There is racial bias in the US Law Enforcement System.

The Resolution There is obviously a racial bias in virtually any organization that exists. It’s much more difficult to argue that racism is pervasive or dominant in United States law enforcement but the resolution simply requires that a racial bias exists in law enforcement. The burden of proof is a low bar. The resolution was not racism is typical, common etc. Con clearly stated in round 1, “we are hoping to find if there truly is any bias in the Justice System.” Of course there is. All systems are made up of flawed individuals and it’s virtually impossible for anyone to avoid racial bias. It’s a problem we all have to live with. Affirmative Action in State Universities The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of affirmative action at Texas University that specifically encourages a racial bias toward minorities. These policies are common in the conservative and liberal colleges alike. This blatantly supports the idea that it is legal for Universities to have a racial bias when it comes to recruitment standards. It essentially ruled that this racial bias in certain instances is not a violation of the law [8]. It is 100% legal to have a preference for minorities in state subsidized universities. Affirmative Action in Government Institutions Many government institutions have programs to specifically target minorities in the hiring process [9]. Again a racial bias is legally encouraged to correct for inequalities. NASA, the DIA, The Smithsonian HHS and many others have programs that specifically target minorities for hiring and promotion. Whether you agree that this is positive or not, at the very highest levels our law enforcement encourages a racial bias to promote minority hiring. If this is account for historical imbalances it is still an obvious bias. If Affirmative Action programs correct for negative racial bias you now have two major sources of racial bias in United States law enforcement. One subsidized and one that is subversive. Implicit association leads to an innate bias towards your race including Law enforcement officials. Note that while there is most certainly a pervasive racial bias in humanity this by no means equates the issue with racism. Studies have shown that there is an innate racial bias toward your own race in the United States. [1] [5]. This can be devastating in Law Enforcement where it is much more likely for police officers to accidentally shoot an unarmed black American when apposed to whites indicating a racial bias. This has been proven both in lab room testing and in the field statistics. This carries over to sentencing where images of black men who had been convicted of murdering white victims were analyzed. Those who were rated by observers as stereotypically black received a death penalty at a rate of 57% while those rated as less stereotypically black were executed at 24%. Multiple studies confirm that racial bias is innate and common. There is no reason to expect that law enforcement is an exception. People are slower to identify traits as positive and faster to identify them as negative after viewing an image of a minority in the U.S when compared to whites. When considering a Caucasian job candidate more positive facial expressions can be found then when considering a minority on average. Overall we have a bias towards ourselves. People that look like us and share culture and a similar background. Denying this is only destructive. Recognizing the bias and recognizing when it causes problems is productive as opposed to denying that it exists in any company agency group etc. It has been well established humans are biased towards our own race and background, it is pervasive and universal [3]. There is no reason to suspect that U.S Law enforcement is an exception. There are multiple studies that link this innate racial bias to voting, physician treatment hiring and firing. The list is endless. There are many objective and independent testing methods used to establish that this type of bias is pervasive in the U.S. Examples of racial bias in U.S. law enforcement are abundant and Con did not specify a degree. -The New York Stop and Frisk program alone shows a bias. In 2012 while 84% Those Stopped and frisked are Black or Latino a weapon is found in 1 out of 49 whites that are searched while it takes 71 Latino frisks to find a weapon and 93 searches of black Americans [7]. Contraband is found in 1 of 43 searches of whites while you need 57 and 61 searches of Latino and Black Americans respectively to find contraband. Either justified or unjustified there is clearly a Bias here. The evidence available suggests it is unjustified. -Diving While Black/Native Blacks are 31% more likely to be pulled over than White Americans and Native Americans are pulled over around [8]. Blacks are twice as likely not to be given an explanation for being pulled over and they are more that twice as likely to be searched. They do not have a higher instance o weapons or contraband to justify the discrepancy. -Sentencing of Black Americans Sentences given to blacks are 20% longer in comparable crimes when compared to whites [1]. The figure is common on both sides of the argument. They are 23 times more likely to be sentenced to life without parole for non-violent crimes than whites. The discrepancy is far too high to be explained by a difference in crime rates and these are comparisons for the same crimes. Con’s Concessions Con has conceded several points I would have tried to make this round. Per the rules, I will not offer a rebuttal to his explanation this round but it saves me time to lay out Con’s concessions: 1) Blacks are more often charged with and given stricter sentences when compared with other races for the same crimes. To Quote Con, “This is perhaps an explanation as to why there is a disparity in charges for blacks versus most other racial groups. In an attempt to help curb the violence those who are caught suffer greater sentences.” 2) Areas that receive the most criminal convictions have a higher concentration of Blacks and Latinoes. “In these cities the areas with the highest crime tend to have the highest population of blacks & latinos.” 3) Blacks are more likely to be arrested for seven broad categories of crime when there is no reason to suspect that the perpetrator is black. “It found that blacks are only arrest more than they are the reported perpetrator for seven crimes: homicides, counterfeiting/forgery, embezzlement, fraud, stolen property offenses, drug offenses, and gambling.” 4) Justified bias vs an unjustified bias. Con has conceded there are several instances of racial bias (justified from his perspective.) - Affirmative Action programs are common and encouraged by United States Law enforcement and are specifically a bias towards minorities in hiring and promotions. Implicit association makes a racial bias inevitable and U.S. law enforcement is not an exception. Minorities in the U.S. receive a bias both in sentencing and application of the law. [1] https://www.aclu.org... [2] http://www.ncsc.org... [3] http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu... [4] http://www.nytimes.com... [5] http://plato.stanford.edu... [6] https://www.aclu.org... [7] http://thinkprogress.org... [8] https://www.washingtonpost.com... [9] https://clinton2.nara.gov... [10] https://en.wikipedia.org...