Explaining Racial Profiling

Race and Arrests Racial Profiling, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is a "longstanding and deeply troubling national problem." It involves police and private security personnel targeting people of color based on suspicions, in most cases, that the individual being targeted is up to something illegal.

The ACLU states that racial profiling "occurs every day," and the result for the innocent person of color is often a "frightening detention, interrogation, and searches without evidence of criminal activity." The basis for the stop in many cases is a person's perceived race, ethnicity, and national origin -- and in some cases the clothing a person is wearing in addition to the color of his skin.

This paper delves into a few of the questions that surround racial profiling: a) why do police feel the need to racially profile people? b) Is it just part of the work of a cop to profile based on skin color; and c) how do police justify racial profiling? The truth of the matter is that the public relies on law enforcement to protect people from harm, and to promote fairness and justice in our communities, the ACLU explains.

And when racial profiling occurs in a neighborhood, it causes people to "live in fear, casting entire communities as suspect simply because of what they look like" (ACLU). It isn't just African-Americans that are profiled; there have lately been "unprecedented raids of immigrant communities and work places by local law enforcement in cooperation with federal agencies," the ACLU reports. The communities where there may be undocumented immigrants are the Latino communities.

These raids tend to alienate immigrant communities, and the raids and the surrounding publicity tend to open the door to "anti-immigrant rhetoric" that in turn leads to hate crimes. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) explains that racial profiling is a policy that targets people for suspicion of crime based on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin.

By creating a profile of the kinds of individuals who may be known for certain kinds of crime officers might generalize and "act on the generalization rather than specific behavior." This behavior on the part of sworn police officers causes what the NIJ calls "multiple problems." Because of civil rights laws, police have had to go through "expensive litigation" which makes the job of keeping the peace all that much more difficult.

Another problem resulting from racial profiling is that relations between police and members of the community become "strained" and moreover, when criminals are aware of what police are profiling, they can "…simply shift their activities outside the profile" (an example used is drug dealers; if they realize cops are profiling young black men, the dealers might switch to Latinos, children or even the elderly (NIJ).

Why do police feel the need to profile? According to Jack Glaser, Peter Schuck and Karin Martin of the University of California at Berkeley, "Profiling is not only inevitable, it is in fact sensible public policy under certain conditions and with appropriate safeguards against abuse" (Schuck, 2011). The analogy used is that of a law enforcement person at an airline security checkpoint.

"Vast numbers of individuals pass through the officer's line of vision, and they do so only fleetingly, for a few seconds at most." In other words, quick decisions have to be made and all the officer knows about these individuals is "the physical characteristics that can be immediately observed." What if the officer ignores what looks like a very shady, suspicious character just because people are impatient to get through security? And that person he quickly thought about questioning turns out to be a terrorist and does damage that kills people? Hence, police in some situations believe that racial profiling is just part of the job, and this is one way they justify it.

The bottom line when it comes to racial profiling is the use of stereotypes to make decisions about stopping a person and questioning that person. In the Berkeley piece, the writer points out that when political officials re-draw legislative districts, they use stereotypes to decide how to redraw a district. If there is a large community of minorities in one district, and the stereotype is that they would tend to vote democratic so a Republican official would want to redraw that district in order to assure more conservative votes.

This is one example of how stereotypes are used, but it doesn't intend to be justification for police stopping a car with young black men in the car just because they might be drug dealers (the stereotypical "drug dealer" is supposed to be a young black man wearing certain clothing and jewelry).

Paragraph TWO -- The Downside of Racial Profiling The analogy presented in the last paragraph is related to security in an airport or elsewhere in public places where law enforcement is expected to be expert at seeing someone that might be dangerous to the public. The typical police officer driving his patrol car, or his motorcycle through a neighborhood, is not in the same situation as the officer in an airport security position.

