Chicano issues and contemporary perspectives

Racial Profiling

American society has suffered with the over emphasis on White values and beliefs since its inception. This overemphasis advanced to the point of suffering through a Civil War, a prolonged battle for civil rights, and years of discrimination. Now, this over emphasis has shifted to the practice of racial profiling. Racial profiling is the process of using racial or ethnic appearance as a factor in deciding who to stop, question, search, frisk or the like by legal enforcement agencies. Presently the process is being applied aggressively against one ethnic grouping: Mexican-Americans. This repressive social practice victimizes a group that deserves equal treatment with any other, including Whites, and exposes them to being stereotyped as drug smugglers or as illegal aliens.

One of the most precious rights Americans have is the right to anonymity. The opportunity to walk quietly down a street without being noticed, watched or bothered in any way is sacrosanct. It is a privilege that most of us value and one that we would not be willing to forfeit but imagine being part of a large ethnic group that has virtually lost that privilege. Imagine being stopped on the street or in one's automobile simply because you appear to be a member of a targeted ethnic group. White Americans would tolerate such behavior for a mega-second but fail to understand how and why other ethnic groups find such identification bothersome.

Racial profiling is not a new concept. It has been used by law enforcement officials, unofficially, for years. Generally speaking, the process involves using a person's appearance, either race or ethnicity, as a method of identifying potential criminals. It has been used by police officers patrolling the streets and store detectives walking the aisles of stores in search of potential criminal activity. The result of this profiling is reflected in the increased number of Blacks and Hispanics that have their vehicles checked vs. Whites when stopped by police (11% vs. 5%), and to undergo a physical search (8% vs. 4%) (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). Law enforcement and security personnel rationalize their use of race as a profiling tool by arguing that Blacks and Hispanics commit more crimes than Whites and that they are more likely to possess weapons and illegal contraband (Rudovsky, 2002).

There are numerous examples of situations where individuals have been arrested, detained, or denied access to facilities-based entirely on profiling and the resulting litigation has uniformly criticized such behavior but, nevertheless, the practice continues. Logically, it may seem that using such practices makes sense but the harmful effects of racial profiling are seldom considered or understood by those who are not subject to it. In fact, White society tends to condone such behavior. Consider, for example, how quickly it became fashionable following the events of 9/11 for profiling to be applied toward individuals of Arabic appearance to be viewed as potential terrorists (Jadallah, 2010).

Claims of bias and prejudice will be denied strenuously by proponents of racial profiling but the fact is that the depiction of minorities in the media and elsewhere contributes to the situation. The media has successfully created an image of Hispanics and Blacks living in crime-infested areas where every young man is a member of a gang that are involved in drugs and violence. This image has created the illusion that these minorities are at war with White society and are a constant threat to White, middle-class values. Against this background, racial profiling has developed as a means of securing White America, yet, it may be argued that racial profiling is just part and parcel of a greater American phenomena that is called xenophobia and nativism that has been aggravated by a struggling economy and the American need to find a potential scapegoat in the form of the Mexican-Americans, both legal and illegal.

American immigration laws have long been a racially based. The entire process has been a method of controlling the number and type of immigrant entering the United States and the recent social discussion regarding illegal immigrants and their effect on the United States' economy is disguised as an exercise in criminal justice.

This is not the first time in United States history that Mexican-Americans have victims of immigration law abuse. The principal law enforcement agency entrusted with imposing immigration laws against Mexican-Americans attempting to cross over into the United States is the U.S. Border Patrol. The Patrol was created out of legislation that was enacted back in the late 1800s when hostility toward another group of immigrants, the Chinese, created a furor. This immigration hostility spread toward other groups in the early1900s, mostly the influx of large groups from southern and eastern Europe, and finally began being applied toward Mexican-Americans in the early 1920s as the Border Patrol began creating an almost military approach toward its duties along the United States southern border. The techniques utilized by the Patrol were excessive and often involved gun fire and physical abuse of anyone apprehended by them attempting to enter the United States illegally. As the United States entered the Great Depression, illegally entering Mexican-American immigrants became an easily available scapegoat much as they have today (Ngai, 2004: p.68).

Racial profiling places individuals who have engaged in no criminal activity to endure the burden and humiliation of having law enforcement officials interfere with their lives. As part of this invasion, the profiling victims must prove their innocence but the damage does not cease the stop. The exposure to racial profiling also has behavioral and emotional consequences for the victims. Minorities subject to racial profiling often dramatically change their lives in an effort to avoid being subjected to profiling. They drive in certain style automobiles, drive in specific neighborhoods and routes, and dress in specified ways so as to avoid detection by law enforcement officials. Finally, the target minorities tend to live in neighborhoods where they will not stand out thereby creating an atmosphere of segregation.

Proponents of racial profiling argue that the process is both necessary and useful in the efforts of law enforcement officials to fight street-crime and enforcing the nation's immigration laws. They argue that legal authorities know who the criminals are and what they look like, because they know what societal groups they come from; therefore, the process of using racial or ethnic appearance allows police to better target their enforcement efforts. For many years those inside and outside the law enforcement industry assumed the profiling was an effective method. For purposes of clarification, it is important to understand that the use of race or ethnic features as a method of identifying a particular individual is a valid use of information but when it is used in a general way to identify an entire race or ethnic group it loses that validity. When used generally, the process is flawed in that it increases the number of people who are affected by the legal system and that it actually decreases the rate for catching criminals and undocumented immigrants. The reasons for this decrease are twofold.

