Racial Profiling Essay: Outline, Examples, & Writing Tips

Racial profiling is not uncommon. It’s incredibly offensive and unfair behavior that causes most of the protests in support of people of color. It occurs when people are suspected of committing a crime based on their skin color or ethnicity.

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Racial profiling is incredibly offensive and unfair behavior that causes most of the protests in support of people of color.

Unfortunately, most people are unaware that racial profiling is an everyday phenomenon that harms both the victims and society. Therefore, it’s crucial that we highlight this issue in as many ways as possible. One of the options is expressing your opinion through writing. A racial profiling essay can be inspiring and persuasive. All the power is in your hands, so let’s figure out how to use it! Keep reading this guide made by Custom-writing.org experts.

The article contains a writing guide, a collection of racial profiling essay topics, ideas, and examples, as well as the tips on making a racial profiling essay outline. We hope that it will inspire you to make an A+ argumentative racial profiling essay or even a persuasive speech on the topic!

🤔 What Is a Racial Profiling Essay about?

  • 📑 Making an Outline
  • 👌 Writing Tips

📝 Racial Profiling Essay Examples

🔗 references.

There is more than one objective for writing a racial profiling essay. First of all, it can be as simple as expressing your feelings about it. For example, you might consider pointing out how unfair and unjustified those actions are. Moreover, if you’re a law student, you should definitely back up those conclusions with the extractions from the Constitution.

You can then focus on describing the impact it has on society, which makes a fantastic cause and effect essay. There are so many more topic ideas, but if you’re feeling stuck, go ahead to the article’s next sections!

Argumentative Racial Profiling Essay

To write a successful argumentative racial profiling essay, you need to focus on investigating the topic to express your perspective later. Every statement you include in the main body of the writing should be supported by evidence. The essential part of such an essay is a clear thesis statement! And if you struggle to come up with a good one yourself, you can get help from a thesis statement generator online .

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Persuasive Racial Profiling Essay

Unlike the type discussed above, a persuasive racial profiling essay should aim to convince your readers that your point of view is the only correct one. Instead of just presenting your point of view, you need to gather the most convincing facts that can influence your audience. It requires expertise in the topic of racial profiling.

Racial Profiling Essay Topics

Looking for a racial profiling essay topic ? Find a short and sweet topic collection below.

  • The impact of racial profiling on the US society. For this essay, you would need to study how citizens react to racial profiling. You might also include some statistics from the previous years.
  • Present your point of view on the issue of racial profiling . If you ever faced it yourself, your reflective essay would be even more powerful! Include as much evidence as you can.
  • Racial profiling: are African Americans overreacting? Someone feels like people might be taking this issue too personally. Therefore, you should provide strong arguments to point out how discriminating those actions are.
  • Accepting racial profiling as a common practice. Express your opinion on this topic. Do you think police should be legally allowed to practice racial profiling? Why would it be a violation of rights?
  • Racial profiling from a psychological perspective. Try to analyze this occurrence as if you were a professional psychologist. What do you think makes law enforcement act this way?
  • Does racism impact the US immigration?
  • Discuss the definition and origins of racial profiling .
  • Analyze the aim and values of the Black Life Matter movement.
  • Racial stereotypes in Disney films.
  • Examine the problem of workplace racism .
  • How can racism in medicine be eliminated?
  • What is the colorblind racism ?
  • Describe your personal experience of racism .
  • Compare the ways South Africa and the US are handling racism .
  • The goals of the Black Lives Matter movement.
  • Explain why racism is a persistent problem in modern society.
  • Explore the concept of racial profiling in the “war on drugs.”
  • Childhood under the racist laws of apartheid in Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime .
  • Discuss the effect of racism on child development .
  • Is there a racial disparity gap in healthcare?
  • Describe the problems racism causes in American schools .
  • How does racism affect modern society?
  • Racial stereotypes in music video .
  • The pros and cons of racial profiling in the airports.
  • Describe the specifics of colorblind racism .
  • Discuss the possible solutions of racial profiling problem.
  • Terrorist attacs in 9/11, hate crimes, and racial profiling .
  • Is institutionalized racism a real problem or a myth?
  • Racial and ethnical prejudices in breast cancer treatment .
  • Examine the cases of racism against healthcare workers and their consequences.
  • Analyze the impact of racism on globalization .
  • Describe and characterize the main types of modern racism .
  • Racial profiling of minority groups in the US .
  • Is racial discrimination issue completely eliminated from American society?
  • Evaluate the racial inequalities in the US judicial system .
  • Describe how race relations are represented in Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward .
  • Analyze the difference between individual and institutional racism .
  • Investigation of the history of racism in The Case for Reparations by Coates .
  • Is racial profiling a discrimination or a necessary evil?
  • Ways of dealing with racism in American education .
  • Examine the history of racial stereotypes in the US.
  • Explain why racial profiling is a violation of human rights.
  • Catastrophic consequences of discrimination and racial prejudice in the film A Soldier’s Story .
  • Racism as a global issue.
  • Discuss the causes and ehhects of racism in America .
  • What can be done to resolve the problem of racism at interactional level ?
  • Analyze the issue of racial profiling of drivers.
  • Describe the problem of racism and discrimination from the perspective of social psychology.
  • Discuss the methods of solving the problem of policing racism .
  • Examine the cases of racism in social work environment.

