This paper reviews the practice of racial profiling in highway traffic stops, drawing on legal scholarship, empirical studies, and landmark cases to assess its scope and constitutionality. The paper traces how drug-courier profiling on Interstate 95 evolved into racially targeted policing, examines cases such as those of Dr. Elmo Randolph and Robert Wilkins, and surveys statistical research from New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and elsewhere. It also addresses the constitutional protections implicated by racial profiling — including the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments — and evaluates federal policy responses under the Bush and Clinton administrations, concluding that meaningful data collection and legislative reform are necessary to address racial bias in law enforcement.
The paper demonstrates effective synthesis across source types — integrating quantitative studies (the New Jersey Turnpike observer study, the Ohio municipal court data, the Knoxville dataset), legal analysis (constitutional amendments), and case narratives — to build a cumulative, multi-layered argument rather than relying on any single line of evidence.
The paper opens with a definitional introduction, then moves chronologically through the historical origins of profiling in the 1980s drug war. It pivots to individual legal cases, introduces polling and observational data to establish statistical breadth, addresses federal and constitutional responses, and closes with a normative conclusion calling for legislative reform. This structure moves from history to evidence to policy in a coherent arc.
Racial profiling is generally defined as the practice of law enforcement stopping a vehicle — not based on an infraction of highway safety laws, but because of the driver's ethnicity or race. This paper reviews and critiques the instances in which racial profiling takes place, what the law requires in terms of justifications for a traffic stop, and the legislation that is in place regarding racial profiling on the highways.
There may be a number of reasons why a particular driver is stopped. The officer may suspect that the driver is involved in illicit drug trade, for example, or perhaps the driver appears nervous. In some cases the person driving the vehicle does not "fit the type of vehicle they occupy," according to author Steven J. Muffler (Muffler, 2006, p. 2). An example of a driver not fitting the type of car they are driving would be, Muffler writes, "…a young black male in an expensive car" (2). There are other justifications that police use to stop motorists — especially if the driver is African American, Latino, or Muslim — that are addressed throughout this paper.
Studies that have tried to measure the extent of racial profiling in a particular region of the country have been "for the most part methodologically flawed," Muffler writes. The General Accounting Office (GAO) reports that "different groups may have been at different levels of risk for being stopped" not necessarily because of the color of their skin or their ethnicity. They may be stopped because "…some racial/ethnic groups may commit more traffic violations such as speeding, tailgating, or having faulty equipment than other groups" (Muffler, 3).
While that may sound like a bureaucratic rationalization to some critics of racial profiling, there is no doubt that some drivers are pulled over simply because of their race or ethnicity. In particular, since the terrorist attacks of 2001, Muslim Americans have been profiled by law enforcement on the highways and elsewhere. Muffler writes that most Americans in polls leading up to 2001 disapproved of racial profiling. However, after the 9/11 attacks, a majority of Americans favored "…requiring Arabs, including those who are U.S. citizens, to undergo special, more intensive security checks before boarding U.S. airplanes" (Muffler, 6). A poll cited by Muffler showed that a majority of Americans would require Muslims to carry a special identification card. Another poll — taken between October 21 and November 25, 2002 by Cornell University — found that 68% favored using racial profiling "as a tool to fight terrorism" (Muffler, 6).
Profiling Muslims has its drawbacks, however. Muffler explains that 63% of the three million Arab Americans were born in the United States, and moreover, the physical appearance of a Muslim adult can vary a great deal. They may have blue eyes, white skin, and blond hair, or dark hair and dark skin with brown eyes. There are an estimated six million Muslims in the U.S., and the largest group among them is African American, Muffler continues (7).
Muffler (7) points to the specific arguments that civil rights advocates use to assert that racial profiling is unconstitutional. First, the Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Second, the Fifth Amendment protects citizens against discrimination by federal law enforcement officers based on "race, ethnicity, or national origin." Third, the Fourteenth Amendment provides "equal protection of the laws" (Muffler, 7).
There are extreme cases of racial profiling, such as the case of Dr. Elmo Randolph in Newark, New Jersey. According to The American System of Criminal Justice, Randolph, an African American dentist, was stopped more than 50 times over a 15-year period. The reason for the multiple stops was that Randolph was driving a gold BMW. Each time he was stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, the officer would ask the identical question: "Do you have any drugs or weapons in your car?" (Cole, et al., 2006, p. 98). Each time Randolph said no. On one occasion he refused to allow the highway police to search his car, and the officer took his license and "made him wait on the side of the highway for twenty minutes" (Cole, 98). Randolph is quoted as saying, "Would they pull over a white middle-class person and ask the same question?" Following those numerous unjustified traffic stops, Randolph sold his gold BMW (Cole, 98).
Cole points out that police are apparently trained to develop "a sixth sense" — a kind of instinctive skill that allows them to "sniff out situations or isolate individuals who seem potentially unsafe" (98). While leaders in minority communities insist that racial profiling is based on an erroneous assumption that "African Americans and Hispanics are linked to crime or that Arab Americans might be linked to terrorism," law enforcement experts assert that effective police work depends on quick analysis "and that skin color is one factor among many… that officers must consider" (Cole, 98).
