Part 1 – Irrational fear
Irrational fear, particularly of people of color, has shaped the American criminal justice system. Science confirms the existence of a pervasive, unconscious, and largely automatic bias against dark-skinned individuals as more hostile, criminal, and prone to violence. This Article explores the impact of racial fear on a critical but little-examined “unofficial” actor in the criminal justice system: the civilian complainant. It considers how bias-motivated civilians weaponize law enforcement to respond to their irrational racial fears.
The killings of Michael Brown, Stephon Clark, and dozens of other unarmed black men and boys at the hands of police officers has made clear. What may begin as a vague complaint about a “suspicious black male” too often ends in unnecessary violent confrontation. The consequences of weaponized racial fear are simply too great to ignore. At its core, this Article challenges the popular notion that improving the quality of police interactions with people of color can sufficiently lessen this epidemic of racial fear.
Security today is primarily concerned with purely technical features of the information environment. But attacks that take advantage of security vulnerabilities can also exploit psychosocial features. The April 2013 Associated Press Twitter hack exploited both technical (hijacking the account) and psychos social (understanding market reaction) features. In September 2013, a young Hindu girl complained to her family that she had been verbally abused by a Muslim boy. Her brother and cousin reportedly went to pay the boy a visit and killed him.
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https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT400/CT473/RAND_CT473.pdf