📑 Racial Profiling Essay Outline

Whichever type of racial profiling essay you choose to work on, the basic writing strategy remains the same. After you pick up the suitable title and finish your research, it’s time to reorganize the main ideas. The best way to do it is to create a racial profiling essay outline that serves as a foundation for your future essay.

There are three elements that any essay must have:

  • Introduction

The main body should have at least three paragraphs in which you present your arguments supported by evidence.

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Racial Profiling Essay Introduction

It is a good idea to start your essay with a hook – a statement that aims to grab your reader’s attention. In your racial profiling essay introduction, you could use some impressive statistics that illustrate the problem of racial discrimination or describe a real-life situation.

At this stage, it’s also essential that you think about composing a racial profiling thesis statement . It goes as the last sentence of the introduction and becomes the focal point of your whole writing. The thesis statement includes your opinion and a short description of your arguments.

Racial Profiling Essay Conclusion

In conclusion, you should summarize your arguments and paraphrase your racial profiling thesis statement. It is also a good idea to add some information about the most important findings. This way, your essay would be both informative and persuasive.

👌 Racial Profiling Essay: Writing Tips

Let us remind you of some basic rules you should stick to while writing:

  • Introduce your position on the problem and, at least, three major points in the thesis statement of your racial profiling essay.
  • Gather enough facts and pieces of evidence to support your points.
  • Do not forget to study the arguments of the opposing side.

Before you get down to writing your essay on racial profiling, try to answer the following questions:

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  • When did racial profiling start?
  • Why does it happen?
  • What consequences does it lead to?

Try to find some statistical data to include in your essay on racial profiling. Be careful with sources and information. The point is that racial profiling is unconstitutional, which is why you will not find official data, something like police reports, etc. Thus, use only credible online and printed sources when writing your papers on racial profiling.

There is also a way to show your creativity in the essay on racial profiling. You may play the devil advocate’s role and support it in the paper on racial profiling. We are sure this unusual approach will impress your teacher!

Below you’ll find links to 3 racial profiling essay examples. We hope that they will inspire you to write an A+ paper on racism and discrimination.

The modern globalized society provides numerous opportunities for improved communication and increased mutual understanding. However, there are still such problems as discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, mentality, sex, or gender, biased attitudes to some minorities, and widespread stereotypical thinking.

Read the full text

The system of racism entails degrading and harmful actions and beliefs that are implemented and expressed by both groups of people. Racism over the years has been one of the reasons behind poverty and lack of access to social mobility in the United States.

Racial identity and racial socialization are proposed to promote the improvement of African American adolescents in the aspect of race-related difficulties. Current studies pointed out that discrimination is a condition that has harmful effects on the mental health of African Americans.

So, good luck with your papers on racial profiling! Do not hesitate to visit our blog if you have trouble with terrorism essays or any other written assignment.

  • Racial Profiling: Definition | American Civil Liberties Union
  • This is why everyday racial profiling is so dangerous – CNN
  • Racial profiling – AP News
  • Racial profiling: Germany debating police methods – DW
  • Psychology responds to racial profiling
  • Racial Profiling – Equal Justice Initiative
  • Racial Profiling: Past, Present, and Future?
  • Racial profiling | Independent
  • Racial Profiling – University of Michigan Law School
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The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing

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The Oxford Handbook of Police and Policing

17 Racial Profiling

Robin S. Engel, School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati

Derek Cohen is a Doctoral Student at the University of Cincinnati.