What specifically did highway law enforcement officers look for when they were trying to stop drug smuggling in Florida in the 1980s? In that context, the racial aspect of profiling was not initially as prominent as the profiling of drug smugglers per se — but as the following pages show, what began as drug-smuggler profiling evolved into a more racially oriented approach to traffic stops.
In Deborah Kops's book Racial Profiling, she references the heavy amount of drug trafficking that was coming through Miami — mostly cocaine — and how President Ronald Reagan set up a specific strategy to catch smugglers on Interstate 95. One member of the Florida Highway Patrol, Robert Vogel, was given "more credit than anyone else for developing the profile widely used" by other law enforcement agencies across the United States.
Vogel stopped cars on Interstate 95, the major north-south freeway running from Miami up the East Coast all the way through Maine. This corridor was used by drug smugglers and became known as the "drug corridor." Vogel noticed that many of the people he stopped and arrested had "some things in common. For example, they often drove large late-model or rental cars" (Kops, 2006, p. 37). Suspects also tended to drive "too cautiously," often traveled early in the morning, and failed to "make eye contact with him when he approached them," Kops explains (37). Drawing on these observations, Vogel began looking for large rental cars exhibiting these characteristics. He was highly successful: "In one year he arrested thirty people for smuggling drugs," Kops explains, and he became something of a celebrity after appearing on CBS's 60 Minutes.
Not long after Vogel's strategies attracted national attention, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) developed a training program that included profiling for "gangs of African Americans and ethnic groups whose families came from the countries that were sources for illegal drugs," Kops continues (39). It was not surprising that racial characteristics were "…among the traits listed in some profiles to describe suspicious-looking drivers" (39). Those traits included: "greasy hair"; "shorts worn in winter"; "Colombian males"; "Latino males"; and "young to middle-aged African American males" (Kops, 39).
In 1992, Robert Wilkins was driving home to Washington, D.C. from Chicago, where he had attended his grandfather's funeral. He is African American, and family members — an aunt, uncle, and cousin — were also in the car. At that time, Maryland state troopers were on the lookout for African Americans who used rental cars to transport cocaine and crack. A trooper pulled the car over; after all, there were four African Americans in the vehicle. The trooper asked to search Wilkins' car, and Wilkins explained that he was an attorney and did not consent to a search. Well-trained law enforcement officers know that attorneys are familiar with court decisions and that probable cause is required to search a vehicle.
The trooper did not give up. He called for a drug-sniffing dog to be brought to the Maryland highway where the car had been stopped. It was raining, and the Wilkins family was forced to stand in the rain while the dog sniffed the car thoroughly. No drugs were found. Kops quoted Wilkins: "Part of me feels like there is nothing I could have done to prevent what happened. I was calm and respectful to the police." Wilkins was nonetheless determined to take action. Drawing on his Harvard Law education, he understood his rights. He contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which filed a lawsuit against the Maryland State Police on behalf of Wilkins, his family, and all other drivers who had been treated in similar fashion.
The lawsuit specifically charged that the police had profiled African Americans. Ultimately, after research by a credible independent agency showed that over 71% of drivers on I-95 who were searched were African American, a judge agreed with Wilkins and ruled in his favor.
An article in the journal Police Practice and Research (Scheb, et al., 2009, p. 75) reports on an investigation of some 130,683 traffic stops made by officers of the Knoxville, Tennessee Police Department between January 2001 and December 2004. Scheb writes that until recently, much of the evidence of racial profiling was "anecdotal in nature," with little statistical data to support minority claims of unjustified stops. However, many states were taking steps to determine the extent to which racial bias existed in traffic stops.
By 2007, the authors continue, "The great majority of states, including Tennessee, had undertaken efforts to collect data on motor vehicle stops" (76). In 2000, the General Accounting Office undertook a "broad analysis of five existing quantitative studies" to determine whether law enforcement officers stop drivers "on the basis of race" (Scheb, 76–77). The results were not satisfying to the African American community or to other minority communities. The GAO reported that there was "…no comprehensive, nationwide source of information on motorist agencies' traffic stop practices" (Scheb, 77).
Researchers carefully examined 13 academic studies on the issue conducted between 1996 and 2001, all based on data from police-citizen contacts during highway stops. In all 13 studies, they found "…significant racial disparities in the rates at which citizens were stopped," confirming that racial discrimination was present in a substantial number of these encounters (Scheb, 77).
Racial justice is an essential component of a functioning democracy. Where injustice exists, there must be changes in the law and in the way police and other civil authorities treat citizens of all races and ethnicities.
Cole, George F., and Smith, Christopher E. The American System of Criminal Justice. Cengage Learning, 2006.
Kops, Deborah. Racial Profiling. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish, 2006.
Muffler, Steven J. Racial Profiling: Issues, Data, and Analysis. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Publishers, 2006.
Scheb, John M., Lyons, William, and Wagers, Kristin A. "Race, gender, and age discrepancies in police motor vehicle stops in Knoxville, Tennessee: evidence of racially biased policing?" Police Practice and Research, 10.1 (2009): 75–87.
Ward, James D. "Race, Ethnicity, and Law Enforcement Profiling: Implications for Public Policy." Public Administration Review, 62.6 (2002).
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