem could undermine attempts to build bridges between different cultural groups. It became an issue at the forefront of law enforcement management. The Roots of Racial Profiling Police officers used to be trained to view people of different cultural background as potential suspects for deportation. It went so far that in 1972 taxi drivers in California were ordered to report any suspected illegal aliens to the police (McDonald, 2003).

Orders such as these led to the definition that being "American" meant having the same skin color and speaking English as a primary language. The civil rights movement empowered immigrants to voice their opinions based on their racial differences (McDonald, 2003). In 1983 police departments reversed its position and officially announced that they would no longer cooperate with the INS with the removal of the legal aliens (McDonald, 2003). The change in position on immigrants is largely a part of a growing immigrant population.

As immigrants begin to make up a larger portion of the population it becomes necessary to gain their trust and cooperation as much as that of natural citizens. This change in attitude towards racial profiling and immigrants has arisen out of necessity. Police must now place more emphasis on understanding the specific needs of various segments of the population. For instance, in Los Angeles Korean refugees did not understand that it was against the law for them to fish in a local lake without a license (McDonald, 2003).

Immigrants from El Salvador did not think it was acceptable to use the restroom on a public sidewalk. Middle Eastern immigrants do not see a problem with marrying off their teenage daughters at an early age to men that are considered adults in this country (McDonald, 2003). Situations like these arise in immigrant populations on a more frequent basis. Officers need to understand the reasoning for these actions and treat them with dignity and respect, rather than treating them as if they are criminals.

These immigrants did not mean to break the law they simply did not understand the culture and laws in this country. These situations required education rather than punishment. Approaching the situation from the perspective of education rather than punishment helps to build trust among immigrant communities rather than mistrust. The real difficulty for police officers is in trying to decide when race is a legitimate and valid reason to pursue certain individuals such as in the suspects in the bombings of the World Trade Towers.

In this case cultural differences were at the heart of illegal activities. Officers must be culturally aware, but the public now sees their role in a much different light than they did in the past. Police departments have taken positive measures to try to curb unnecessary racial profiling through diversity training that includes knowledge of cultures other than their own. They have reversed their position on helping the INS in the removal of illegal aliens.

As we become a more racially integrated society officers have responsibility to learn to eliminate have their own personal biases and to judge people on their actions alone. Racial Profiling and the Muslim Community On September 11, 2001 attitudes from the community and law enforcement about racial profiling began being questioned for different reasons. It was on this day that we learned about an enemy within. Ideas about race and ethnicity changed when America learned that 28 of the 28 suspects responsible for the attack on the World Trade Towers were middle eastern males.

Americans insisted that airlines remove people of obvious middle eastern descent from airplanes (Mayer, 2001). It now seemed as if the American public itself was profiling people of middle eastern descent (Harris, 2002). A country that once welcomed immigrants from any nation with open arms now had turned hostile against an entire race because of the actions of a few.

Law enforcement still condemned the practice of racial profiling, yet after the attacks of September 11, 2001 FBI agents detained and questioned hundreds of people on the basis of their race or religion alone (Holland, 2001). A new fear based on racial bias had been born in America, one which seemed to contradict the very roots of the civil rights movement. It now seemed as if racial bias was tolerable under certain conditions. Movement across national borders has become easier in countries all around the globe.

Societies that were once dominated by one ethnic group are quickly becoming a mix society of immigrants (McDonald, 2003). Racial tolerance has become the norm and immigrants are now seen in a different light than they were in the past. One of the traditional roles of law enforcement was to help the Federal immigration and naturalization service (INS) with enforcement of immigration laws.

However, in 1996 a survey revealed that almost none of the 17,000 state and local law enforcement agencies in the United States were willing to assist with the enforcement of immigration laws (McDonald, 2003). This represents a dramatic shift in ideology. The difference between racial profiling that followed September 11 is that police knew that the Muslims that committed the attack were working directly under the orders of Osama bin Laden.

They were not looking for people of middle eastern descent in general, but were specifically on the trail of those that they knew may be connected with the terrorist group. Their search of middle eastern people was not racially based, but was based on specific knowledge that they had about the demographics and characteristics of the group that had promised to carry out more vicious attacks unless they were stopped.

The purpose of the search was not to say that all middle eastern people were suspicious, but it was simply a screening process to try to find those that were connected to the act. In this case racial profiling meant efficiency in finding the correct persons (Harcourt, 2004).