  • Published: 01 April 2014
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The use of the term “racial profiling” gained popularity in the mid-1990s and originally referred to the reliance on race as an explicit criterion in “profiles” of offenders that some police organizations issued to guide police officer decision making. This essay traces the evolution of racial profiling, both in terms of terminology and police practice, from the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s to present day. The essay highlights changes in policies, legislation, litigation, and data collection across the country as mechanisms to control the use of racial profiling, particularly in terms of stops and stop outcomes (e.g., citations, arrests, searches, and seizures). It also critiques the research methods and statistical analyses often used by researchers who conduct studies of the prevalence, causes, and consequences of racially biased policing. The essay concludes by issuing a new call to action for future research in the area of racial profiling. Rather than seeking incremental improvements in data collection and methodology, this essay argues for a fundamental reconceptualization of research on race and policing.

T he history of race and policing in the United States is long and troubled. For centuries, the police in America were used as instruments of the state to enforce discriminatory laws and uphold the status quo of the time ( Richardson 1974 ; Monkonen 1981). The discriminatory treatment by police of minorities—and blacks in particular—was reflective of a socially unjust and biased society ( Kerner Commission 1968 ). While the systematic targeting and biased treatment endured by minorities at the hands of American police has been well documented ( Williams and Murphy 1990 ), significant progress has been made in the last several decades toward equity and legitimacy in American policing ( Walker 2003 ; Warren and Tomaskovic-Devey 2009 ; Bayley and Nixon 2010 ). Nevertheless, the legacy that this troubled past brings to modern policing bears repeating. A current concern in American society remains the use of race or ethnicity by police as reason for some form of coercive action. This police practice—often referred to as racial profiling—is widely recognized by politicians, the public, and even the police themselves as inherently problematic. Yet reducing this problem to a single term—racial profiling—simultaneously reduces the nuances surrounding the multifaceted and complicated issues regarding police, race, and crime in America.

In this essay, we first begin with a brief historical overview of the ground previously traveled as it relates to policing, race, and research. In our discussion, we note the historical application of racially-biased police practices as a result of policies arising from the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s. Thereafter we describe the use and definition of the term “racial profiling” and trace the resulting changes in policies, legislation, litigation, and data collection across the country. The changes in data collection in particular resulted in the development of a body of research designed specifically to determine racial/ethnic disparities in police treatment during pedestrian and traffic stops. We summarize this body of research, including a focus on stops and stop outcomes (e.g., citations, arrests, searches, and seizures), and offer a critique of the research methods and statistical analyses often used by researchers. Finally, we issue a new call to action for future research in the area of racial profiling. Rather than seeking incremental improvements in data collection and methodology, we argue for a fundamental reconceptualization of research on race and policing. While we note that this essay is predominately focused on the experiences and research surrounding one racial group (blacks) within one country (United States), it is widely applicable to other minority groups within the United States, as well as minority groups within other countries. Indeed, it seems that the core components of the American story of racial bias, policing, and research is widely generalizable across cultures.

This essay represents a broad examination of racial profiling in the United States, both from historical and contemporary perspectives. Section 17.1 of the essay describes the history of racial profiling, as it was originally developed as a tactic to detect and apprehend drug couriers along the I-95 corridor of the Eastern Seaboard. Section 17.1 also describes the initial efforts to collect data on racial profiling, as well as identifying the evolving definition of the term. Section 17.2 reviews the literature on racially-biased policing starting with the classic ethnographic work that first identified issues related to race and policing; it then examines the more recent empirical evidence on the extent to which racial and ethnic disparities have appeared evident during vehicle and pedestrian stops, citation outcomes, and searches and seizure. Section 17.3 offers a new collective research agenda to help us begin to determine if the observed racial disparities in stops, citations, and searches and seizures amounts to racial/ethnic bias and discrimination. That section also draws some conclusions as to the state of the science on racially-biased policing.

A number of conclusions can be drawn:

Despite large-scale data collection efforts, the extent of racially-biased policing in the United States remains largely unknown

Despite calls from researchers to reform institutional practices, increase accountability and supervision, and engage in better data collection, the evidence regarding the actual impact of such recommendations on racially-biased policing is nearly non-existent.

