...it comes to racial profiling, this seems to be the case. Racial profiling is an act by which someone is searched based on race with no “evidence of criminal activity” (“Racial Profiling” 1). This not only creates an unfair judgment in the civil law, but also perpetuates racial stereotypes throughout society. Racial profiling causes stress and extreme psychological damages that can potentially ruin the future. These damages, however, can be helped if racial profiling were to be put to an end. Blame an individual and not his or her culture. Believe it or not, there are people who do not believe in...
Words: 930 - Pages: 4
...Bernard, J. Thomas, Calnon, M. Jennifer, Engel, S. Robin. Theory and racial profiling: Shortcomings and future directions in research: Pages 250-273. 20 October 2015. The authors reviewed thirteen studies that collected data on police-citizen contact during traffic stops or interrogation. Each found racial disparities in the total rates of the stops. Criminal justice researches have focused on determining the relative influence of legal factors on decision making. Researchers found that the impact of racial prejudice on criminal justice agents’ has decreased in importance for at least thirty years. Prior to the 1970’s racial prejudice was appropriate and reasonable, but since then police departments have made managerial efforts to reduce prejudice...
Words: 371 - Pages: 2
...Racial profiling has become a practice used by law enforcement officials where decisions are made on the basis of skin color, ethnicity, or gender. This practice has had profound effects in communities where majority of the population are minorities, specifically African Americans and Hispanics. Not only are communities affected, but so are police officers. Due to the frequent use of this practice, community members are displeased which resulted in negative perceptions of the police. Today, police officers must take careful consideration of their actions because of the recent controversial matters regarding Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and others. Many criminal justice experts may argue that the practice of racial profiling is the misuse of...
Words: 784 - Pages: 4
...backgrounds and hold very different values, beliefs, experiences and this has an effect on their opinion on law enforcement’s use of racial profiling. When it comes to racial profiling there are people who support that use of it and others completely reject the idea of police use of racial profiling. “Personal experiences with the police, particularly those in which residents believe they have been the target of racial profiling, have also emerged as strong predictors of perceptions about profiling. Perhaps not so surprisingly, bad experiences with police have been found to negatively impact perceptions of police” (Graziano et al. 2010 p 4). This quote is significant because it tells us that people who have bad...
Words: 616 - Pages: 3
...The first section of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteen Amendment states that no State may “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Racial profiling, on the other hand, is often defined as law enforcement activities that are operated solely on the basis of race. The unethical and unlawful practice of racial profiling, results in police officers unjustly using an individual’s race or ethnicity as a reason to excessively stop minorities. In a traffic report conducted on the national level for the year 2005, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reveals that “Black drivers (4.5%) were twice as likely as White drivers (2.1%) to be arrested during a traffic stop, while Hispanic drivers (65%) were more likely than White (56.2%) to receive a ticket” (Channin par. 6). The statistics provided by the BJS demonstrate that police actions during street stops were not uniform across racial and ethnic groups. African-American and Hispanic drivers seemed to have a higher likelihood of being pulled over than that of the Whites at the national level. Another article that shows how people of color are the target of racial profiling is “Police Deny Accusations of Racial Profiling with White Teen, Black Dancers” by Ruth Manuel-Logan. In this column, Manuel-Logan describes a recent incident when Houston police stopped and handcuffed...
Words: 2097 - Pages: 9
...Racial profiling has been around for many years, with laws such as the "Black Codes", which were created during the reconstruction in the South. These laws imposed severe restrictions on freed slaves such as prohibiting their right to vote, forbidding them to sit on juries, limiting their right to testify against white men, carrying weapons in public places and working in certain occupations; and the “Jim Crow” laws, which were laws that discriminated against African Americans with concern to attendance in public schools and the use of facilities such as restaurants, theaters, hotels, cinemas and public baths. Trains and buses were also segregated and in many states marriage between whites and African American people. According to Heather Mac Donald, the term "Racial profiling" has two meanings, hard and soft profiling. “Hard” profiling uses race as the only factor in assessing criminal suspiciousness: an officer sees a black person and, without more to go on, pulls him over for a pat-down on the chance that he may be carrying drugs or weapons. "Soft" racial profiling is using race as one factor among others in gauging criminal suspiciousness: the highway police, for example, have intelligence that Jamaican drug posses with a fondness for Nissan Pathfinders are transporting marijuana along the northeast corridor. A New Jersey trooper sees a black motorist speeding in a Pathfinder and pulls him over in the hope of finding drugs (Mac Donald). Racial Profiling really came...
