Proposed Action Plan to End Police Discrimination Essay

Proposed Action Plan to End Police Discrimination - Essay Example (CNN.com, 1). Tabatabainejad may or may not have been justified in his actions, but from the videotape of the event, it appears that the police were certainly not justified in their actions. Campus police spokeswoman Nancy Greenstein commented, "This is a long-standing library policy to ensure the safety of students during the late-night hours" (CNN.com). But one wonders if this is actually the case. Would the police have treated a white male in the same way We are also seeing this same kind of behavior occurring within our own police force. The only way this problem can be stopped is by creating a plan of action that would require a major overhaul in the way the police officers of this city think about the people in the community, and vice versa. The needs assessment for this plan is described below. Recently, the police department has been under fire for its rough treatment of students of color during protests on the college campus. In fact, this type of police-student interaction has increased almost 75 percent in the past year. On the other hand, police violence against white students during protests has decreased 50 percent in the same period of time. Obviously, there is a disparity here that needs to be addressed. Our officers routinely neglect the investigation of crimes committed against minority groups so that they can spend more time on crimes against white people. They do not even respond to calls from minority neighborhoods in a timely manner. Of the 5,000 emergency calls the department received over the past year, 1,500 were from white citizens, while 3,500 were from minority citizens (black, Hispanic, Asian, and Middle Eastern). Ninety percent of the 1,500 white citizens' calls were responded to within a day, with an average of 50 police work hours going into investigating each of these calls. Only 30 percent of the 3,500 minority calls were responded to within a day, with an average of about 12 work hours put forth toward the investigation of these calls. This represents a serious neglect of duty when it comes to making sure that the safety needs of all citizens are addressed. Problem 3: Police harassment of minority owned and frequented businesses The department gets calls all the time from minority-owned and frequented businesses about the lack of respect, and the amount of grief, they get from the neighborhood officers. Over the past year, these incidents have increased 50-60 percent. It is unclear whether this really reflects a shift in police actions, since the number of minority-owned businesses in the community has also increased significantly. Still, it represents a disturbing trend. Problem 4: Racial slurs directed toward minority communities The officers on this force have, at times, been known to speak to Hispanics and other minority groups using derogatory language and racial slurs. Hundreds of calls have been received from concerned citizens about this issue. These incidents represent an increase of about ten percent over the past year, but this does not even reflect the number of remarks that go unnoticed or unreported. It is likely that there are many such cases. Sadly, this discriminatory