While many agencies can readily identify racial/ethnic disparities, they often cannot detect bias, and further cannot determine why these disparities exist or how to effectively reduce them.

As police agencies continue to promote and advance practices that have demonstrated effectiveness (e.g., hot spots and other types of focused policing strategies), it is likely that racial/ethnic disparities in stops and stop outcomes will continue or perhaps even increase based on differential offending patterns and saturation patrols in predominately minority areas.

More, and better, research is necessary if we are serious about both the role of science in policing and the need to reduce racial/ethnic bias in policing.

17.1 History of Racial Profiling

While the troubled history of race and policing in the United States is lengthy and complex, a more recent focus on racial profiling emerged in the last two decades. The use of the term “racial profiling” gained popularity in the mid-1990s and originally referred to the use of race as an explicit criterion in “profiles” of offenders that some police organizations issued to guide police officer decision-making ( Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2001 ; Harris 2006 ). These profiles were used as part of a larger strategy for the “War on Drugs” from the 1980s and 1990s that led to dramatic changes in criminal justice strategies nationally, including the aggressive targeting of drug offenders at the street level and increased rates of incarceration and sentence length ( Scalia 2001 ; Harris 2006 ; Tonry 2011 ). Racial profiling specifically referred to criminal interdiction practices based on drug-courier profiles that were identified and provided to law enforcement officers through federal, state, and local law enforcement training. As part of police efforts to interdict drug trafficking on the nation’s highways, police agencies developed guidelines or “profiles” to help officers identify characteristics of drug couriers that could be used to target drivers and vehicles. This training sometimes identified subjects’ race and ethnicity as part of a larger “profile” of drug courier activity. The focus of this training was on Interstate highways on the East Coast, particularly around the I-95 corridor that linked Miami, Florida with cities and drug distribution points in the major mid-Atlantic and Northeastern cities ( Harris 1999 ; Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2002 ). Based on this profile, police would make pretextual stops ( Whren v. U.S. , 517 U.S. 806 [1996]) and attempt to establish a legal basis to search for contraband.

Another police tactic resulting from the “War on Drugs” was the increased use of pedestrian stops, along with stop and frisk tactics ( Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 [1968]) to maximize the number of police-citizen encounters with individuals believed to be involved in criminal behavior. These targeted enforcement strategies were especially felt by young minority males, who were disproportionately subject to police surveillance and imprisonment for drug offenses ( Kennedy 1997 ; Walker 2001 ; Harris 2002 ; Tonry 2011 ). The controversy surrounding the aggressive use of traffic and pedestrian stops by police still exists today ( Fagan 2004 ; Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss 2007 ; Ridgeway and MacDonald 2009 ).

17.1.1 The Rise of Data Collection

High-profile litigation efforts in the states of New Jersey ( New Jersey v. Soto , 734 A.2d 350 [1996]) and Maryland ( Wilkins v. Maryland State Police , MJG 93-468 [1993]) alleging racial profiling by law enforcement agencies brought a discussion of these practices to the forefront of American public debate ( GAO 2000 ; Buerger and Farrell 2002 ; Harris 2002 ). Based on the notoriety and successful litigation involving these claims of racial profiling, the public, media, and politicians began to exert pressure on law enforcement to address perceived racial/ethnic bias, particularly as related to traffic stops ( Walker 2001 ; Barlow and Barlow 2002 ; Novak 2004 ). As a result of this pressure, law enforcement agencies and politicians across the country began erecting policies and legislation designed to “eliminate” racial profiling practices by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies ( Harris 2002 , 2006 ; Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ). These policies were often focused on traffic stops and included mandates to collect data regarding driver and passenger demographics from every traffic stop (regardless of disposition). The data collection efforts originally designed to uncover racial/ethnic disparities in vehicle stops were initiated by litigation, legislative mandate, and proactive action by law enforcement agencies to address community concerns ( Ramirez, McDevitt, and Farrell 2000 ; Davis 2001 ; Davis, Gillis, and Foster 2001 ; Tillyer, Engel, and Cherkauskas 2010 ). As noted by Tillyer et al. (2010) , by 2009, thirty-nine states had passed some form of legislation regarding racial profiling. Specifically, eleven states enacted legislation that prohibited racial profiling, five states mandated traffic-stop data collection, and twelve states both prohibited racial profiling and mandated data collection, while eight states had bills under consideration and three states had other forms of racial profiling policies.

