RACE, MISTRUST, AND POLICING: THE INTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF LINKING BLACKNESS TO CRIMINALITY

The issues of racialized violence and policing in America are not new phenomena but are a part of the American historical fabric.Purpose: to analyze the problem of institutionalized racism in the criminal justice model. Blacks are overrepresented within the criminal justice organizational model, despite representing a small percentage of the American population. The criminal stereotype of African Americans could contribute to the reason behind why blacks are disproportionately more likely than Whites to be targeted by the police as suspects, interrogated and wrongfully convicted. Policing behaviors across the USA are legally structured to produce institutional entrapments that often disproportionately target and affect black males. The stereotype of a criminal African American has also been associated with racial profiling. The paper describes The Black Lives Matter movement as a societal response to police abuse of coercive power and the fatal interactions of black males and women with police.Methods: the research is carried out on the basis of the methods of analysis and synthesis, generalization, comparison and description.Conclusions: institutionalized racism within the criminal justice system is the cause for the disproportionate arrest rates of African Americans. The restructuring of the policing model and the criminal justice model must be a realignment of values and discontinuation of practices that are fundamentally meant to oppress Blacks in America.