Words: 1806 - Pages: 8
...V. 2. Part 1-Racial profiling: a brief history and background: Profiling began in the early 1970’s by the drug enforcement agency and it focused on certain behaviors. By the 1980’s when Reagan declared the war on drugs, skin color became a major profile component and enforcement of drug laws became to take on the street level rather than just in airports and the focus was increasingly on poor communities of color. By 1985, the DEA had trained thousands of police officers to employ the "pretextual traffic stop", a legal name for racial profiling, and refers to the practice of stopping drivers, particularly those of color, for minor traffic violations for the purpose of searching their cars for drugs, guns, or cash. In 1986, the DEA introduced...
Words: 1914 - Pages: 8
...An issue I deem that is a flaw in the criminal justice system is using racial profiling for the stop-and-frisk policy. Racial profiling is basically the use of race or ethnicity as grounds for suspecting someone of committing a crime or an offense. The stop-and-frisk policy is when a police officer stops someone he/she deems suspicious and frisking the person for something. One case that relates to this flaw in the criminal justice system would be the Floyd v. City of New York. The date that this case was filed was on January 31, 2008 by David Floyd, David Ourlicht, Lalit Clarkson and Deon Dennis. This case challenged the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) practices of racial profiling and seeing whether or not the stop and frisk policy...
Words: 1835 - Pages: 8
...Following the attacks of terrorism on September 11, 2001, activated a national fear of future terrorism acts; therefore, racial profiling with policing resurfaced with Islamophobia (Bornstein, 2005), defined as generalized fear of Islam and Muslims (Zaal, 2012). Conclusively, the current era can be described as a time of racial bias and discrimination (Schlosser, 2013). Three areas in which racially diverse impact of police practices have been safeguarded on different grounds (Rudovsky, 2001): 1) Minorities commit more crimes, justifying racial disparities in documented reports of stops, searches, and arrests 2) Minorities violate criminal laws at a higher rate than whites because of location and social impact, and the same laws violated...
Words: 663 - Pages: 3
...reason the officer wants to search your car. After much hassle you are finally free to go, yet still have no explanation as to why you were pulled over to begin with. Now imagine you are black and the officer is white. You have probably just experienced racial profiling. Racial profiling is a problem which is gaining widespread notoriety in the United States. It may be the most important homeland issue we face today. Racial profiling is a clear violation of the civil rights of United States citizens. Not only does racial profiling affect civilians, but it actually makes law enforcement ineffective. Most efforts to investigate and eradicate racial profiling have failed due to unclear findings and a lack of accountability on the part of law enforcement. New measures must be taken in conjunction with current measures to curb racial profiling. A stringent federal program to monitor and survey our nation’s police officers is needed. The public also needs to become more involved in efforts to stop racial profiling. Until these measures are taken, racial profiling will continue to eat away at the heart of our nation. Racial profiling is one of the most important civil rights issues facing our country today. Not only does racial profiling affect the direct victims, it negatively affects all people of color, in all generations, of all levels of economic standing. The integrity and accountability of...
Words: 3179 - Pages: 13
...Racial Profiling Still Active Today Research Methodology in Public Safety Racial Profiling “It is said that Milwaukee Police Departments are said to be “racial profiling” due to their Police Chief implementing a “traffic stop initiative” only in African American Communities. The Police Chief tried to say it that it wasn’t “racial profiling” but rather “targeting the high crime areas of Milwaukee (White, 2010).” Racial profiling occurs when police routinely use races as a factor that causes an officer to react with suspicion to take action. Though the Police Chief feels he is doing the right thing by supposedly protecting “black victims,” the community feels that the police department is “racially profiling.” Racial profiling in my opinions an ineffective strategy. It says that you don’t want to learn about your community person’s behavior and you’re just ready to judge the person by the color of the skin. It cannot be disputed that the perception of racial profiling by police department still exist within minority communities and societies at large. This is a recurrent topic of debate and divisive issue in many communities. This was clearly seen and addressed when I saw the problem first hand when I worked in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Questions: Some questions to be asked are: 1. Should police do more to control excessive force? 2. Should...