The heavy focus on data collection during traffic stops was based in part on the original definition of racial profiling, but also because of the recognition that traffic stops are the most frequently occurring type of police-citizen interaction and can be initiated for a wide variety of reasons including legal violations, departmental policy requirements, and officer discretion ( Skolnick 1966 ; Walker 2001 ; Meehan and Ponder 2002 ; Alpert, MacDonald, and Dunham 2005 ). Analyses of the Police Public Contact Survey demonstrate that of the 19 percent of citizens surveyed who reported having some form of contact with police, the majority of these citizens (56 percent) indicated that contact occurred as the result of a traffic stop ( Durose, Schmitt, and Langan 2007 ). In addition, police officers have wide and often unfettered discretion when determining when to initiate traffic stops and the outcomes that motorists receive as a result of those stops ( Wilson 1968 ; Ramirez, McDevitt, and Farrell 2000 ; Lundman and Kaufmann 2003 ; Engel and Calnon 2004b ; Novak 2004 ; Engel 2005 ).

When initial claims of racial profiling during traffic stops were leveled against police, it was clear that law enforcement agencies across the country were poorly prepared to demonstrate, document, or defend their current practices. Quite simply, most law enforcement agencies did not routinely collect information about all motorists who were stopped by police, nor did they collect basic demographic information about those who were stopped (including race/ethnicity) ( Ramirez, McDevitt, and Farrell 2000 ). While many agencies did routinely collect information about citations and arrests, this information could not be compared to the population of all motorists stopped by police that did not result in further official action. Likewise, the population of drivers “eligible” to be stopped for traffic violations was also unknown. Described as the “benchmark” problem, the need to compare traffic stops to those eligible to be stopped created a new stream of research across the country ( Walker 2001 ; Engel and Calnon 2004b ). Unfortunately, as noted in more detail below, over two decades of subsequent research produced very little, as the benchmark problem has never been adequately addressed by the research community.

17.1.2 Defining Racial Profiling

The initial narrow focus on “racial profiling” did not adequately address a much larger issue in American police-community relations. Specifically, claims of inappropriate police targeting of minorities for purposes of enhanced criminal apprehension and punishment have been recognized throughout American history. While the term “racial profiling” referred directly to the specific policies and practices in the 1990s of targeting minorities traveling on interstates for increased scrutiny to obtain drug seizures, concerns of racial bias and illegitimate practices by police have existed for many decades. Therefore, researchers recognized the need to broaden the conversation by calling for examinations of all forms of police bias. A more comprehensive definition allowed policy makers, practitioners, and academics to better focus on issues of racial bias beyond drug profiles during traffic stops.

As noted by Fridell and Scott (2005) the term racial profiling has evolved over time. Despite the rather narrow definition of profiling that began with policing drug trafficking, the growing public consensus became that any and all decisions made by officers based solely or partially on the race of the suspect were considered racial profiling. It was this change from a narrowly defined term of profiling to an all-encompassing term that led Fridell et al. (2001) to first introduce the new term. They argued that some past definitions of profiling may have been too restrictive, focusing exclusively on “sole” reliance on race. They noted that police decision making is rarely based on any sole factor, including race. Furthermore, in focus groups with citizens and police officers, Fridell et al. (2001) noted that citizens defined profiling as encompassing any and all demonstrations of racial bias in policing and viewed it as widespread. On the other hand, for police officers “profiling” connoted only the narrow definition of sole reliance on race; therefore, they viewed it as a much rarer occurrence. The differing definitions of profiling led to defensiveness and frustration as the two groups talked past each other, thus the development of the new term, racially biased policing, which Fridell and her colleagues defined as follows: “Racially biased policing occurs when law enforcement inappropriately considers race or ethnicity in deciding with whom and how to intervene in an enforcement capacity.”

As noted by Engel (2008) , economists and other academics have identified two different types of police racial/ethnic bias: 1) “taste discrimination” or “disparate treatment” and 2) “statistical discrimination” or “disparate impact” ( Becker 1957 ; Arrow 1973 ). The difference between these two concepts is based on the individual intentions of police officers—in the former, racial/ethnic discrimination is the direct result of intentional police bias, while in the later, racial/ethnic discrimination is the result of factors other than individual police bias (i.e., deployment patterns, differences based on deployment patterns, offending behavior, etc.) ( Knowles, Perisco, and Todd 2001 ; Ayres 2002 , 2005 ; Persico and Castleman 2005 ). Accurately measuring and classifying these two general types of police bias, however, have proved difficult for researchers. A summary of the evidence regarding racially biased policing is reviewed below.

