Stand Your Ground Law Case Study

The criminal justice issue that I plan to study is the Stand Your Ground Law. This paper will analyze the history of the Stand Your Ground Law and the NRA’s (National Rifle Association) involvement in getting this law passed in Florida as well as in other states. I will give statistics of how race plays a huge role in this law. The “Black Lives Matter” movement will also be discussed. Recommendations will be given to commissioner Bratton on what to do if these laws were to be passed in New York City.
Background
Governor Jeb Bush signed Florida’s Stand Your Ground Bill SB436 into law in 2005 with lobbyist Marison Hammer. According to Deadly Force and the Right of Self-Defense, the Stand Your Ground law gives “a person who is not engaged in
In “Stand Your Ground Laws: Preliminary Report and Recommendations”, The National Task Force said that “racial disparities are likely to be found to justifiably exist in Stand Your Ground States. The rates in those states are significantly higher. A white shooter that kills a black person is three hundred fifty percent more likely to be found justified than a black shooter that killed a white person” (Common Dreams, 2014). The Tampa Bay Times investigation was used to show how race plays a major role in Stand Your Ground. The investigation teams analyzed two hundred Stand Your Ground Cases in Florida and found that “seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person were found not guilty and fifty-nine percent who killed a white person were found not guilty. It also states that the twenty-six percent of those who killed a black person were found guilty and forty-one percent who killed a white person were found guilty” (Hundley, 2012). The researcher does not say white perpetrator, black victim or black perpetrator; he just says, “white victim”. This shows how the criminal justice system is when it comes to race. The researcher also stated that Blacks are killed because people see them as a threat. This is racial profiling and it exists in laws and in people
I would do an experimental design to test out people’s opinion on this law by asking some of them how would they feel if New York City were to have that law. My participants would be adults and teens over the age of 16. I would also research every state where Stand Your Ground is legal and study all of the incidents where the law came into play. The control group would be people that have not been informed on what the law is about. The experimental group would be people that know about the Stand Your Ground Law. The pre and post test would allow me to see how people that weren’t fully informed about the Stand Your Ground Law feel after getting information about it. I want to see if their feelings about the law being passed will