Arguments Against Racial Profiling In The United States

Racial profiling: the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone for having committed an offense. Probably the most widely used form of discrimination today in America. It is a thing that cannot really be changed, and that creates a lot of distrust and anger between minorities and police departments of America. It is found by many to be ethically and morally wrong, and technically illegal. But can it be justified?

As per the American Civil Liberties Union, “Racial profiling is patently illegal, violating the U.S. Constitution’s core promises of equal protection under the law to all and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.”(ACLU, 2015) And this is true. The US Constitution guarantees all of those rights to every

The charges where minorities lead in arrests are in violent crimes, crimes where often times situations can arise where an officer may have good reason to fear for their lives. So, looking at that data, when one is afraid for one's life, is it not justified to have bias towards the group of people committing those crimes?

The data above just goes to show that it is not just minorities being arrested and charged. There are in fact more white people in the vast majority of arrests than minorities. This can lead one to a question: why are minorities feeling discriminated against? Not only looking at these two tables, but looking at things seen with my own eyes during my shadowing of the Twin Falls Police Department. Over the course of my senior project, I have experienced first hand the criminal justice system. The arrest of one woman, Helen, for example. She was a Hispanic woman arrested for assault and battery. When she was taken to the county jail for booking, she collapsed, and had seizures (the attending officers believed she was faking). Other than the fits, she was a fairly calm person while under arrest. The police officers had to take her to the hospital, cite, and release her because they could not put a guard on her while she was being cleared by the hospital. The reason explained was that all of the officers on duty were already stretched thin, and they did not have the funding to put more

In October 2001, “60 percent of Americans want Arabs to undergo more intensive screening” (Levy, 2001) than other peoples. While it was 14 years ago, and that percent has almost definitely diminished, it just shows that when the tables are turned, and a group of people have a pre-eminent willingness to hurt or kill someone, one would want that group of people to be watched more closely. Minorities of all kinds in America wanted a small group of people to me more heavily scrutinized even though those individuals had never done anything to anyone. The double standard on racial profiling is made very clear here. In conclusion, racial profiling, like basically every other issue facing the country today, is not cut and dry. It is not, so to speak, black and white. It is multi faceted, and can be approached from many angles. From the point of view of the police, profiling is a lot about using common sense and reason. For the general public, it’s just racism from people in power. It is all really just subject to