The Disproportionate Overrepresentation of Minority Youth in ...

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Seventy-nine percent of the blacks believe that at least sometimes the police pick
on young people, but in the interviews this issue came up less frequently. Rather, their
comments focused on the prejudice the police show towards blacks. Eighty—three
percent of the blacks felt that at least some of the time blacks are arrested simply because
of race. Forty-eight percent of the blacks indicated that this was the case most or all of the
time. In contrast, 69 percent of the whites said blacks are picked on some of the time
while only 20 percent responded most or all of the time (Tabled 3, 4). In sum, both
groups see racial discrimination by the police, but the black youth feel it is worse than
what the white youth think.
Examples of quotes from white youth concerning racial bias among police
officers include:
Some of them are probably prejudiced. Like that Rodney King, they woke
that dude up.
They beat blacks, I guess they are racist.
I saw a cop harassing a couple of black males. The cop just pulled up and
asked them what they were doing.
Whites get more preferential treatment... I would like to put them in jail
for a couple days so they could see how black people feel.
The interviews of black youth strongly support the information given in the selfreport
data. Several of the respondees felt the sole reason many blacks are arrested is due
to their race. One youth, when asked what he thought the police had placed the most
emphasis on when arresting him said, “We are black and we looked suspicious.” Another
said,