Corruption of the Criminal Justice System

There is a long history report of police violence against civilians in the United States which has resulted in creating laws by the government so that citizens may find a way to find a possible solution when their rights are violated. Section 242 of the constitution allows police officers to be fined or even imprisoned for any law enforcer who deprives a person of their rights on the basis of their colour or race (Kevin). The corruption investigations done by the NYPD in the early 1970s categorized corrupt police officers into two groups; the “grass-eaters” and the “meat-eaters”.

The “grass-eaters” were the corrupt police officers who accepted their payoffs from the police work when thrown at by the happenstances while the “meat-eaters” were the corrupt police officers who misused their police power for their own personal gain. In 2012 the Civilian Complaint Review Boards (CCRB) recommended that officers should receive severe disciplinary action that leads to term termination, suspension, and probation or even loss of vocational days. The research shows that the year 2005 and 2014, 47 officers were charged with corruption and 11 were convicted of a crime (Corinthia 537)

The law state that the police officers can be charged whenever they violate local or state laws. However, during those times the number of police officers prosecuted for those crimes was close to zero, and in case they were charged, the officers acquitted. In the year 2012, the NYPD was mandated to abide by recommendations from the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) since the officers did not receive any kind of discipline in 104 cases (Carter 539). In 175 cases, it was recommended that severe punishment was to be given to officers. However, the NYPD chose to discipline officers in 7 cases.

The black people have a history of rebelling against assault in their community and also the police misconduct against the black community is still rampant, and thus, this is a representation of institutional racism. A report on February 2016, indicated that a Black person was murdered every 32 hours by officers. There is a counted number of police injustice towards Black Americans in history, many of which no justice has been served to the victims and police have walked blame-free. In addition, in the year 2015, there were 100 unarmed Black Americans who were killed by officers, and less than 10% of those deaths led to the police receiving criminal charges (Carter 541-546). The Social Justice movements such as Black-lives-matter in the black community, have created more insights on how blacks encounter injustices from the law enforcers daily.

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