First, in using racial profiling the limited law enforcement resources available are diverted stopping individuals who have done nothing wrong except to appear as a member of a minority. Consider, for example, the actions of the Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff's department that mounted a full-scale assault on suspected illegal immigrants in a small town of 6,000 Indians and Hispanics. After terrorizing the residents of this small town for two days by stopping residents and entering their homes to conduct background checks, the entire operation involving more than 100 sheriff deputies and the expenditure of thousands of dollars resulted in just nine arrests (Friedersdorf, 2010). In the Maricopa situation the legal authorities were using race as a way to determine who may be the possible subject and failing to consider the actual behavior that may be indicating criminal conduct. This is what generally occurs when profiling is used as opposed to more traditional police methods.

As law professor David Harris stated in testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee:

"From those who advocate racial profiling, one frequently hears what we may call the profiling hypothesis: we know who the criminals are and what they look like, because we know what societal groups they come from; therefore using racial or ethnic appearance will allow police to better target their enforcement efforts; and when police target those efforts, they will be more effective, because they will get higher rates of "hits" -- finding guns, drugs, criminals -- than when they do not use racial targeting & #8230; [T]he data do not support the profiling hypothesis; the data contradict it. It is not, in fact, an effective crime-fighting strategy (Harris, 2010).

The second reason profiling is not effective is that it interferes in the relationship between local police agencies and the communities they serve. Immigration enforcement is essentially a federal function and when local authorities involve themselves in such enforcement fear is instilled in the minds of the local residents toward the local police as opposed to respect. For the past several decades the emphasis in policing has been building trust in the community. Making the streets safe for everyone requires mutual cooperation between the general public and the police. Without community support, the police cannot do it alone. In this regard, respect as been shown to be a better tool for decreasing crime than fear and when fear is present residents tend to avoid contact with local police officials and other government officials that the residents believe may check on their immigration status or the status of family members. Information from these groups regarding criminal activities in their community is non-existent. Respect between law enforcement and community members is far more conducive to developing a good and lawful environment and involving local authorities in immigration enforcement creates an aura of fear. Auras that even the best law enforcement officials will have difficulty overcoming.

The process of racial profiling not only causes problems for law enforcement in enforcing the laws but it also serves as an infringement on the civil rights of the profiling victims. Being stopped and frisked based solely because of one's race or ethnicity may be considered only a minor annoyance but when it such minor annoyance is directed at a specific race or ethnicity it must be considered to be a violation of the profiled victim's equal protection rights. Members of all racial and ethnic groups have the right to expect to be treated like all other groups and when profiling is used by the police this expectation is violated.

In many states and communities legislation has been passed that prohibits the use of racial profiling by their law enforcement agencies. In several others, however, notably Arizona and Alabama, the practice has been actually encouraged. This has led to debate and uneasiness leading to increased levels of prejudice and resentment.

The Arizona statute that virtually mandates racial profiling is a classic example of the problems that the process creates. The Arizona statute requires police officers to inquire about the immigration status of anyone they have a reasonable suspicion may be present in the country illegally. The Arizona legislature, likely in reaction to the public outrage caused by the statute requiring the immigration inquiry, passed legislation prohibiting any police action based on race or ethnicity, but said legislation has had little effect. Instead, the Arizona law enforcement agencies have continued to exercise their authority under the latter statute. What has effectively happened is that Arizona legal authorities are being asked to enforce a law that steps on the civil rights of everyone in Arizona that is Hispanic or even remotely appears to be Hispanic. Regardless if one's family has lived in the United States one day or three generations he or she is subject to the same level of suspicion. Living in Arizona and being Hispanic now means being always subject to possible stop or questioning. The privilege of anonymity so longer treasured by most Americans is forever lost for Arizonian Hispanics or persons who look Hispanic. Unfortunately, Arizona appears to be only the first state considering such a stance. Reportedly a number of other states are considering the enactment of similar type legislation (Weigel, 2010). This is a result that will be a tragedy for the Hispanic community specifically and the United States society in general.

Racial profiling is a social practice that is repressive and undemocratic in nature. It uses group characteristics and applies it to individual racial and ethnic minorities. In recent years this process has been used extensively against the Hispanic and Mexican-American communities in the United States. Its use has been used to impute negative behavior to an entire population of people and caused them to be subject to suspicion-based entirely on their ethnic heritage.

The entire process of racial profiling is unjust but, not surprisingly, it is applied against those in society most vulnerable to attack and least likely to effectuate any political or social pressure to prevent its enforcement. In the case of the Hispanic and Mexican-American communities they are presently, as they were in during the Great Depression, being used as source of blame for at least part of the struggling U.S. economy. Racial profiling serves to reinforce this blaming process by associating deviant behavior with a population group. Because their behavior is labeled as deviant treating them unfairly through profiling is less troublesome.