17.2 The Evidence

Initial systematic research of the police began in the 1950s when a few ethnographic studies reported the realities of policing and the use of discretion. These studies described police agencies and culture (e.g., Wilson 1968 ; Van Maanen 1974 ; Reiss 1983 ; Manning 1997 ); police-citizen encounters (e.g., Skolnick 1966 ; Reiss 1971 ; Muir 1977 ); and the use of coercive power during interactions, particularly with minorities (e.g., Westley 1953 , 1970 ; Skolnick 1966 ; Bayley and Mendelsohn 1969 ; Bittner 1970 ). From this beginning, a body of research emerged that exposed issues surrounding racial bias, abuse of force, corruption, and poor police-community relations ( Bernard and Engel 2001 ). Much of this work was informed by an implicit assumptions that police decision making was inherently biased and exposure of these practices was necessary for reform. Given the tenor of the times, these assumptions are hardly surprising. More importantly, these assumptions created a lasting legacy that is seldom directly challenged in current studies of police decision making.

Over time, a more quantitative body of research developed that examined coercive outcomes of police-citizen encounters (i.e., citations, arrests, use of force) and whether citizens’ characteristics influenced these outcomes. This research evolved from simple bivariate comparisons of police decisions and citizen characteristics (e.g., Pivilian and Briar 1964 ; Black and Reiss 1970 ; Black 1971 ), to the use of multivariate statistical techniques designed to explore the effects of extra-legal factors on police decision making, after controlling for legal factors (e.g., Smith and Visher 1981 ; Smith, Visher, and Davidson 1984 ; Worden 1989 ; Klinger 1994 ; Mastrofski et al. 2000 ). The body of research that emerged compared the impact of legal to extra-legal factors, including the effect of race on police decision making ( Sherman 1980 ; Riksheim and Chermak 1993 ; National Research Council 2004 ).

Although researchers made significant methodological and statistical advances from the 1970s through the 1990s, the actual research questions being asked remained relatively constant. With only a handful of exceptions, this work focused on police decisions to use specific coercive sanctions, including citations, arrests, and use of force. The focus of this research was to determine whether police used their considerable discretion in a morally defensible manner. Summary reviews of this body of research generally indicate that despite differences in measures and methods, a majority of the studies demonstrate legal factors have the largest impact over police behavior ( Gottfredson and Gottfredson 1988 ; Riksheim and Chermak 1993 ; Klinger 1994 ; National Research Council 2004 ). Research has also demonstrated that to a lesser extent, some extra-legal factors impact officer decision making even when legal factors are controlled for; in particular, citizen demographics (including race/ethnicity) have been identified as correlated with some coercive outcomes ( Riksheim and Chermak 1993 ; National Research Council 2004 ).

Based on this larger literature examining police behavior, a growing area of more narrowly focused research has emerged in the last two decades to inform our understanding of “racial profiling” during traffic stops in particular. This research considers stop and search practices (e.g., Fagan and Davies 2000 ; Gould and Mastrofski 2004 ; Alpert, MacDonald, and Dunham 2005 ; Warren and Tomaskovic-Devey 2009 ), and more nuanced decision making points, including the development and interpretation of cues of suspicion ( Alpert, MacDonald, and Dunham 2005 ), and decisions to patrol certain areas ( Tomaskovic-Devey, Mason, and Zingraff 2004 ).

Traffic stop research generally examines two types of police decision making situations: 1) the decision to initiate a traffic stop, and 2) the resolution/disposition of that traffic stop ( Ramirez, McDevitt, and Farrell 2000 ; Smith and Alpert 2002 ). However, given the inherent methodological limitations of examining racial disparities in stop decisions, recent research has focused nearly exclusively on identifying and explaining racial/ethnic disparities in traffic stop outcomes ( Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ; Tillyer and Engel 2012 ). The findings and limitations of research on stops and post-stop outcomes are reviewed in greater detail below.

