Racial profiling - Coursework Example

Racial Profiling This paper seeks to discuss the phenomenon of racial profiling, which is, in essence, a strategy deployed by law enforcement whereinindividuals coming from racial minorities are the target of investigation or scrutiny predicated on the assumption that certain racial groups are more likely to commit crime than others. In the context of stop and search investigations, it occurs when “the police use race or ethnicity as a factor in determining whether to stop someone.” (Worall, 2011) Despite the United States being known as the country where racial discrimination is abhorred and any form of hate crime is penalized, racial profiling remains to be a prevalent practice by agents of the state.

Indeed, it has been increasingly common in light of the perceived threats to the population by Islamic terrorists. Thus, in airplanes, Islamic-looking individuals are subjected to inspections and interviews of an intensity that white people are not normally subjected to. The increasing numbers of crime, and the associations by people that these crimes emanate from race-based communities such as Hispanic communities, are also responsible for the growing trend towards racial profiling. While racial profiling is never really legislated as a policy in its explicit sense, the ever-widening range of methods that a law enforcement officer are allowed to employ allow the use of racial profiling as a legitimate strategy.

We now proceed to discussing the costs against the benefits of racial profiling. Those who support racial profiling believe that a utilitarian approach must be taken. The argument is that because it is true that there are crimes which certain racial groups are more predisposed to committing than other racial groups, “special efforts at crime reduction directed at members of such groups are justified, if not required.” (Risse and Zeckhauser, 2004). This basically means that law and order is a more important consideration than improving racial relations or fighting racial inequality.

Because crime has such pernicious effects on society, so the argument goes, the order of the day is to end it. In contrast, those who are opposed to racial profiling dispute the position that some races have a greater tendency to commit some crimes than others. Indeed, in a study conducted, the officers’ behaviour of racial profiling is not supported by any showing that the criminal acts in the predominantly white community were committed by African Americans (Meehan and Ponder, 2002). Of course, the deeper objection to racial profiling is that it does “curtail the enjoyment of fundamental human rights by millions of people who belong to racial and ethnic minorities.

” (American Civil Liberties Union and Rights Working Group, 2009). The jurisprudence has also tended to support racial profiling. It has been held, for example, that when testing the constitutionality of a vehicle stop, the motivations of a police officer making the stop (e.g., if the motivations were driven by racial bias) are immaterial, the only question is whether or not the officer had cause to effect the stop. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996). The impact on this on racial profiling is very much evident – it basically gives police officers unfettered rights to make stops, even if it targets specific racial or ethnic minorities.

In the end, instead of educating the police forces to be race-blind, it condones discrimination on the basis of racial and ethnic differences.CitationAmerican Civil Liberties Union and Rights Working Group, The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United States, 9, (2009).Albert Meehan and Michael Ponder, Race and Place: The Ecology of Racial Profiling African American Motorists, 399, (2002).Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser, Racial Profiling, 144, (2004).John Worrall, Criminal Procedure: From First Contact to Appeal, 169, (4th ed, 2011).