Meanwhile, why is racial profiling morally wrong and based on false assumptions? Take the situation that happened Thanksgiving Day in Pontiac Michigan; a black man was walking down the street with his hands in his pocket. He was stopped by an officer. It was 33 degrees on Martin Luther King Boulevard, by the way, and a transcript of the conversation is rather telling. Brandon McKean: "All right, well what?" Cop: "you were walking by." McKean: "okay.

Walking by and doing what?" Cop: "Well, you were making people nervous." McKean: "By walking by?" Cop: "Yeah, they said you had your hands in your pockets." McKean: "Wow. Walking by with your hands in your pockets makes people nervous to call the police? When it's snowing outside?" Cop: "they did." McKean: "Okay." Cop: "So are you okay?" McKean: "I'm fine How 'bout you?" Cop: "I'm good." McKean: "all right." Cop: "What are you up to today?" McKean: "Walking with my hands in my pockets.

Walking." Cop: "Is that an inconvenience to talk to me right now?" McKean: "Hell yeah, just because of the whole police situation going on across the country. This is outrageous that you would let somebody tell you, 'Oh, there's somebody walking down the street with their hands in their pockets.'" Cop: "You're right, but we do have a lot of robberies, so…" (Blair, 2014). What this little incident shows is not so much police racial profiling, but citizen racial profiling that was followed up on by police.

If a Caucasian man had been walking in 33 degree temperatures with hands in pockets, would that have frightened citizens enough to call police? That's an interesting question but it also relates to this issue.

There were definitely false assumptions in this case, and on the one hand it was the officer's job to check out a citizen complaint, but still, did he need to stop the pedestrian and question him about why he had his hands in his pockets? It doesn't seem reasonable that a man should be questioned by the police unless there is a serious reason; otherwise it appears to be racial profiling.

Racial profiling is sometimes motivated by fear -- and in this case the alleged reason the man was stopped was because citizens were supposedly afraid of the man. Racial profiling is morally wrong and based on false assumptions. Mathias Risse writes in the journal Criminal Justice Ethics that the moral issue is important because in the first place there is a "fundamental public good (security)" in question whenever a police officer feels the need to profile an individual.

The public good is a two-way street in the case of racial profiling: the officer is sworn to protect the public so in that sense he or she is morally and legally responsible for this protection. And the truth is that officers often have to make split-second decisions regarding who to stop, who to question and who to search; it would be morally wrong to simply assume because of the color of the skin of an individual that he or she would be a suspect.

The seriousness of racial profiling was brought into focus on December 1, 2014, when the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, made an announcement regarding racial profiling by federal law enforcement. "This (new initiative) will institute rigorous new standards and robust safeguards," he said (Brumback, 2014). He promised to "end racial profiling, once and for all. This new guidance will codify our commitment to the very highest standards of fair and effective policing" (Brumback).

At the same time as Holder was speaking in Atlanta, Georgia, President Obama announced a $263 million spending package that includes money for police video cameras, in order to "…capture their interactions with civilians…to improve community relations" (Brumback). Moreover, Holder said he intends to work towards easing tensions between police departments and minority communities like Ferguson, Missouri.

There are "inequities in the treatment of minorities in the criminal justice system," Holder said; he noted that the federal investigation is ongoing into allegations of "unconstitutional policing patterns or practices by the Ferguson Police Department" (Brumback). Paragraph THREE -- Costs and Benefits Regarding the costs of racial profiling, one aspect of this problem to consider is that there is a price to be paid in trust among black community members when people of color are stopped for no reason.

Police need the cooperation of the public, and when the public does not trust police activities -- and believe the police are targeting them specifically -- this is not helpful from the point-of-view of the enforcement of laws. So, first and foremost the cost is one of community support and trust for law enforcement.

Secondly, when communities explode into riots, as recently happened in Ferguson, Missouri, there is an enormous cost in damaged buildings; there is a loss of revenue by store owners who are out of business because their buildings were burned to the ground; the police department has a huge bill when paying overtime to officers called in to halt the unrest; and there is a potential cost when law enforcement is taken to court in lawsuits by citizens who believe they were unfairly treated by police.

