Editing African Americans (section)

===Policing and criminal justice===
{{See also|Race and crime in the United States|Racial profiling in the United States}}

In the US, which has the largest per-capita prison population in the world, African Americans are overrepresented as the second largest population of prison inmates (38%) in 2023, coming second to Whites who made up 57% of the prison population.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BOP Statistics: Inmate Race |url=https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp |access-date=2023-10-16 |website=Bureau of Prisons |archive-date=July 6, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200706084618/https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp |url-status=live }}</ref> According to the [[National Registry of Exonerations]], Blacks are roughly 7.5 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder in the US than Whites.<ref>{{cite news |title=Glynn Simmons: Freedom 'exhilarating' for man exonerated after 48 years |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67878504 |access-date=January 6, 2024 |publisher=BBC |archive-date=January 6, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240106025054/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67878504 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2012, the New York City Police Department detained people more than 500,000 times under the city's [[stop-and-frisk]] law. Of the total detained, 55% were African-Americans, while Black people made up 20% of the city's population.<ref name="Stanford">{{cite web|url=https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/prison-black-laws-080614.html|title=Stanford research suggests support for incarceration mirrors whites' perception of Black prison population|first=Shara|last=Tonn|date=August 6, 2014|website=Stanford Report|publisher=Stanford University|access-date=July 3, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160713173404/https://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/prison-black-laws-080614.html |archive-date= Jul 13, 2016 }}</ref>
[[File:Crowd at JJ Hill - Philando Castile (27547111053).jpg|thumb|[[Black Lives Matter]] protest in response to the [[Killing of Philando Castile|fatal shooting of Philando Castile]] in July 2016]]
[[File:DSC 0008 (50283939071).jpg|thumb|left|[[Al Sharpton]] led the [[Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks]] protest on August 28, 2020.]]
African American males are more likely to be [[police use of deadly force in the United States|killed by police]] when compared to other races.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men|title=Young black men killed by US police at highest rate in year of 1,134 deaths|first1=Jon|last1=Swaine|first2=Oliver|last2=Laughland|first3=Jamiles|last3=Lartey|first4=Ciara|last4=McCarthy|date=December 31, 2015|access-date=July 18, 2016|newspaper=The Guardian|archive-date=May 22, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210522183822/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men|url-status=live}}</ref> This is one of the factors that led to the creation of the [[Black Lives Matter]] movement in 2013.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/us/black-lives-matter-evolution/index.html|title=The rise of Black Lives Matter|first1=Sara|last1=Sidner|first2=Mallory|last2=Simon|access-date=July 18, 2016|archive-date=July 23, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160723004528/http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/us/black-lives-matter-evolution/index.html|url-status=live}}</ref> A historical issue in the US where women have weaponized their White privilege in the country by reporting on Black people, often instigating racial violence,<ref>{{cite news |last=M. Blow|first=Charlea|date=May 27, 2020 |title=How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/racism-white-women.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200528023029/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/opinion/racism-white-women.html |archive-date=May 28, 2020 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=November 8, 2020 |newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Lang|first=Cady|date=July 6, 2020|title=How the Karen Meme Confronts History of White Womanhood|url=https://time.com/5857023/karen-meme-history-meaning/|access-date=February 1, 2021|magazine=Time|archive-date=January 11, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210111213845/https://time.com/5857023/karen-meme-history-meaning/|url-status=live}}</ref> difficult White women—who have been given a [[Karen (slang)#Origin|different name over the centuries]] by African Americans—calling the police on Black people became widely publicized in 2020.<ref>{{cite news|last=Hutchinson|title=From 'BBQ Becky' to 'Golfcart Gail,' list of unnecessary 911 calls made on blacks continues to grow|url=https://abcnews.go.com/US/bbq-becky-golfcart-gail-list-unnecessary-911-calls/story?id=58584961|access-date=November 8, 2020|agency=ABC|archive-date=November 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109042738/https://abcnews.go.com/US/bbq-becky-golfcart-gail-list-unnecessary-911-calls/story?id=58584961|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=California woman threatens to call police on eight-year-old black girl for selling water |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/25/permit-patty-eight-year-old-selling-water-san-francisco-video |access-date=November 8, 2020 |work=The Guardian |archive-date=November 1, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101022100/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/25/permit-patty-eight-year-old-selling-water-san-francisco-video |url-status=live }}</ref> According to ''The Guardian'', "The specter of [[Karen (slang)|Karen]] persisted as Black Lives Matter protests and civil unrest spread around the country following [[Murder of George Floyd|Floyd’s murder]] and reckonings with racism began to roil institutions, toppling careers as well as statues".<ref>{{cite news|last=Wong|first=Julia Carrie|author-link=Julia Carrie Wong|date=December 27, 2020|title=The year of Karen: how a meme changed the way Americans talked about racism|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/27/karen-race-white-women-black-americans-racism|access-date=December 21, 2021|archive-date=October 3, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221003051502/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/27/karen-race-white-women-black-americans-racism|url-status=live}}</ref>

In the aftermath of the peak Black Lives Matter protests and widespread police reform efforts, crime rates surged across the nation. Many cities experienced near-record or record levels of violence and other criminal activity. As a result, numerous municipalities scaled back police reform initiatives and increased funding for law enforcement<ref>https://safe.menlosecurity.com/https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/crime-trends-2021-22-what-we-know-so-far {{Bare URL inline|date=May 2025}}</ref><ref>https://safe.menlosecurity.com/https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/25/us/defund-police-crime-spike/index.html {{Bare URL inline|date=May 2025}}</ref><ref>https://safe.menlosecurity.com/https://abcnews.go.com/US/defunding-claims-police-funding-increased-us-cities/story?id=91511971 {{Bare URL inline|date=May 2025}}</ref>