Racial Profiling and Unlawful Discrimination

Racial Profiling and Unlawful Discrimination in Law Enforcement

Law enforcement is a difficult science, with the impetus upon police officers to uphold criminal and civil legislation often jarring with the unique opportunities available to officers for deviation from such standards. Though at one time the police officer was regarded by the general public as a source of protection from the corruption of society, that is a reputation which has been relegated to history and idealization. In reality, there have been a great many high profile cases across the United States where systemic abuses have rendered police officers highly suspect to the general public. The study here is instructed toward understanding the institutional characteristics of policing that make its practitioners susceptible to deviation from mainstream ethical standards, particularly where these standards concern upholding a constitutional responsibility toward racial and ethnic equality. The use of racial profiling as a form of discrimination omnipresent in American law enforcement is here considered, both with respect to the racial inequities which have long persisted in American culture and with respect to those emergent in the wake of the attacks on September 11th, 2001. By considering some visible examples of police corruption and profiling as they have occurred on a broad and uninhibited scale, as well as a consideration of the political and judical perspective that have also enabled such corruption, the study will engage the question of law enforcement misconduct as a function of corrupt and racist organizations rather than individuals. The widespread association today between police officers and the abuse of power, corruption, deception, narcotics subterfuge and trafficking, and an overall reinforcement of inbuilt American biases against minority races and ethnicities as well as the impoverished is one that emanates from the gap between traditional ethical values and those displayed by the institutions intended to preserve civil order. The primary aim of this study is to distill the professional, cultural and economic pressures that create this ethical inconsistency. A major problem today facing law enforcement is that its agents have earned a regard, even in the eyes of law-abiding citizens, as servants to the state rather than to the public. In this contradiction, the corruption demonstrated by American law enforcement illustrates that the ethical disposition of the public must be distinguished from a decidedly amoral stance of the state in maintaining order. However, by undermining a set of popular ethical values that reject criminality by civilians or police officers, law enforcement is constantly at risk of subverting the doctrines which it is dispatched to defend. The top aim, then, of this study is to employ a diverse set of sources, culled from governmental and scholarly databases, in order to define the problem. It is anticipated that such an initiative could be informative to better aligning the ethical umbrella which shades law enforcement with that which orients the U.S. Constitution and the mainstream public. Research tends to point with little deviation to stark evidence that there is a categorical imbalance in the way that law enforcement is pursued in the broad context of traffic stopping. According to a report from the AELE (1999), for instance, we can see that even fully industrialized states north of the so-called Mason-Dixon line have been guilty of this behavior on a systematic level. This report documents the infamous cases of racial profiling which influenced state trooper behavior on the New Jersey Turnpike. Though the Attorney General review of the issue is focused on New Jersey officers' proclivity to make traffic stops on the basis of race or ethnicity, the report makes evident that the problem of profiling is one which is omnipresent in American society. (AELE, 1) The tendency by NJ troopers to target minority drivers speaks to the larger issue of an institutionalized racism in law enforcement. And to the point, the research encountered during this process has tended to endorse the idea that there are institutional forces at play which incline officers toward such biases and discriminatory behaviors. A study by O'Conner (2005) indicates that there is indeed a sense within law enforcement agencies and social groupings that there is a real and appropriate benefit in targeting some racial groups with greater scrutiny than others. In addition to providing a useful framework for studying the ethical questions inherent to police misconduct by acknowledging the in- group tendencies of uniquely cultured organizations, O'Connor presents an analysis of police corruption that associates its pervasion with certain aspects peculiar to law enforcement. The outline of themes prevalent in the discourse over police misconduct suggests that the ethical grey area which law enforcement agents enter is often a reflection of the hazy moral parameters of the criminal worlds which they must infiltrate. The belief that it is therefore appropriate to protect the public interest by using methods that might be considered improper in mainstream interaction seems to create a shared acceptance of racial discrimination as a tool in fighting crime. And in many ways, we can observe this condition to be directly impacted, or perhaps even endorsed, by judicial decisions at the federal level. Indeed, according to the decision in Whren v. Unites States (1996) "the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is not unconstitutional for the police to use a traffic violation as a pretext for investigating criminal behaviors." (Roh, 2) Held in response to claims of racial profiling, this decision would imply a protection of broad powers for law enforcement agencies allowing for relative autonomy in causes for traffic stops and searches. The implication is that profiling is largely dismissed as irrelevant in the legal proceedings, implicating judicial support of such unofficial enforcement methods. The Roh (2007) study catalogues what we might deduce is the outcome of this set of biases, reporting that in 1996, though black drivers represented only 14% of all road users, they were nonetheless the target of 73% of all traffic stops. This is a stunning incongruity that, without a clear admission of racial profiling, defies practical or statistical rationality. So too is this pattern demonstrated in Illinois, where in 2006, black drivers were 3.3 times more likely to be searched in a traffic stop than were white drivers. (Roh, 3) Similarly, the Whitehead (2001) piece is revealing to the ongoing practices of brutality and racist enforcement policies in the notoriously corruption-afflicted Los Angeles Police Department. Contrary to the popular view outside of the L.A. metropolitan area that the Rodney King incident and the subsequent riots of 1992 prompted some level of social commitment to change, Whitehead's article asserts that excessive force and criminal corruption are still characteristic to the L.A.P.D. Even more important, the article delivers the central ethical quandary that relates police misconduct with an institutionalized classism, racism and the court- sanctioned departmental encouragement of both. (Whitehead, 1) In such instances, little to no proof exists that the presence of legislative changes has exacted much cultural adaptation. These are findings which are generally supported in contexts throughout the United States, where a mistrust of police officers descends from a clear understanding amongst those races impacted that they are subjected to greater scrutiny and police intervention than our white populations. To the point, our research finds that the incongruity between racial presence and representation amongst traffic stop targets for African Americans does not appear to bear any true relationship to the nature of one's traffic obedience. Accordingly, almost all available research supports the statistic reality that "African-American motorists in the United States are much more likely than white motorists to have their cars searched by police checking for illegal drugs and other contraband. . . . While it is conceivable that African-American motorists are more likely to commit the types of traf?c offenses that police use as pretexts for vehicle checks, traf?c studies and police testimony suggest that blacks and whites are not distinguishable by their driving habits." (Knowles et al, 204) In spite of this rather clear imbalance, there are many who in support of the current structure and nature of law enforcement and judicial process would make the argument that there is a statistical justification for a form of discriminatory profiling. Some might make the argument that the need to stop and search specific racial demographics is driven by a desire to maximize the accuracy of criminal prevention based on assumptions about the criminalities likelier in certain racial groups. Couched in arguments concerning the sociological factors that may predispose one racial group to criminal behavior with a greater intensity than other racial groups, this perspective is nonetheless one that appeals to inherently racist assumptions as a way of allegedly improving law enforcement accuracy. This prompts the continuity of a debate not just on whether profiling of some sort exists-as most on both sides of the debate will agree that it does to some extent-but more importantly, on whether or not this approach should be seen as valid. To the point, "whether discrimination is deemed reasonable or not by the courts depends on assessments about the degree to which discrimination assists in apprehending criminals, the bene?ts of apprehending criminals, and the costs imposed on people erroneously searched or detained. 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 promoted the idea, especially within the law enforcement culture, that there were significant justifications for the intensification of methods which focused specifically on the activities of individuals descending from targeted nationalities, religions and ethnic backgrounds. Specifically, even as the Bush administration had initiated the discourse on profiling by explicitly stating a position of opposition where law enforcement is concerned, it would quickly alter its stance when faced with the challenges implied after the 9/11 attacks. This transition in perspective is well captured by the statements of the former president when "in his first address to Congress, President George W. Bush said that he asked his Attorney General "'to develop specific recommendations to end racial profiling. It's wrong, and we will end it in America.' By the term 'racial profiling,' he was referring to a presumed unlawful use of race or ethnicity in police interdiction. These questions have taken on a new hue in light of the events surrounding the September 11 bombings." (Persico, 3) To the point, the specific statements of opposition to profiling would prove political lip service. The heightened attention on the behaviors of Arab men, individuals with middle eastern ethnic backgrounds and those of the Muslim faith would have the overarching effect of tacitly endorsing measures in traffic and, especially, in airport security that seemed to overtly target said groups. To the point, airport security measures would take on an element of search and questioning that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 would absolutely endorse a culture of racial profiling. Here, it would be denoted that "passengers with elevated ratings are subject to searches and baggage inspections and may be questioned. Some other passengers are searched at random. These profiling measures have been challenged in lawsuits alleging unlawful discrimination. Some also question the effectiveness of profiling strategies relative to random searches" (Todd & Persico, 1) Even as these methods have been challenged, they have not been empirically proven. The case studies of the Los Angeles Police Department and New Jersey State Troopers provide a suitable set of instances for understanding the institutional factors that yield police misconduct even outside of those geographical places in America where racism is typically seen as ingrained in the culture. However, in order to illuminate these systemic transgressions of law from an ethical standpoint, we must also consider the federal response. As recently as 2000, the United States Department of Justice has composed legislation to deter or prosecute police corruption:

