Introduction
This proposal will focus on racial profiling. It will discuss how ineffective legal racial profiling can be as it embraces alienation. Racial profiling refers to the process of singling out people based on particular characteristics including race and ethnicity among other specific traits, promoting uniqueness (Peter, Karin & Jack, 2012). The United States Constitution protects against unreasonable search and seizure. Scott Wortley is a criminologist that argues this does define racial profiling as illegal. He, therefore, asserts the process is a harmless practice that adversely affects persons with a history of breaking the law (HRC, 2013). The criminal department should therefore formulate diverse practices that can capture criminals without leading to alienation due to racial profiling (Jim, 2000). This proposal will therefore discuss various alternatives the criminal department can apply legally without promoting racial profiling and alienation. The main alternative involves acquiring a team of criminologists with skills and experience to investigate crimes in order to identify the perpetrators legally without resulting to alienation.
This proposal will therefore seek to affirm racial profiling attributes to adverse physical, social, political, and behavioral effects in the communities. The police departments across the country are however likely to object this proposal on the following grounds. Police officers rely on racial profiling to solve crimes without facing complex challenges. Thus, a team of expertise criminologists is likely to make their duties and responsibilities complex. As a result, they are likely to object the proposal on the ground that the team of criminologists will result to use of more resources and legal procedures to identify criminals a process they can describe to be cumbersome and cost ineffective. In order to overcome this resistance, the proposal will describe various decision making procedures criminologists and police officers can apply in order for each team to meet and fulfill their duties and responsibilities legally and effectively. The decision making procedures will therefore discuss cost effective practices that can be applied to identify criminals without leading to racial and ethnic alienation. The success on a short term basis should involve use of fewer resources within the criminal department in attempts to address and resolve crimes. With regards to success on a long term basis, the alternative will ensure crime rates are reduced immensely and criminals intercepted before engaging in illegal and unethical activities. This will encourage social, political, and economic integration among people from various backgrounds promoting acceptance and equality.
Mission Statement
A criminal department comprising of police officers, criminologists, and other parties tasked in reducing crime rates in the community ought to be established. The mission statement of the criminal department should involve focusing on achieving the following objectives. Foremost, the criminal department should strive at ensuring all citizens from diverse backgrounds enjoy the core promises provided through the United States Constitution equally under the protection of the law (ECRI, 2007). Consequently, the department ought to promise citizens that neither will they be searched nor undergo seizures based on racial profiles that exist currently (TLC, 2010). More so, the department should ensure communities do not resort to alienation. This will ensure members of the community support and cooperate with the department in implementing policies aimed at addressing, resolving, and reducing crimes in the country.
Ultimately, the department ought to strive in ensuring fair and impartial police services consistent with constitutional and statutory mandates are formulated and implemented. This will promote high standards of integrity and ethics as well as respect across communities embracing diversity. Consequently, positive steps can be undertaken to identify, prevent, and eliminate ethnic, gender, and racial profiling of community members leading to alienation (Jost, Rudman, Blair, Carney, Dasgupta, Glaser & Hardin, 2009).
Discussion
The criminal department received two million dollars from an asset forfeiture fund. The department was tasked in identifying how to utilize the funds as it pleases. A meeting is held among staffs within the department to identify how the funds ought to be utilized. Unfortunately, four supervisors provide different statements. The first supervisor proposes the funds to be utilized in upgrading the radios since it has been over ten years the practice has been undertaken. The second supervisor states that, it would be wise to enquire from the city manager, city council, mayor, and a town hall meeting in order to determine how to utilize the funds. The third supervisor states it would be wise to put the funds in a bank and wait for a rainy day. Lastly, the fourth supervisor requests the department to look over its strategic plans for the past ten years in order to identify the need to address using the funds (Chapter Twelve, 2015).
The first supervisor can be classified as a sequential decision-maker as he utilizes his experience to assert the radios have not been upgraded for ten years prompting the need to fulfill this mandate. The second supervisor can be classified as an Ah yes decision maker. This is because he prefers collecting large amounts of information from the city manager, city council, and mayor coupled with results acquired from a town hall meeting in order to identify a pattern on how the funds ought to be utilized. The third supervisor can be described as a simplifier decision maker. This is because he prefers to bank the funds until a need to utilize them is presented. The last supervisor can therefore be described as an Ah yes decision maker. This is because he prefers on evaluating the department’s strategic plans for the last ten years, which refers to large amounts of information in order to determine how to utilize the funds.
In order to resolve the issue on how to utilize the funds, the mayor asserted a meeting had to be held in order to assist the police department make a decision. The mayor asserted the police department had to become a community policing organization. Unfortunately, the chief believed the meeting was unnecessary as the police department was already adhering to the diverse precepts of community policing. As a result, the mayor asserted the police department had to go all the way in order to become a community policing organization. In order to implement the mayor’s orders that lacked clarity and ensure the community policing organization does not promote racial profiling, the proposal suggests the following measures to be undertaken (Chapter Twelve, 2015).
