The United States of America’s police force originates from the nation’s mother country, England, which had community-based police departments instead of city police. In the early years of the country, the police officers were only available during certain hours throughout the day causing more crimes to go under the radar of the police. It wasn’t until 1838 that, the first centralized municipal police force was established in Boston. Since then, throughout the nation, police departments went from community-based to city-based, however, the quality of the department has depleted. Due to racial prejudice originating slavery, the American Civil War, terrorism and stereotypes,  police officers have based their techniques on a person’s race. Therefore, in the United States of America, the federal government should put reforms to techniques that the police officers use because racial profiling target individuals of color, lineups wrongfully convict those who are innocent and unnecessary force when dealing with the public who are being arrested by those who are supposed to protect the public.

The American police force, and the country itself, has always had prejudice against those who are non-white, such as an African-Americans and those who immigrate from third world countries. Especially after two hundred and forty years of slavery and ninety years of segregations of black and whites from using the same facilities due to color of skin have created a technique of profiling blacks. During the times of slavery, blacks were seen as savages owing to their history coming from when their ancestors were captured from their homeland, an underdeveloped country according to the Europeans that have enslaved the ancestors of most African-Americans inhabiting the United States of America. With this underlying belief of individuals having a different skin color than those of the Europeans and Americans are savages, police officers and the public alike have created a stereotype that all African-Americans are criminals, no matter if they had a brush with the law or not. This stereotype produced a new technique that police officers use when looking for suspects called racial profiling.

Racial profiling is the product of centuries of racial prejudice against non-whites. Law enforcement use this discriminatory practice of grouping individuals of a certain race, ethnicity, religion or national origin for suspicion of crimes because of this racial profiling needs to have harsher reforms across the United States of America that is enforced by the federal government. In an article, referring to a shooting of unarmed three black men and one Hispanic man in April of 1998 by two New Jersey state troopers, it states, “Before their [the troopers’] trial, the troopers told internal police investigators that they had pulled over the van for speeding. They later testified under oath, however, that they had, in fact, based their decision to pull over the four men solely on their races.” (“Racial Profiling”) This article also states, “The likelihood of being pulled over by police if black or Latino, as opposed to white is two times as likely.” (“Racial Profiling”) Police officers are more likely to pull over someone who is colored than one who is not and that whites are more likely to be left off the hook than blacks and Latino. Racial profiling has taken these unarmed, early twenty year olds lives and many more because of the belief that men and women of a different race are more dangerous even with no weapons than a person of their own race. On February 14th, 2018, a nineteen year old, former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student, Nikolas Cruz came into the Florida high school with a semiautomatic rifle and within six minutes and twenty seconds, he had mercilessly killed seventeen and injured another seventeen teenagers and staff. It would take an hour for police to track him down and calmly arrest him. He was white. A month later, March 18th, 2018, a twenty-two year old, devoted father of two, Stephon Clark was shot twenty times, ultimately dying, in his grandmother’s backyard because officers believed he was pointing a gun at them. The “gun” officers had claimed was never found, only his cell phone. He was black. The difference of treating these people are very apparent. Prior to the mass shooting at the Florida high school, the police had received numerous tips stating that Nikolas Cruz was going to shoot up the school and that he collected weapons. According to the Washington Post, “Residents said they called police constantly. Every other week, it seemed, police cruisers would pull up to the house to sort out the latest complaint.” (Wan) Despite the police receiving tips and complaints from neighbors, they did not arrest nor give Cruz a psychological test which could have saved the lives of the seventeen victims. If Cruz was given a psychological test, it would have prevented him from being able to buy the semiautomatic rifle, but he was not. After the shooting was over, he was able to disguise himself into the fleeing crowd and walk around the town, visiting numerous stores such as Walmart and Subway before being arrested. His arrest was calm, something that was unexpected because Cruz went into a school with the plan to intentionally murder students and staff. Cruz was treated like a person being arrested for a low-grade crime. After being arrested, the officers that arrested him took Cruz to hospital to be checked out for “labored breathing”. While, Stephon Clark had a record, but the police officers did not know about this when they pursued Clark. Around nine o’clock at night, officers were called about a person breaking car windows and was spotted hiding out in a backyard, while wearing a black hoodie. When Stephon Clark was seen by the cops, he was scaling his grandmother’s backyard fence which led to the officers pursuing him. Clark was holding his cellphone during his encounter with the authorities, leading to him being shot twenty times because law enforcement personnel believed he was in possession of a gun. His skin color caused him to be treated more hostile than Nikolas Cruz, who killed fourteen students and three staff members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Law enforcement tends to favor individuals of their own race and believe that others who are different are dangerous even without a weapon due to stereotypes, so therefore, the federal government should put harsher reforms on the law enforcement’s technique of racial profiling.

