Editor’s Introduction

• DOI: 10.1177/1043986212446871
• Published date: 01 May 2012
• Date: 01 May 2012
• Author: Kenneth J. Novak
• Subject Matter: Articles

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

28(2) 120 –121

© 2012 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/1043986212446871

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418883CCJ27410.1177/1043986211418883Pro

ulxJournal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

Editor’s Introduction:

Special Issue on Racial

Profiling

Police and racial minorities have had a contentious relationship throughout American

history. Clashes between these groups have resulted in riots, civil unrest, mutual cyni-

cism, calls for police reform and shifts in policing priorities. It is recognized that minori-

ties are overrepresented across the criminal justice system, that minorities tend to harbor

less favorable perceptions toward the police, and differential contacts between police

officers and minority citizens is consistent with these observations. However, in the mid-

1990s high-profile court cases focused attention on police-public contacts during traffic

enforcement. It was observed that minority motorists were more likely to be pulled over

by the police, and terms including “racial profiling” or “driving while Black” were used

to characterize this new strand of tension between the police and the public. Perhaps in

part due to the catchy phrase and shared understanding among the general public of what

racial profiling is, the reaction to this phenomenon has been truly remarkable. From anti-

racial profiling laws, civil litigation, consent decrees, and internal policies forbidding

racial profiling, to the volumes of commentary, observations, political reaction (which

included a Presidential beer-summit) and research on the topic – the larger social reac-

tion to the “discovery” of racial profiling has also been remarkable. Yet despite this

attention, it is frustrating that a common accepted definition has not been identified,

theoretical explanations for the practice remain elusive, and agreement of recognizing

and detecting racial profiling does not exist.

Racial profiling was ‘born’ in part due to outcomes from civil trials in New Jersey

and Maryland, and since that time litigation has increased dramatically. Withrow and

Dailey (this issue) document this evolution and the various remedial avenues for racial

profiling claims, and further compare and contrast successful and unsuccessful legal

allegations. Based upon their analysis and larger societal factors they anticipate a con-

tinued increase in these legal claims. This observation underscores the importance for

policy makers to accurately define, recognize, and proactively address bias within

police-public contacts.

Initially allegations of racial profiling occurred within the context of disproportionate

contact between the police and the public; specifically, minorities were more likely to be

stopped by the police than their white counterparts. Methodological debates ensued as

people grappled with the benchmarking controversy, or in other words, identifying the

correct racial characteristics of the population in which to compare the racial composi-

tion of who was stopped. Clearly some benchmarks have proved to be less valid than

others, but to some extent this discussion misses the mark – regardless of the benchmark,

citizens’ perceptions of stop legitimacy are critical to understanding public sentiment as

to whether racial profiling exists, or whether citizens feel they have been inappropriately

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