Running head: MADISON COUNTY’S ROAD TO JUSTICE 1

Madison County’s Road to Justice

Madison Country’s Road to Justice

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Background

The abuse of power by law enforcement agencies and their officers is not a recent

phenomenon. Numerous instances have been documented over the decades where law

enforcement agencies have either directly engaged in abusing their authority or of covering up or

defending accused individual members. The abuse of power comes in many variants. Examples

include taking bribes, false arrest or imprisonment, brutality, and violations of the Fourth

Amendment rights (Paoline, Gau, & Terrill, 2016). Nevertheless, all these variants are connected

to the fact that law enforcement officers have additional power over civilians, and this power is

maintained through the threat of force. Admittedly, in numerous cases, force is warranted.

However, cases where the use of force has been illegal have been on the rise (Moore et al.,

2018). Moreover, such incidences are increasingly being publicized due to the proliferation of

video recording technology. As such, to avoid negative perceptions about law enforcement

regarding unwarranted violence and abuse of power, it is important to examine the issue.

Besides the use of force, research conducted on the issue has found a concerning pattern,

where the use of force is disproportionately directed towards racial and ethnic minorities. The

pattern is a part of the broader systemic discrimination that exists in the nation’s justice system

(Nix, Pickett, Wolfe, & Campbell, 2017). Statistics show that the criminal justice system is

institutionally predisposed to viewing minorities as criminals or as less deserving of justice. For

instance, according to the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2017, there

were 475,900 African American prisoners in federal facilities and 436,500 Caucasian prisoners

(Bronson & Carson, 2009). Such statistics in a nation where African Americans were only 12.3%

of the population (Caucasians formed 60.6% of the population) is an indicator of systemic

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discrimination in the justice system. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that law enforcement –

being a part of this system – would have similar discriminatory perspectives.

Such institutionalized discrimination has affected numerous communities, such as

Madison County, Mississippi. For instance, in 2017, a lawsuit filed by the ACLU alleged that the

county’s police departments had put in place policies of unconsented searches and seizures

targeted at black residents due to their race (Brown et al. v. Madison County, 2017). Such

policies are in direct contravention of the Fourteenth Amendment. In 2019, a judge issued a

consent decree in a bid to encourage reforms in the police department. The lawsuit uses the

county’s statistics on arrests, where roadblocks and stop and frisk policies are implemented

primarily in black communities. For instance, between 2012 and 2017, in 74% of traffic stops,

which resulted in arrests, the drivers were African American. Besides, 77% of all people arrested

in those five years were black; this happening in a county where only 38% of the population is

African American (Brown et al. v. Madison County, 2017). The statistics indicated along with

disturbing statements on officer misconduct (such as threatening false imprisonment and

warrantless searches) are strongly indicative of a culture of police abuse that is implemented

along racial lines.

One purpose of the criminal justice system is to safeguard the rights and freedoms of

individuals from those who would seek to infringe on said rights and freedoms. To do this, law

enforcement agencies are necessarily granted additional powers that are meant to be used in the

pursuit of justice for the wronged. However, with great power comes great responsibility. To

avoid law enforcement authoritarianism, it is crucial that law enforcement officers not only

enforce the law but observe it as well. It is a grave injustice when those charged with maintaining
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order and upholding the laws are the ones who are undermining it. Moreover, law enforcement

agencies typically represent the criminal justice system’s point of contact with the public

(Rengifo & Pater, 2017). As such, perceptions of racial and ethnic discrimination on law

enforcement tend to adversely impact the rest of the justice system. Therefore, the importance of

understanding perceptions of abuse of power and racial discrimination is vital to effective law

enforcement and more positive relationships between the criminal justice system and the public.
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References

Bronson, J. & Carson, E. A. (2019). Prisoners in 2017. Department of Justice. Retrieved from

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p17.pdf

Brown et al. v. Madison County. (2017), Civil Action No. 3:17-cv-00347-CWR-LRA. Retrieved

from

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mssd.95656/gov.uscourts.mssd.95656.

370.1.pdf

Moore, S. E., Robinson, M. A., Clayton, D. M., Adedoyin, A. C., Boamah, D. A., Kyere, E., &

Harmon, D. K. (2018). A critical race perspective of police shooting of unarmed black

males in the United States: Implications for social work. Urban Social Work, 2(1), 33–47.

https://doi.org/10.1891/2474-8684.2.1.33

Nix, J., Pickett, J. T., Wolfe, S. E., & Campbell, B. A. (2017). Demeanor, race, and police

perceptions of procedural justice: Evidence from two randomized experiments. Justice

Quarterly, 34(7), 1154–1183. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2017.1334808

Paoline, E. A., Gau, J. M., & Terrill, W. (2016). Race and the police use of force encounter in the

United States. British Journal of Criminology, azw089.

https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azw089

Rengifo, A. F., & Pater, M. (2017). Close call: Race and gender in encounters with the police by

black and Latino/a youth in New York City. Sociological Inquiry, 87(2), 337–361.

https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12166