Racial Profiling: An Overview of the Debate
According to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), racial profiling is one of the most controversial issues in America today. The data is clear that there is a stronger perception within many historically discriminated-against minority groups that profiling goes on and this has had a negative impact on community-police relations. Although data suggests that often members of minority groups perceive themselves as singled out by the police the NIJ also reports that satisfaction with the police is often more strongly correlated with neighborhood crime rates than race ("Race, Trust and Police Legitimacy"). The evidence is ambiguous regarding the extent to which racial profiling actually takes place. Some police supporters contend that higher rates of searches of minority suspects are likely to be due to a confluence of factors, including crime rates within specific neighborhoods, while critics point out that even minorities who are not arrested and who show no evidence of wrongdoing are searched at higher rates than whites.
While the levels of police mistrust are higher in minority communities, it is unclear if this is a reflection of reality or because of the difficulty of isolating possible variables which could affect search rates. On one hand, the data suggests that there is a higher
This could be due to the fact that there is a higher percentage of minority drivers in communities where such traffic stops take place and that a higher percentage of minority drivers drive on the highway versus non-highway driving ("Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops"). A lower percentage of minority drivers routinely wear seatbelts, which could also increase the probability of being stopped ("Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops"). Some studies have confirmed that based upon existing data of traffic stops, the location and time of the stops may influence racial data more than suspicions of profiling ("Racial Profiling and Traffic Stops").
But other studies have found that while African-Americans, Latinos, and also Native Americans are more likely to be the subject of traffic stops, Whites are actually found to be equally likely to be in possession of contraband substances. In an Arizona study, "Whites who were searched were more likely to be transporting drugs, guns, or other contraband" although African-Americans had a higher probability of being stopped (Restoring a National Consensus, 10). In a study of New…
In evaluating the legality of racial disparities in law enforcement, the courts have clearly sought to determine the motivation for discriminating." (Knowles et al, 207) This illustrates a wide political and philosophical variance in the way that Americans understand this concept of police discrimination, with the courts asking questions seeming to imply that discrimination is not in and of itself a negative thing. Quite to the point, across the last eight years, the War On Terror had
Racial profiling is not new, however, and was a theory of sociology in the late 19th century known as Social Darwinism. Incorrectly using Darwin's theory of evolution, the Social Darwinists believed that some species were morally superior to others, and even some races superior to othersJohnson () Public perception, though, believes in favor of seeing race as a reason for crime, and having a considerable fear of anyone outside their own
4%, among whites, it was 7.2%, and was 6.4% among Hispanics, yet African-Americans represent more than 57% of those incarcerated for drug offenses in state prisons (Coker pp). Police officers are more likely to stop African-Americans for traffic stops and once stopped, officers are more likely to search the vehicles of African-Americans. According to the 2001 traffic stop data in San Diego, African-American drivers had a sixty percent greater chance and
Racial Profiling Since 911 The racial profiling implies the discrimination by police to detail a person as suspect basing on the racial manifestations. In the present days the process of racial profiling has changed to a great extent. (Harris, 58) The racial profiling, till the present period was indicated towards the practice of police dragging over the black male drivers discriminately on the empirically valid but morally denounced hypothesis that they
The inverse would also be true. However, that question is not entirely black and white, pardon the pun (Stenning). The reason for this is that race can inform whether or why to stop someone for a traffic stop or on the sidewalk with racism not being the root reason. For example, a young white woman in her 20's would stand out like a sore thumb in a drug-infested area that
Racial Profiling The distinguished Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Studies, was arrested for trying to break into someone's house. It happened to be his own (Project America; 2008). This is but one of numerous cases of racial profiling that has been documented in this country and that points to the injustice and irrationality of singling out ethnic minorities for
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