Racial profiling

Racial profiling is the use of race as one consideration in suspect profiling or other law enforcement practices.

Related Topics:
Race - Suspect profiling - Law enforcement

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Advocates are divided on the degree to which race should be considered a factor.

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Some would argue that race should:

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• never be considered for any reason in a police action
• should never be considered the primary or motivating factor
• should only be considered when it is used to describe a specific suspect in a specific crime and only when used in a manner like other physical descriptors (e.g., hair color, weight, distinguishing marks). This is often referred to as the "be on the lookout" (BOLO) exception

While often associated with police procedures, the issue came into the international spotlight because race was included among the factors used by aviation authorities in several countries to attempt to identify potential terrorists and prevent them from boarding airplanes.

Related Topics:
Terrorists - Airplanes

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Virtually all advocates agree that race ought not to be the only factor in suspect profiling. Most would agree that the police should not, for example, pull over only speeders of a particular ethnic group while letting others go.

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Some groups say that if a disproportional number of members of a race are, for example, stopped, searched, or arrested -- compared to the general population or to other races -- it must necessarily be due to discrimination. These groups regard the disproportion as evidence of "racial profiling" and oppose it. They want authorities to reduce the disproportion. Some members of this group point out that, even where disproportion is thought to exist in the number of minorities who commit certain crimes, by their very status as "minorities" they usually represent only a fraction of the total number of criminals, and therefore that the concentration of enforcement on minorities represents something other than a desire for police efficiency. Yet these same statistics also point out that an arrest is more likely to be made when pulling over a black person than a white person. According to the US Department of Justice, the prevalence of incarceration for the entire population is 1:37, yet 1:3 black males are imprisoned in their lifetime compared to Hispanics at 1:6 and whites at 1:17. Currently there are as many blacks who have served time in prison as there are whites who have served time in prison.http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/ascii/piusp01.txt Caution must be used with even these statistics, because unless examined critically, by department and state, they might lend credence to an overzealous police practices that have let whites and Hispanics go free while harassing young black males.

Related Topics:
Discrimination - Minorities

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Other groups, in contrast to this view, claim that the disproportion is primarily a result of disproportional behavior by members of certain races. These groups deny that the disproportion is due to "racial profiling" and do not call on police to reduce it.

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Including race as one of several factors in suspect profiling is generally supported by the law enforcement community, though there are many notable exceptions. It is claimed that profiling based on any characteristic is a time-tested and universal police tool, and that excluding race as a factor makes no sense. Minorities commit a disproportionate amount of crime, it is claimed, so they get more attention from law enforcement. Proponents claim that suspect profiling that deliberately omits race results in less effective, inefficient law-enforcement.

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Racial profiling: United States debate on racial profiling ►