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Racial profiling is the use of race as a consideration in suspect profiling or other law enforcement
practices.
Advocates are divided on whether race should be:
- considered if it's statistically significant
- never considered for any reason at all
While often associated with police procedures, the issue came into the international
spotlight because race was included among the factors used by aviation authorities in several countries to attempt to identify
potential terrorists and prevent them from boarding airplanes.
Virtually all advocates agree that race ought not to be the only factor in suspect profiling (definition 1). Most would agree
that the police should not, for example, pull over only speeders of a particular ethnic group while letting others go.
Some groups say that if a disproportional number of members of a race are, e.g., stopped, searched, or arrested -- compared to
the general population or to other races -- it must necessarily be due to discrimination. These groups regard the disproportion
as evidence of "racial profiling" and oppose it. They want authorities to reduce the disproportion. Some members of this group
point out that, even where disproportion is thought to exist in the number of minorities who commit certain crimes, by their very
status as "minorities" they usually represent only a fraction of the total number of criminals, and therefore that the
concentration of enforcement on minorities represents something other than a desire for police efficiency.
Other groups, in contrast to this view, claim that the disproportion is primarily a result of disproportional behavior by
members of certain races. These groups deny that the disproportion is due to "racial profiling" and do not call on police to
reduce it.
Including race as one of several factors in suspect profiling (definition 2) is generally supported by the law enforcement
community, though there are many notable exceptions. It is claimed that profiling based on any characteristic is a
time-tested and universal police tool, and that excluding race as a factor makes no sense. Minorities commit a disproportionate
amount of crime, it is claimed, so they get more attention from law enforcement. Proponents claim that suspect profiling that
deliberately omits race results in less effective, inefficient law-enforcement.
United States debate on racial profiling
In the United States, the term "racial profiling" has often been
paired with accusations of racial discrimination against blacks and Hispanics, particularly by police.
The DEA taught state troopers some
common identifying signs of drug couriers:
- nervousness;
- conflicting information about origin and destination cities among vehicle occupants;
- no luggage for a long trip;
- lots of cash;
- lack of a driver's license or insurance; the spare tire in the back seat;
- rental license plates or plates from key source states like Arizona and New Mexico;
- loose screws or scratches near a vehicle's hollow spaces, which can be converted to hiding places for drugs and guns.
The agency also shared intelligence about the types of cars that couriers favored on certain routes, as well as about the
ethnic makeup of drug-trafficking organizations.
According to some advocates, only the non-racial factors are justified in suspect profiling; police should ignore any ethnic
or racial information they have on people involved in the illegal drug trade. These advocates regard the inclusion of racial
characteristics, even as one of several factors as "racial profiling" (definition 2) and oppose it.
Organizations such as NAACP and the ACLU are
staunchly opposed to "racial profiling". Most crime is committed by whites, they say, and profiling based exclusively on race
(definition 1) singles out minorities such as African-Americans and
those of Hispanic descent. They also dispute the claim that more crime is committed
by minorities. Some also take issue with the police having the prerogative to use race as a factor (definition 2), as this leaves
minorities little recourse if unfairly harassed by police.
In the wake of the September
11, 2001 Terrorist Attack the issue of "racial profiling" has become topical, as the urgency of preventing terrorists from
boarding aircraft has again risen. Opponents of the practice of considering the race of terrorist suspects (definition 2) say
that the gains made from targeting an ethnic group are not outweighed by the feeling of insecurity that innocent members of that
group are subjected to. Some point out that Al-Qaida is a religious, not ethnic terrorist organization and therefore racial
profiling not only can cause false charging of innocent people, but it can also allow non-Arab muslims who belong to Al-Qaida or
other terrorist groups to get away with terrorism. Some say that once Osama bin Laden realizes that we use racial profiling he'll make his top terrorists non-Arabs.
Supporters of racial profiling believe it to be a necessary tool for law enforcement because members of certain minority
groups are, on pure statistics, more likely to commit certain types of crimes. For example, in recent times many terrorists
(e.g., September 11, Madrid bombings, etc.) have been young Arab males, while female Europeans have only participated in
terrorist actions on extremely rare occasions. Thus, they would argue, it is both logical and useful to have security officers at
airports take special note of young Arab male fliers, and not to examine all fliers equally. The rationalisation for this
viewpoint is that the most widespread form of terrorism currently is Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism. As a result, a
fundamentalist Muslim is more likely to be a terrorist than a white female Christian This howeever, is not a racial factor, as
the connection is between the attribute of the person (fundamentalist Muslim) and the group (terrorist). However, since Islam is
associated with certain countries (Arab states, Pakistan, North Africa, etc.), and since fundamentalist Muslims are all Muslims,
people from these countries (who are more likely to be Muslim than someone who appears to be White and Swedish), are
statistically more likely to be terrorists. In other words, just as the majority of Americans are not terrorists, so too most
Arabs are peacable. However, as it is prohibitively difficult, disruptive and expensive to stop all travellers, there is a bigger
chance of catching a terrorist by stopping all Arabs if it has been found that (for examaple) 0.1% of Arabs are terrorists
whereas only 0.01% of Caucasians are terrorists. This does leave the country vulnerable to people who do not fit the stereotype.
The debate on racial profiling is also fuelled greatly by incidents that could hypothetically have been prevented had it been
practiced to the extreme. For example, some argue that an extreme form of racial profiling towards Arabs could in theory have
made authorities aware of those involved in September 11th before it happened, thereby preventing it. Those not wholly opposed to
racial profiling would assert that merely a more thorough check of those who would be historically more likely to be involved
with airline terrorism and/or hijacking of airplanes would have found some, if not all of the boxcutters that the September 11th
hijackers carried, and thereby preventing the hijacking of the planes.
In addition, some experts have also pointed to the fact that drug use and abuse, for example, is much more common among white
suburbanites than urban blacks and Hispanics, yet police have most often targeted poor minorities for drug law enforcement; and
there has been no public call to profile white suburbanites, despite this evidence (as this would likely be extremely unpopular
among the white political majority). However, others argue that this is analogous to trying to kill a tree by cutting off its
leaves, and ignores the fact that blacks and hispanics are more likely to be towards the "trunk" or "branches", and that a more
efficient and effective means of curbing drug abuse is to target the transporters, rather than the end users, just as one targets
weapon smugglers, rather than every single person who uses an illegal firearm.
In the UK in the early 1990s evidence showed that black people were as much as five times more likely to be stopped by the
police. This is an example of racial profiling. Following this discovery, some police officers claimed that they were to
frightened of being accused of racism to stop black suspects, and that the reaction against racial profiling had gone too far and
was hindering their ability to do their job.
A number of incidents involving racial profiling have been reported and denounced as grave human rights violations, such as
Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who
was deported to Syria while changing planes in New York. This scenario caused a major rift in Canada-US relations.
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