17.2.1 Traffic and Pedestrian Stops

Initial research examining racial profiling relied on the use of traffic stop studies to determine racial/ethnic disparities in officers’ decisions to stop motorists. These initial studies reported differences in aggregate rates of stops across racial groups and often interpreted these disparities as evidence of racial discrimination (e.g., Lamberth 1994 , 1997 ). After these initial studies, dozens of published studies and agency reports followed that reported the degree to which police agencies over-stop minority drivers, relative to white drivers ( Fridell 2004 ; Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ). Over time, however, researchers were more careful to note that while these studies demonstrated racial/ethnic disparities in traffic stops, it could not be determined if these disparities actually represented racial bias by police. Researchers lacked the ability to determine why disparities existed. Rather, researchers focused on establishing a standard basis for determining that particular demographic groups were overrepresented in police stops, by comparing the percentage of drivers of a particular racial/ethnic group to the percentage that are expected to be stopped assuming no bias (i.e., a benchmark) ( Zingraff et al. 2000 ; Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2002 ; McMahon et al. 2002 ; Smith and Alpert 2002 ; Fridell 2004 ; Rojek, Rosenfeld, and Decker 2004 ; Schafer, Carter, and Katz-Bannister 2004 ; Gaines 2006 ; Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ).

Benchmark comparisons represent researchers’ attempts to isolate race as an explanatory factor for disparity in traffic stops from the driving quality explanation and other possible alternative factors, including driving quantity, driving location, time of travel, etc. ( Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2002 ). However, this approach has considerable limitations, the most important of which is the inability to identify and measure a scientifically valid benchmark for comparison purpose ( Walker 2001 ; Engel and Calnon 2004a ; Fridell 2004 ; Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ; Ridgeway and MacDonald 2009 ). In this effort to rule out factors other than racial discrimination in traffic stop research, social scientists utilized several different data sources to measure comparison groups, some of which were readily available and others that involved initiating new data collection. The most common types of benchmark data include: Residential Census populations, “adjusted” Census populations, official accident data, DMV records of licensed drivers, citizen surveys, internal departmental comparisons, observations of roadway usage, and assessments of traffic violating behavior (for review, see Fridell et al. 2001 ; Walker 2001 ; Engel and Calnon 2004a ; Fridell 2004 ). Each type of data has strengths and limitations as a representative measure of motorists at risk of being stopped by police. Importantly, no benchmark data has demonstrated the ability to adequately measure all the risk factors associated with the likelihood of being stopped and no consensus exists regarding which benchmarks are the most accurate ( Engel and Calnon 2004b ).

Early studies into disparate stop practices often used census data and other official records as the relevant denominator. For example, Verniero and Zoubek (1999) sought to uncover racial bias in the state of New Jersey by comparing the percentage of minority motorists stopped compared to their percentage in the residential population or eligible driving population. Similar analyses were conducted using data from Cincinnati, Ohio ( Browning et al. 1994 ). Both studies reported that minority drivers constituted a greater proportion of stops compared to their representation in the residential population. Later studies marginally improved on this method by using the driving-eligible portion of the population. For example, in an analysis of traffic stops in Richmond, Virginia, Smith and Petrocelli (2001) found that when compared to the driving-eligible population minority motorists were overrepresented in the stop data, concluding that minority motorists were 46 percent more likely to be stopped than nonminority motorists. This finding was echoed by Meehan and Ponder (2002) ; using the alternative measure of observed roadway composition in a mostly-white suburban community, the authors found that the minority drivers were three times more likely to be stopped by the police. Disparities between driving population and stoppage rates were also observed when using spatially-weighted benchmark to account for confounding issues presented by cross-jurisdictional commuters ( Rojek, Rosenfeld, and Decker 2004 ). In an analysis of the greater St. Louis, Missouri area, the authors found concentrated areas of small instances of disparate stop practices, with blacks being more likely to be stopped, searched, and arrested than white and Hispanic motorists in the areas in which a relationship was found.

Disparity via a disproportionate share of stops has been observed in studies of the San Jose and Sacramento Police Departments’ traffic practices as well. During the period of study from July to September 1999, Hispanics represented 43 percent of motorists stopped by police while accounting for just 31 percent of San Jose’s population ( Withrow 2004 ). Similarly, using Census data as a benchmark Greenwald (2001) it was shown that during a one-year period black motorists were stopped by the Sacramento police at greater frequency than justified by their percentage in the general population.

