Tyler Korponai – Special to The Southern News
For some time, racial profiling has been a pervasive issue that has really come to the front of conversation when speaking about civil liberties.
The Stop and Frisk policy implemented by the New York City police department is an excellent example of the growing gap between law enforcement and the minority populations that live within these areas.
Connecticut has quite recently joined the discussion of the imbalance in law enforcement action. Preliminary data submitted by 106 police agencies across the state has reinforced this claim that liberties are being infringed upon. In most departments, there was a very clear and evident increase of stops made by police of black and Hispanic drivers, relative to the population that they represent. Within the state, blacks represent eight percent of the population. However, they accounted for 14 percent of all stops made in the state.
When speaking about this with the student body, the general consensus was that racial profiling, while not as prevalent relative to recent years, is both still present and an issue affecting the community.
Sophomore Brent Williams and junior Taha Shabazz spoke on the issue. “I expect it cause my boy just got pulled over last week; my other friend just got pulled over like two days before that. All for nothing, so I expect it now.”
Freshman Jessica Roginski held a similar view on the matter. She said, “I think there is racial profiling in the state I think it happens more than not because even police offices, they have their biases and you can’t take their biases away from them.”
Junior Abbie Shiner related the issue to an assumption that others make of her. “I’m shorter, typically so people think that I’m a lot younger. If I ever do get pulled anything like that in any situation its more like oh okay I’ll let you go you look a little young. There definitely is still a judgement.”
This overwhelming response was held by many. However, the data revealed in the report is still extremely early in the analysis process. Furthermore, there are factors that could be contributing to this disproportion.
In local areas, attractions and shopping centers could be the cause, as they attract anywhere from thousands to millions. This influx of non-residents could help to make the proportion equal. Nevertheless, it’s hard to ignore the issue when its been around for so long.
Racial profiling in the state of Connecticut meet its first opponent from Alvin Penn, a black senator from Bridgeport at the time. His initiative resulted in the Alvin Penn Act, which required all officers to report on traffic stops including the drivers race and ethnicity. Since then certain additions and modifications have been made, such as funding being tied to these reports response, making them absolutely essential to the continuing function of the agencies in question.
Despite all the efforts of state legislators, the matter has yet to be effectively resolved. As the topic gains more attention and the analysis of the data is finalized action is sure to come.
In the mean time, depending on one’s view, unprompted stops will continue or the data will reveal that there is no disparity.
However despite everything Junior Abbie Shiner ended on a positive note,
“I think there’s definitely, probably still is,” said Shiner, “some form of profiling and assumptions and stuff like that when it comes to different groups of people ,but I would like to say that we’ve improved.”
While progress takes time, as legislators debate the issue in the coming months, it’s important to remember that change will come given enough time if the issue is important enough and the cause behind it is just.
Photo Credit: Sean Marshall
