Is Racial Profiling Justified

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Can Racial Profiling in the United States Be Justified?
Racial profiling and the various problems that arise as a result of it bring up many controversial issues. Racial profiling is a topic that weighs heavy on the minds and opinions of many in this country. It has been the subject of many disagreements as to whether or not it actually exists. Some argue that certain races can’t see it because they never experience it, but a case can be made that all races experience it at some point. One of the most controversial is the debate of whether or not racial profiling is justified. One of the hindrances to finding an answer to this question is the fact that many agencies and departments in law enforcement refuse to cooperate with studies to …show more content…

Racial profiling is largely one-sided, affecting mainly minorities. So many non-minorities, especially in law enforcement, refuse to admit or accept the fact that people are profiled based on racial criteria time and time again. However, the DEA developed a program called Operation Pipeline that began in 1986. Under this program, also addressed in the ACLU report, police officers were trained and instructed to target individuals that drove certain types of vehicles in certain parts of town based on their age and …show more content…

This act went into effect in in 1868 and states that no state can deny anyone within its jurisdiction equal protection of the law, nor can it make or enforce any law that will infringe on the rights or liberties of any citizen of the United States. Racial profiling is an act of prejudice. It involves making a presumption of (probable) guilt based on the person’s ethnicity. This violates the fact that as citizens of this country, there is a presumption of innocence unless guilt of fault is proven in a criminal case.
To define equal protection, we must assume that all persons must have the same access to the law and courts and be treated equally by those institutions in all matters of the law. This topic was addressed in the court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. In this case, Chief Justice Earl Warren, ruled that “separate but equal” facilities for educating blacks were in fact not equal and thus unconstitutional. His reasoning was that the segregated school system did not give all students equal rights under the

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