Before the United States of America formed, law enforcement has relied on lineups to obtain visual identification of a suspect of a crime. Throughout the years, law enforcement have developed two branches of lineups; traditional, also known as simultaneous, and sequential lineups. The National Institute of Justice has describes traditional lineup as, “...Witnesses must use ‘relative judgment’ to compare lineup photographs or members to each other.”(“Eyewitness”) Relative judgment is “A relative contribution involves the degree to which the best-matching lineup member is a better match to memory than the remaining lineup members.” (Perry) Traditional lineups shows the witness and/or victim people who look like the suspect, which can confuse muddle the brain of the witness. Sequential lineups are, “For sequential lineups, witnesses must exercise ‘absolute judgment,’ comparing each photograph or person only to their memory of what the offender looked like.” (“Eyewitness”) Absolute judgement is, “a judging process in which something is objectified as being one-dimensional and classified based on a single trait.” (Nugent). Sequential lineup help the witness form a image of the suspect by focusing on certain traits. The federal government should make the police department go from traditional to sequential because sequential lineups is more accurate than simultaneous lineups.

Lineups, both simultaneous and sequential, have been used for years, but the accuracy has not improved, so the federal government should improve their tactics with reforms. Traditional lineups have a high chance of error because witnesses of a crime often have high stress levels causing their memory to be murky and recreate the events that did not happen since the brain does not have the ability to remember everything and when there is a weapon involved in the crime then the witness focuses on the weapon instead of the perpetrator. When witnessing a traumatic event take place such as a murder or rape, “The high stress of the event puts the witness in survival mode, and makes it much more likely that the witness will be unable to accurately recall an event later.” (“Eyewitness Identifications”) The traumatic experience increases the witness’ blood pressure and adrenaline because the brain makes the person go into survival mode and will have the witness not recall an event everything correctly since the person is trying to make themselves safe. This leads to the witness not being able to recall specific details on the suspect, an article states, “Details like a stranger’s height, weight, age, and hair are often overlooked.” (“Eyewitness Identifications”) The adrenaline sent from the brain throughout the body makes the witness not pay attention or not remember the height, weight, age or hair of the perpetrator of the crime. The experience that the witness witnessed the perpetrator doing the crime can be manipulated because the witness focuses on the weapon being used, “Typically, a witness can recount the exact color, size, and shape of a gun or a knife pulled on them.” (“Eyewitness Identifications”) Traditional lineups are not accurate and leads to innocent people being put to trial for a crime they did not commit. “The estimated percentage of witnesses who correctly identified a suspect from a simultaneous lineup is 45.” (“Police Lineups”). The federal government should put reforms on law enforcement to go from traditional to sequential lineups because sequential make the witness focus on certain details of the perpetrator than the whole face and body of the criminal.

The United States of America is different than many countries in numerous ways, but one of the major difference is that there is no national police force which allows each of the fifty states have their own police force with their own rules. These fifty states can have their own tactics that are illegal such as unnecessary force when dealing with a suspect. This tactic has been used for centuries and like racial profiling, the local police departments often target minority groups and use illegal force with the person of the minority race. This illegal force used by police officers to capture a suspect can lead to the criminal lose their life or be critically injured.

Throughout the United States of America, local police departments are using unnecessary force to control a criminal that is in their custody so the federal government should put reforms and have one national police department to limit the illegal force. An example of the unnecessary force being used by law enforcement is in April of 2015, a mid twenty African-American, Freddie Gray, died because of the police who were arresting him for having an ‘illegal switchblade’, which turned out to be legal. He had injuries to his spine because of him being arrested. “T number of police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray was 6.” (“Police Brutality”) To hold one man down and kill, it took six officers. Another incident in 2016, Alton Sterling, a middle age black man was being held down on the drown for selling CDs outside a store and was mistaken for having a gun. The police men had shot Sterling, who was being pinned down, multiple times and was arrested. While being arrested, Alton Sterling was not resisting or pointing a gun at the police, but he was shot anyways. In numerous states, local police departments use illegal force to control the criminal so therefore the federal government should issue reforms and form one nation police department.

America has copied the ways of the English because its history comes from England such as the community based police departments before changing to city based police departments which as caused the quality of the department to go down. Because of this, the federal government should put reforms on department to improve the racial profiling that targets minorities, lineups that convict the wrong suspect, and illegal force when dealing with a potential criminal.