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Tag Archives: Stereotyping
Deporting Crime?
This article dealt with many of the issues we have been discussing in class. The U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has developed new tools for identifying and ultimately deporting illegal immigrants nation-wide. The main tool that they have created for doing so is the Secure Communities Finger-Print sharing program. This program helped to successfully convict and deport Francisco Gomez-Kiroga, a man who had been previously deported 4 times and voluntarily removed himself 19 times. He was pulled over for making an illegal left turn and this new technology helped discover his true identity (he presented himself to law enforcement officers as a different man) as well as his previous offenses. Using a program such as this one is a good way to discover someone’s true identity- perhaps it can be said that some illegal immigrants are the confidence men of today.
However, this system employed by the ICE has been subject to much criticism. Many of the people ultimately deported by this system have not committed any serious crime (most have been driving infractions). Critics claim that this is a waste of the ICE’s limited resources which should be spent targeting dangerous criminals. The thing that I think is the most alarming about this system is that it perpetuates racial profiling. Faced with much pressure to keep deporting illegals, law enforcement officers are using driving infractions as a way to pinpoint people who “look illegal.” As evidenced by the historical precedent we studied in class, this is a slippery slope. I think that in the future there will be litigation that deals with racial profiling in situations such as these.
Posted in Assignment 2
Tagged crime, criminal surveillance, illegal immigration, Stereotyping
14 Comments
Do Stereotypes affect Suspect Recognition?
It can be assumed that everyone, in one way or another, is exposed to certain stereotypes. Regardless of whether people agree with, dismiss, or simply overlook these beliefs, the act of observing a stereotype will have some affect on the individual. The question at hand is; Do people act on stereotypical beliefs without doing so on purpose? This study shows that, when asked to identify a person from a selection of news stories, the participants were likely to choose black males as the criminal wrong doers.
It is easy to see that certain stereotypes, like a black males predisposition for criminal behavior, could be problematic for criminal recognition. For instance, if a witness to a crime were thinking through a cloud of stereotyping, it is very possible that the witness’s imagination might become a factor.
The racial standpoint of the study’s participants were also taken into account. This reveals a possible problem with the study’s approach in general. The majority of people, whether prejudice or not, are unlikely to admit their prejudices. The fact that racism is heavily frowned upon creates a huge problem for this study. A study, could easily observe an overly racist group of people, which would most likely result in a heavily skewed outcome, due to hidden stereotypes. On the other hand, a person who is afraid of seeming racist, might choose answers which go against their stereotypical views.
Intuitively, the study seems to make sense. If people have underlying stereotypes that black men are inherently violent criminals, then they will assume that the probability of a black male committing a violent crime is higher. But problems with the actual process of studying facts can easily lead to problems with results.