Planned Change Process
Foremost, the mayor’s request to change the police department lacks clarity. As a result, the department ought to address the adverse issues in relation to racial profiling. The criminal department ought to plan in order to raise awareness with regards to racial profiling leading to alienation. The decision to replace racial profiling with a team of criminologists should be based on various goals including the need to eliminate alienation. This plan should therefore be communicated to the mayor in order to provide feedback affirming the opportunity created can reduce crime rates and promote ethnic, social and racial integration. The fact that some criminals such as terrorists can be profiled should not define the department’s culture of addressing and resolving crime in the country (ACLUR, 2004). More so, the funds should be utilized to implement this plan, as none of the supervisors will feel either ignored or discriminated against based on their suggestions (Chapter Fourteen, 2015).
As a result, the decision making style should be conceptual. This will ensure supervisors and junior staff work well and rely on discussion results in considering how racial profiling has led to alienation. Consequently, parties within the department will focus on the problem and develop possible solutions that can be presented in a democratic and accurate manner to the mayor. This will provide the mayor with evidence regarding the funds proving they will be utilized in improving the department and the society at large. In order for the mayor to accept the plan, it ought to achieve equity consistently. This will prove the department is keen on observing the plan to utilize the funds in order to address past, present, and future issues allied to racial profiling. The plan however should not violate constitutional rights, encourage corruption, and involve illegal practices in order to maintain the department’s professional code of ethics (Chapter Fourteen, 2015).
Resistance to Change
The plan to change the department is however likely to face resistance especially from police officers who feel a team of criminologists is expensive and likely to overshadow their efforts. As a result, personal and departmental sources of resistance to change will have to be addressed. For example, when police officers assume a team of criminologists will interfere with their duties is a form of a personal misunderstanding. It also proves the officers do not see the need to change from the racial profiling practice as they use it as a habit to address crimes and threats across social systems in the country. This norm should be disintegrated to ensure the officers develop an organization committed to address crimes, conflicts, and rivalry using a reward system that is neither experiencing threats on power balances nor making poor choices to change the rigid structure of resolving transgressions (Chapter Fourteen, 2015).
The plan to be presented to the mayor therefore has to prove the following. Foremost, it has to be implemented at lower costs with a guarantee of high returns. More so, it should not be complex. Instead, it should be consistent with the need to replace the racial profiling practice as a departmental culture. Consequently, the mayor will believe people within the department are willing to allow changes to occur from within naturally without engaging in several complex processes (Chapter Fourteen, 2015).
Unintended Consequences
The plan can however lead to unintended consequential changes. For example, some police officers may be laid off or transferred in order to create room for the team of criminologists. This can lead the remaining officers to feel threatened incase more criminologists are hired. As a result, they may fail to be honest and clear while resolving crimes in attempts to ensure they are regarded effective in solving crime without relying on racial profiling. This can promote unethical behaviors among police officers in the department. This is because they either do not understand or ignore the need to replace racial profiling with another alternative that does not promote alienation (Chapter Fourteen, 2015).
In conclusion, the plan presented to the mayor ought to achieve the following goals. Foremost, it ought to assert racial profiling should not be used to justify use of departmental powers over people with a criminal history. The department ought to undertake actions against crime without relying on stereotypes that are not always useful, accurate, and reliable in resolving crime. Thus, replacing racial profiling with either behavioral or criminal profiling should be the main goal the department ought to aim in achieving. This alternative however requires a team of criminologists with skills, expertise, and experience. Consequently, the department can address crime rates ensuring they are reduced immensely without promoting inequality and alienation (Center for Constitutional Rights, 2009).
References
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLUR). (2004). Sanctioned Bias: Racial Profiling Since 9/11. American Civil Liberties Union Report.
Center for Constitutional Rights. (2009). Racial Disparity in NYPD Stops-and-Frisks. The Center for Constitutional Rights Preliminary Report.
Chapter Fourteen. (2015). Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management, Change and Innovation. Lecture Notes.
Chapter Twelve. (2015). Criminal Justice Organizations: Administration and Management, Decision Making. Lecture Notes.
European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). (2007). General Policy Recommendation No 11 on Combating Racism and Racial Discrimination in Policing. European Commission Report.
Human Rights Commission (HRC). (2013). The Effects of Racial Profiling: Paying Price, Human Cost Racial Profiling. Ontario, Human Rights Commission Report.
Jim, C. (2000). Racial Profiling Studies in Law Enforcement: Issues and Methodology. Information Brief, House of Representatives Research Department.
Jost, T., Rudman, L., Blair, V., Carney, R., Dasgupta, N., Glaser, J., & Hardin, C. (2009). The Existence of Implicit Bias is Beyond Reasonable Doubt: A Refutation of Ideological and Methodological Objections and Executive Summary of Ten Studies that No Manager Should Ignore. Research in Organizational Behavior, 29(1), 39-69.
Michael, P., & Rebekah, Delsol. (2009). Ethnic Profiling. Open Society Justice Initiative, European Network Against Racism.
Peter, H., Karin, D., & Jack, G. (2012). Racial Profiling. Sage Publications.
The Leadership Conference (TLC). (2010). The Case Against Racial Profiling.