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Racial Profiling In Law Enforcement

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The practice of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies was begun during the late 1970s, as police officers worked to capture drug traffickers. Studies in Arizona show that in 2006-2007 the state highway patrol significantly more likely to stop African Americans and hispanics than white people on all highway studies. A profile is a collection of gathered facts that help law enforcement officers target individuals who are likely committing criminal acts. Law enforcement officers have long used profiling to help them gain understanding about the likely characteristics of the perpetrator of a crime, including but not limited to age, sex, race, and observed behaviors (Institute on Race and Justice, 2008). Police have used profiling to target …show more content…
Statistics have shown that African-American individuals are much more likely to be arrested and imprisoned than white Americans. As of 2012, 60 percent of all imprisoned men were African American, and 1 in every 15 African American men was in prison versus 1 in every 106 white men. Additionally, 1 in every 3 black men can expect to go to prison as some point in their lives, and convicted blacks receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than their white counterparts. Blacks were also three times more likely than whites to be searched during traffic stops (Kerby, 2012). Other ethnic groups in the United States have also experienced negative effects from racial profiling. While the term racial profiling has only recently come into use, law enforcement agencies have long used race, ethnicity, and national origin as grounds for police action in the United States. During the years of slavery, blacks were not allowed to leave their plantations without passes, and they could be questioned or detained by any white individual without any reason for suspicion. After slavery was outlawed, many states continued to control African Americans through curfews and the use of Jim Crow laws throughout the South (Pampel, …show more content…
Hispanics and Latinos have faced intense scrutiny from law enforcement officials under suspicion that they are illegal residents; Asian-Americans were discriminated against by police officers in the communities in which they lived when they began immigrating to the United States in large numbers in the 1800s. Those of Middle Eastern descent face profiling in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.A report released by the United States Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) provided results from a 2002 survey in which contacts between police officers and close to 17 million drivers were analyzed. The results were significant for several reasons. First, although white drivers were more likely than both black and Hispanic drivers to be stopped by police for speeding, both blacks and Hispanics were more likely to receive a ticket. Among the young, males drivers to be stopped, blacks and Hispanics were more likely to be searched. These statistics are in spite of the fact that in 2002 a higher percentage of white drivers were licensed in the United States (76.2 percent) than black drivers (10.5 percent) and Hispanics (9.7

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