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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Show MoreRacial profiling is generally defined as discrimination put into action based on a stereotype. No one is excluded from the potential to experience some form of racial profiling, regardless of one’s race, gender, or religion. Racial profiling has existed in various forms since slavery. During the reconstruction of the South, the first sense of racial profiling began with “Black Codes”. “Black Codes” were created to maintain a new form of slavery. These “codes” made it punishable by imprisonment and indentured servitude for any African American who loitered, remained unemployed, drunk, or in debt. The “Black Codes” were a transparent form of what we call racial profiling today. From a ruling class perspective, the minority groups are constantly undermined, intimidated, attacked, imprisoned, discredited, and sometimes shot and killed. These acts take place in order for the ruling class to maintain control and in most cases unjustly abuse their power.
Racial profiling is the tactic of stopping someone because of the color of his or her skin and a fleeting suspicion that the person is engaging in criminal behavior (Meeks, p. 4-5). This practice can be conducted with routine traffic stops, or can be completely random based on the car that is driven, the number of people in the car and the race of the driver and passengers. The practice of racial profiling may seem more prevalent in today’s society, but in reality has been a part of American culture since the days of slavery. According to Tracey Maclin, a professor at the Boston University School of Law, racial profiling is an old concept. The historical roots “can be traced to a time in early American society when court officials permitted constables and ordinary citizens the right to ‘take up’ all black persons seen ‘gadding abroad’ without their master’s permission” (Meeks, p. 5). Although slavery is long since gone, the frequency in which racial profiling takes place remains the same. However, because of our advanced electronic media, this issue has been brought to the American public’s attention.
Before any argument can be made against racial profiling, it is important to understand what racial profiling is. The American Civil Liberties Union, defines racial profiling as "the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin"(Racial Profiling: Definition). Using this definition we can determine that racial profiling excludes any evidence of wrong-doing and relies solely on the characteristics listed above. We can also see that racial profiling is different from criminal profiling, which uses evidence of wrong-doing and facts which can include information obtained from outside sources and evidence gathered from investigation. Based on these definitions, I will show that racial profiling is unfair and ineffective because it relies on stereotyping, encourages discrimination, and in many cases can be circumvented.
Racial profiling is a wide spread term in the American justice system today, but what does it really mean? Is racial profiling just a term cooked up by criminals looking for a way to get out of trouble and have a scapegoat for their crimes? Is it really occurring in our justice system, and if so is it done intentionally? Most importantly, if racial profiling exists what steps do we take to correct it? The answer to these questions are almost impossible to find, racial profiling is one of many things within our justice system that can be disputed from any angle and has no clear cut answers. All that can be done is to study it from different views and sources and come up with one’s own conclusion on the issue.
One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling. This is the police practice of stopping, questioning, and searching potential criminal suspects in vehicles or on the street based solely on their racial appearance (Human Rights Watch, 2000). This type of profiling has contributed to racially disproportionate drug arrests, as well as, arrests for other crimes. It makes sense that the more individuals police stop, question and search, the more people they will find with reason for arrest. So, if the majority of these types of stop and frisk searches are done on a certain race then it makes sense that tha...
Racial Profiling is wrong. There should be laws that make the use of racial profiling illegal, because it causes harm to people of different race, religion and ethnicity; moreover, it has a major effect
Racial profiling can have an effect from labeling, media propaganda, the disparency of races questioned at traffic stops, and even the selective singling out of a particular race. The outcomes of these acts of discrimination verily outdo the pros. The fear within the authorities of specific races can lead to outcomes of racial profiling to be clearly displayed. Racial Profiling can see many inopportune actions executed by the authorities, influenced by tension, fear, or human
First of all, we have to look at motifs. Why would people want to racially profile? As I was saying with the New York Stop-and-Go system, the officers have to perform such drastic measures in order to A. keep their job and B. make the NYPD’s arrest rates go up so that they look productive. Naturally, this gets everyone big raises and lots of recognition and awards, but in the end, multiple races are suffering from this. And now some people are honestly convinced that the stop-and-go system works because of these technically faked numbers.
Profiling is unconstitutional and violates civil rights. Police can search a person without a warrant if they have reasonable doubt that they are armed and dangerous; however, of people who are pulled over while driving, less than 4% of whites are searched while about 10% of bla...
The Fourth Amendment states “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Despite this right, multiple minorities across the country suffer at the hands of police officers through racial profiling; the singling out of a person or persons as the main suspect of a crime based on their race. Many people have also suffered the loss of a loved one because police believed the suspect to be a threat based on their races therefore the officers use their authority to take out the “threat”. Although racial profiling may make sense to police officers in the line of duty, through the eyes of the public and those affected by police actions, it is a form a racism that is not being confronted and is allowing unjust convictions and deaths.
While several effects of racial profiling have been negative, not all of them have been. In fact, when the New York Police Department began implementing the stop and frisk policy, New York’s crime rate fell dramatically. While it has been argued that crime rates all over United States fell during the same time that the New York Police Department began using the stop and frisk method, New York’s crime rate dropped much more dramatically than in other locations (Rosen,
Profiling is suspecting someone of committing a crime or being guilty based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion instead of probable cause or evidence. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that racial profiling violates the constitutional requirement that all people are to be given equal protection of the law. The center of this debate has been a talk about inequities in the basic functioning of the criminal justice system. This includes police force and aggressiveness, arrest and prosecution policies, the harshness of criminal sentences, etc. Although the federal government does play a role in policing/profiling, it's the state and local government that handle day to day operations. One solution to profiling is to increase the
Recently in New York City the “stop and frisk” law was passed causing mostly African Americans, Muslims, and Asians to be targeted and stopped by law enforcement to be humiliated in many different ways. Police officials and officers use racial profiling to determine or arrest people who have no criminal records or have not committed a crime. In addition, some people in the society believe racial profiling is a gateway to prevent crimes and should be practiced. Even though this practice may indeed be solving crimes in society but the ineffectiveness of racial profiling breaks down the growth and unity
Since the 1990’s there have been great efforts to stop drug distribution and an effort to prevent crime. Also there have been concerns about illegal immigration. Profiling is one tool being used to aid the law enforcement in catching the criminals involved in these crimes. This practice, profiling, has turned into racial profiling and has generated controversy (Welch, 2007, p. 277). Even though it has been realized that profiling has changed, the motivation for its use has not. More reasons for profiling have come about from the 2001 September 11th terrorist attacks. This has led to other forms of profiling that relate more to race and national origin (Pampel, 2004, p. 3-4).
...al profiled. The way is by the color of their skin. People say that racial profiling is a good way to stop terrorism and violence and stolen merchandise, but they don’t know the affect it has to the other minorities. If you were a minority you wouldn’t want to have people look at you differently or even make assumptions about you. To stop racial profiling we should stop judging how people look and stop recalling what happened in the pass with their ethnicity. Witherbee Amy ebscohost.com stated “Those who would defend racial profiling admitted that the policy bound to infringe upon the rights of African Americans who were targeted because of their appearance, but claimed that profiling made sense based on statistics that showed blacks and Latino Americans were more likely to be convicted with drugs crimes.” Would you make an effort to put an end to racial profiling?