American police victimise black people

American police have a history of racist beliefs that are still prevalent in today’s police culture.^[1]An example of this is that Black men have a 2.5 times higher risk of being killed in their life than white men.^[2] A large part of the arrests of African Americans come from nonviolent drug crimes. Even though drug use and sales are quite similar across all ethnic lines in the United States, Black and Hispanic people are much more likely to be arrested and convicted of drug crimes than white people. While these groups are minorities in American society, 57 percent of those in state prisons for drug offenses are Hispanic or African American.^[3] This discrimination may also be partly caused by the white culture in America. As white citizens are far more likely to call 911 and receive police service, while Black and Hispanic citizens are more likely to be the targets of the police.^[4] Even with these statistics, national data from 2015 shows that about 50% of white Americans believe discrimination is just as bad against them as it is against people of color.^[5] These beliefs even appear to be “taught” at a very young age, because studies have shown that American children at the age of 5 express the same range of empathy for all ethnicities when shown pictures of both Black and white people being pricked by a pin, but by age 7 they begin to think that the white person feels more pain from the prick.^[6] While it is not entirely clear if American police victimize black people implicitly or explicitly, these results show they still do it regardless of intention.