Racial Profiling

• Author: Jeffrey Lehman, Shirelle Phelps

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The consideration of race, ethnicity, or national origin by an officer of the law in deciding when and how to intervene in an enforcement capacity.

Police officers often profile certain types of individuals who are more likely to perpetrate crimes. Many of these suspects are profiled because of activities observed by police officers. For example, if someone who is obviously poor is frequently seen in a more affluent neighborhood, such a person may be profiled as someone with possible criminal intent. Similarly, if an individual living in an obviously poor neighborhood has in his or her possession several expensive items, that person may be profiled as someone involved in crime, such as drugs or theft. Although this type of profiling is not always considered fair, law enforcement officers consider it necessary to identify possible criminal activity before it occurs and causes injury to others.

One of the most heated issues in law enforcement is the profiling of individuals

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based solely upon the race, ethnicity, or national origin of the individual. Statistics show that African Americans are several times more likely to be arrested and incarcerated than white Americans. As of 2000, fewer African American men were in college than were in prison. Moreover, black children were nine times as likely as white children to have at least one parent in prison.

The most common form of racial profiling occurs when police stop, question, and search African American, Hispanic American, or members of other racial minorities disproportionately based solely on the individuals' race or ethnicity. In 1996, the television network ABC aired a report entitled "Driving While Black," in which it paid three younger black men to drive around the city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, in a Mercedes-Benz. Three officers in the city pulled over the car for a minor traffic infraction and then proceeded to search the car and the young men. The show demonstrated with little doubt that the only reason the three men were pulled over was their race. Nevertheless, the officers brought a DEFAMATION suit against ABC, claiming that ABC had defamed their character and had violated New Jersey's anti-wiretapping law. In 2000, a New Jersey Superior Court judge dismissed the lawsuit.

Should Police Practice Racial Profiling?

The 1998 shooting death of three young minority men by state troopers during a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike helped spark a national debate on the issue of so-called "racial profiling" by law enforcement officials. Critics of profiling charge that the practice is inherently racist, because law enforcement officials tend to stop and search African Americans and other minorities more often than whites. Critics also charge that aggressive stop-and-search tactics erode public confidence in law enforcement and violate the CIVIL RIGHTS of all citizens. In 1999, they led the charge for federal legislation to determine the extent to which racial profiling is practiced. Defenders of profiling concede that some law enforcement officials may stop and search blacks and other minorities at a disproportionately high rate. However, they ascribe this to overzealous police work and believe it can be addressed through training. Furthermore, they credit profiling, in part, with a significant decrease in America's crime rate and oppose efforts to collect data on stop-and-search tactics.

Critics of profiling acknowledge that law enforcement officials have broad discretion when it comes to stopping and searching citizens. On the highway, evidence of a traffic infraction alone is justification for stopping a motorist. Off the highway, a police officer must have a "reasonable suspicion" that a person is armed and presents a danger, and must be able to articulate why he or she felt that way. This "reasonable suspicion" standard evolved from a landmark 1968 Supreme Court decision, TERRY V. OHIO, 392, U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968), and it is significantly lower than the "probable...