Words: 309 - Pages: 2
...against racial profiling and they blame the justice system for the higher number of minority inmates. I believe that it’s because of the drug-war and poverty and not as much the justice system racial profiling. There is no way to answer this question without looking farther into what racial profiling is, and what affects it has on people. From my understanding, when most people hear the words racial profiling they automatically think of black Americans being harassed by the police or other law enforcement officials. Racial profiling does not just consist of law enforcement officers arresting or detaining minorities because of their color or ethnicity. It also consists of people harassing other people differently because of their name, appearance, beliefs, and any personal trait they have. Merrian-Webster defines profiling, as the act or process of extrapolating information about a person based on known traits or tendencies. (Profiling, 2013) In my opinion, most people do some sort of racial profiling on a daily basis. It may be something as simple as locking your door when you drive through a bad part of town. This does not make you a bad person because statistics may prove that where you are driving does typically have a higher crime rate, but does it make it right? Quoting statistics at this time is not going to open any eyes or prove any points. At this time, I would just like to discuss the different points of view on profiling in general, where racial profiling...
Words: 3048 - Pages: 13
...potential study participants, research questions, and the viability of the topic. Problem and Purpose Statement Right now the country is faced with a serious issue and that issue is racial profiling. Events in Feguerson, Missouri, Cleveland, and New York have put civil rights and racial profiling into the spotlight. It is an issue that is not going away anytime soon and needs to be study. By studying arresting data and speaking with interviewing and polling individual in the community and law enforcement will we be able to understand racial profiling and its entirety. This could be done with something like a gallop poll or telephone surveys where people are selected at random across the nation. The problem is how law enforcement is using racial profiling in the field when it comes to making decisions. . Specifically, the problem is how minorities are stopped at a higher level than those of non-minorities. Over the years, African Americans, Hispanics, and since 9/11, people from the Middle East have been subjected to higher instances of investigative detentions, searches, traffic stops, etc. By definition, "racial profiling" occurs when a law enforcement officer questions, stops, searches, arrests, or investigates and individual because the officer holds a prejudicial notion that members of that person's racial or ethnic group have a greater likelihood than the rest of the population to commit the sort of crime the officer is investigating. (Barnes, Gross, 2010) Research Method The...
Words: 782 - Pages: 4
...Everything Isn’t Racial Profiling By Linda Chavez Critical analysis Racial Profiling is a Good Bias "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.'… I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."(King, 1963, P.49) These were the words of the infamous Martin Luther King, a man whose goal in life was to strain to give this world racial equality and stop racial profiling and injustice. Linda Chavez, the author of the article ‘Everything Isn’t Racial Profiling’ argues that racial profiling is an ugly business and that it is just wrong and unjust, as she herself was subjected to it. Linda’s argument is that racial profiling is undeniably wrong, but the fact that security puts people under scrutiny is correct. I think the author’ argument is quite legitimate and convincing. Racial profiling is biased, but in some cases it is permissible, especially when it comes to airline safety. ‘Everything Isn’t Racial Profiling’ is an article that talks about how racial profiling is generally immoral, but in some certain times putting certain people under scrutiny is logical. Chavez clarifies that it is unpleasant to be a victim of racial profiling especially if you know it happens because of your nationality or the color of your skin...
Words: 1903 - Pages: 8
...In this paper, I will be focusing on the act of racial profiling, which has become quite common in the contemporary society. Racial profiling refers to the practice of using race as the main ground for suspecting individuals of having committed an offense. I will be sharing this article with the history professor in Sunderland University. Racial Profiling Component of Article The article that I will review and is related to this topic on racial profiling is named “Race and Justice: Wrongful Convictions of African American Men” is written by Feagin Joe. Precisely, this article mainly talks about how the African Americans tend to be wrongly convicted due to racial prejudice and discrimination (Feagin, 2013). In order to gather adequate...
Words: 935 - Pages: 4
