Disparities between races in the legal system Term Paper

Disparities between races in the legal system - Term Paper Example Targeting populations has gone so far as to include pregnant women who are drug addicted, effectively giving them no other recourse than to abort their children rather than risk jail time as services and efforts made post conception are not always considered when incarceration is considered by the legal system. The primary problem with this concept is that it appears to attack African American women over any other race, thus suggesting that the legal system is trying to encourage African American women to abort their children, rather than carrying them to term. The way in which the justice system has developed has encouraged and promoted a continuation of social problems rather than providing relief for those issues through racial profiling that diminishes the credibility of the system.Traffic Stops  Racial profiling is defined by Glover (2009) as â€Å"the use of racial and/or ethnic status as the determinant factor in decisions to stop motorists either in the absence of indicati ons of criminality or in determining who to enforce law against† (p. 11). There is a pervasive habit among law enforcement to stop drivers who appear to fall within the social groups of African American or of Hispanic descent for traffic violations, real or exaggerated, in order to investigate the nature of their business within a specified geographic location. A study done under the supervision of Dr. John Lamberth through Temple University in 1994 showed that the New Jersey police provided for an unfair.... that it appears to attack African American women over any other race, thus suggesting that the legal system is trying to encourage African American women to abort their children, rather than carrying them to term. The way in which the justice system has developed has encouraged and promoted a continuation of social problems rather than providing relief for those issues through racial profiling that diminishes the credibility of the system. Traffic Stops Racial profiling is defined by Glover (2009) as â€Å"the use of racial and/or ethnic status as the determinant factor in decisions to stop motorists either in the absence of indications of criminality or in determining who to enforce law against† (p. 11). There is a pervasive habit among law enforcement to stop drivers who appear to fall within the social groups of African American or of Hispanic descent for traffic violations, real or exaggerated, in order to investigate the nature of their business within a specified geograp hic location. A study done under the supervision of Dr. John Lamberth through Temple University in 1994 showed that the New Jersey police provided for an unfair percentage of traffic stops for people of non-Caucasian groupings. The study showed that â€Å"while African American drivers and Caucasian drivers committed roughly the same percentage of traffic violations, a startling statistic of 73.23% of the drivers stopped were African American drivers, while only 13.5% were of a different race† (Harris, 1999, 265) A Maryland lawsuit involved a defendant by the name of Robert Wilkins, a Harvard Law student, against the police department because he felt that when he was stopped by the police he and his family were unfairly processed and made to wait while drug sniffing drugs were brought to the scene