Police Misconduct
Police misconduct are the inappropriate actions that are taken by police officers in relation with their official duties. Police misconduct often results in miscarriage of justice and discrimination. Police misconduct includes deliberately obtaining false confessions, false arrest, creation and use of falsified evidence, including false testimony, false imprisonment, intimidation, police brutality, police corruption, political repression, racial profiling, sexual abuse, and surveillance abuse. Police drug use is also an emerging form of police misconduct. In the U.S., police misconduct is controlled by the exclusionary rule which says that evidence gathered through misconduct is sometimes inadmissible in court. Racial Profiling Racial profiling is the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. Criminal profiling, generally, as practiced by police, is the reliance on a group of characteristics or stereotypical actions they believe to be associated with crime. Examples of racial profiling are the use of race to determine which drivers to stop for minor traffic violations (commonly referred to as "driving while black or brown"), or the use of race to determine which pedestrians to search for illegal contraband. |