As to the benefits of racial profiling, Lippert-Rasmussen argues in the journal Criminal Justice Ethics that racial profiling is morally justified in the long run, and he cites the philosophy of utilitarianism. In utilitarianism, the approach in any situation should be one in which the most people receive the greatest benefits. In the case of racial profiling, crime prevention "increases the quality of life for almost everyone" (Risse, 5).

Lippert-Rasmussen also argues two points in favor of racial profiling: a) the real harm in racial profiling is not just the "resentment, hurt and loss of trust" by community people subjected to profiling, but the harm can be found in the "underlying racism or underlying socio-economic disadvantages" that people struggle with, "not profiling as such"; and b) profiling can be "justified on legitimate grounds" because there is an ongoing "need to curb crime" and also, the burden on an individual that has been profiled does not necessarily mean discrimination against "one racial group by another" (Risse, 5).

Lippert-Rasmussen also argues that a change in behavior by white people is necessary in order to reduce the need for racial profiling. His argument is two-fold: First of all, African-Americans are "more likely to commit certain crimes…as a result of the deprivation resulting from discrimination and unjust, racial inequality"; so, by reducing racial inequality, fewer crimes will be committed and the need for profiling will be reduced.

Secondly, Lippert-Rasmussen argues that black folks should benefit from racial profiling because African-Americans are "more likely than [Caucasians] to be victims of crime" and a reduction in crime aids their cause.

Meanwhile Walter Williams argues that when a doctor is giving an exam to a black patient, that doctor is aware that "Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men"; so that doctor will have testing equipment at the ready for this black male because it is known black men are prone to that kind of cancer (Williams, 2010).

According to Williams, writing in the Oakland Press, through his preparatory actions, that physician is "practicing both race and sex profiling" -- but, Williams asks, "Does that make the physician a racist or sexist?" While an alert person could counter-argue that medical decisions based on race aren't as egregious as police decisions on the street that cause tension, Williams' point has some merit.

He also mentions that if betting were legal in the Olympics, he wouldn't place money on an Asian or Caucasian runner because black Americans "hold more than 95% of the top times in sprinting" so he would go with the odds. But it raises the question of profiling, according to Williams.

The writer goes on to say that "not every choice based on race represents racism" -- and yet a lot of people misunderstand intentions on the part of police when all the officer is trying to do is reduce crime, Williams states. An example of how racial profiling has benefited a society is seen in the policies that Israelis have for their airport and airline El Al.

Every young Arab buying a ticket and trying to board a plane is given an "extensive search"; also, passports are checked for previous visas to countries known to harbor terrorists (Securing Liberty). This kind of profiling has been helpful to Israel, because notwithstanding the ongoing wars in the Middle East, and the cultural tensions between Jews and Muslims, there has not been a hijacking of an Israeli plane in more than thirty years (Securing Liberty).

This is clearly an example of racial profiling that has a serious overtone for safety of airline passengers; it is vastly different than a police officer in a police cruiser pulling a car over because there are young black men in the car. Nevertheless, the point is made by Securing Liberty. Sociology professor Rod Graham explains that there are benefits to racial profiling, because "…if done correctly, agencies can spend less money casting a wider net" (www.quora.com).

Graham says it is "foolish" to have police officers spread across the city "evenly" when officers know that "street crime occurs in low income minority neighborhoods"; instead, police should focus on communities known for crime, and that isn't racial profiling, Graham asserts, it is just using "resources more efficiently" (www.quora.com). Moreover, Graham says that people who have been profiled by police generally understand that it is "their physical characteristics, not their actual behavior" that determines how society responds to them.

Graham's point-of-view will be considered controversial by many objective readers. He said that the physical characteristics (that their skin is dark) of a person does not reflect the "content of their character," and hence, they understand it's just how police operate (www.quora.com). Graham goes on to assert that the "feeling of being.