83how discrimination occurs in policing and helps to explain why African-American
citizens would coin a term such as D.W.B.
lien, a 30-ycar-*old African-American man living in Maryland, recently graduated
from law school and started working at a law Finn. He went and purchased a new red
Lexus to celebrate his new job and graduation from law school. One weekend, Ben was
driving his Lexus when he noticed a Caucasian police ofhcer following him. He was
not wearing his usual suit, as it was the weekend, and was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and
a hat instead. Ben continued to drive and was extra cautious because the police officer
continued to follow him. Ben finally came to his exit and turned on his signal to exit
right. After he exited, the police officer pulled him over, indicating he violated a traffic
law; Maryland law requires a signal be activated at least 100 feet before turning right.
When the officer pulled Ben over, he asked if lie could search the vehicle. At this
point Ben realized he was the victim of discrimination. Ben told the officer he could
not search the vehicle and that the Constitution prohibited the police from searching the
vehicle without reasonable suspicion of crime. The ofhcer ordered Ben out of his car
and called a unit with a narcotics dog in to search the vehicle. The officer found nothing
illegal, left Ben with a warning about the signal law, and drove away (f lecker, 1997).This section utilizes the case of Ben to explain how current law allows police
to use complete discretion in enforcing the law, discusses how this discretion may
effect minority populations socially, reviews arguments that suggest police racism
does not occur, and examines the policy implications for this controversy; Because
most research on this topic has been conducted specifically on the African-American
community, racial bias toward African Americans is primarily discussed. This focus
does not imply that other minority populations are not discriminated against or are
unworthy of discussing; there is certainly a need for research in this field.
Literature Review
Research clearly indicates that police discrimination toward minorities exists. How-
ever, the issue is more complex than racism among officers. There are laws that
actually allow such racism to occur. There are psychological issues for both the
police officers and the minorities affected by discrimination, and there are poli-
cies that can be adopted to reduce the likelihood of discrimination. Although the
case of Ben is fictional, it is an accurate description of what has occurred to many
upstanding African Americans. In 1996, a journalist who interviewed delegates to
the Black Caucus convention reported that nearly every delegate he spoke with,
including doctors, lawyers, and professors, had been stopped by police on several
occasions without being cited a traffic violation (Hecker, 1997).
The Law and Discretion
Selective law enforcement has always been used to oppress minorities (SchifFerle,
1997). For example, in 19th-century Oregon, "[cjhinese W^7 ere more than sixty