"This law makes it unlawful for State or local law enforcement officers to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives persons of rights protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States. (42 U.S.C. ? 14141). The types of conduct covered by this law can include, among other things, excessive force, discriminatory harassment, false arrests, coercive sexual conduct, and unlawful stops, searches or arrests. In order to be covered by this law, the misconduct must constitute a "pattern or practice" -- it may not simply be an isolated incident." (DoJ, 1)

Under this definition, federal law addresses that police officers have in many documented instances been given over to behaviors which beyond being simply contrary to the spirit of law enforcement, may also be categorized as actions which are accommodated in specificity by the occupation itself. As O'Connor, a Criminal Justice professor at North Carolina Wesleyan College explains, the profession gives itself over at many hierarchical planes, to a set of potential abuses. He delineates them as deviance, corruption, misconduct and favoritism, separating each abuse by semantic qualities; respectively as divergence from social norms, the use of office for illicit gains, the transgression of institutional regulations and nepotism. All contribute to an outlook which is accounted for legally by the Department of Justice's statutes. However, as the case studies reveal, the categories referred to in O'Connor's work are all subject to the ethical individuality of the law enforcement industry. It is not alone that law enforcement officers, by virtue of their relative freedom from oversight in parallel to that afforded the average civilian, are inclined to view the law as flexible to their purposes. This is often true, and in cases of corruption that see officers accepting bribes, entitling criminality or embezzling seized evidence, such a motive seems amoral rather than immoral. It is merely the decision to indulge in material rather than principle. But the question of morality is one which does play a significant role in motivating deviance and misconduct. The explosion of evidence in the late '90s that racial profiling had long been a regular practice in contending with drug trafficking on the New Jersey Turnpike prompted widespread allegations that race and ethnicity were playing a major role in the disproportion of traffic stops on the northeast corridor. A 1999 report by the Attorney General addressed the issue directly: "The Interim Report reveals two interrelated problems that may be influenced by the goal of interdicting illicit drugs: {1} willful misconduct by a small number of State Police members, and {2} more common instances of possible de facto discrimination by officers who may be influenced by stereotypes and thus may tend to treat minority motorists differently during the course of routine traffic stops, subjecting minority motorists more routinely to investigative tactics and techniques that are designed to ferret out illicit drugs and weapons." (AELE, 7).