Census data, however, are limited in their ability to measure alternative explanations of racial disparities including factors influencing drivers’ risk of being stopped (e.g., where and when they drive, frequency of driving, what and how they drive) ( Engel and Calnon 2004a ; Gaines 2006 ). The Census’ lack of measures of alternative explanatory factors, however, did not prevent some of the initial studies of traffic stops from prematurely interpreting disparity as discrimination and attributing racial disparities in stops and/or stop outcomes to unmeasured officers’ racial prejudice ( Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2002 ). Most researchers in the field began to realize, however, that the hypothesis that police are racially biased in their stopping decisions is just one of numerous possible hypotheses or explanations for disparity in stops. Without measuring alternative explanatory factors, researchers cannot determine whether differences in traffic stops and stop outcomes reflect disparity or discrimination ( Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2002 ).

One suggested reason for these reported racial disparities among stopped motorists is the use of traffic stops as a pretext for criminal or drug interdiction purposes. Some support has been found for this hypothesis in studies of suburban communities ( Meehan and Ponder 2002 ; Novak 2004 ), highlighting that while the correlation of race and the decision to stop is weak, minorities are more likely to be stopped at night and to reside in areas outside where the stop has taken place. This has given rise to a conflict theory-oriented explanation of police behavior (i.e., that police officers disproportionately target minorities when found outside of the areas where they typically reside or travel). Likewise, Petrocelli, Piquero, and Smith (2003) demonstrated that contextual variables, such as a neighborhood’s percentage of black and UCR Part I crime rate, influence the number of stops performed in the area. Subsequently, searches of black suspects in these high-search areas resulted in fewer arrests or summons being issued. This general trend has been shown in self-reported data sources as well. A telephone survey of licensed drivers in North Carolina illustrated differential practices between the local police departments and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol (NCSHP). The decision of local police officers to issue tickets is related to driver age, race, and traffic history, while NCSHP ticketing decisions were driven both by legal factors (i.e., speeding) as well as quasi-legal factors (i.e., driver age and homeownership status) ( Warren et al. 2006 ; Miller 2008 ). Similar (though insignificant) disparities were found by Gaines (2006) in Riverside, California. Reviewing all traffic stops made in 2003, the author established that stops made by traffic units showed no evidence of racial bias, while stops made by patrol and investigative units exhibited slight, statistically insignificant bias. Further, Gaines found that that the stop data correlated strongly with race variables found in neighborhood crime data and received police reports.

Similar findings have been observed in studies of pedestrian stops as well. Using internal benchmarking (i.e., comparing the decisions of one officer to others similarly assigned; Walker 2001 ), Ridgeway and MacDonald (2009) developed a statistical method for identifying potentially problematic officers. These officers were more likely to stop black and Hispanic pedestrians, net of situational characteristics, compared to officers in similar assignments. Of the 2,756 officers whose approximately 500,000 cumulative stops were analyzed, the authors identified only 15 officers (0.54 percent) as significantly more likely to stop minority pedestrians. A multilevel analysis of pedestrian stops in New York City revealed similar patterns. Fagan (2004) found that after controlling arrest rates by race, black and Hispanic pedestrians were stopped more often than white pedestrians. This may be attributable to zero-tolerance policing strategies, the application of which was found to be driven more by neighborhood characteristics including poverty rate, racial makeup, and social disorganization ( Fagan and Davies 2000 ).

Rojek, Rosenfeld, and Decker (2004) sought to correct the problems using Census data as a benchmark by spatially weighting motorists by their residential proximity to the various municipalities under analysis. This was believed to account for the fact that motorists spend more time driving in and around their own neighborhoods, and that race effects could be seen as spurious if observed in a majority-white neighborhood where a disproportionate number of minorities are stopped should that neighborhood abut majority-nonwhite neighborhoods.

Researchers have also developed benchmarks through the use of self-reported citizen surveys. General and purposive surveys have been used in both creating a more accurate composite of individuals’ driving practices as well as recording the nuances of their interaction with the police (e.g., Lundman and Kaufman 2003 ; Miller 2008 ). Citizen surveys offer researchers the benefit of circumnavigating official data collection protocols and observational reports that may fail to capture key variables (such as perceived cause for the stop or officer demeanor) or erroneously categorize the demographic information of the stopped motorist. However, survey response data is prone to errors in recollection, desirability bias, and false reporting ( Engel and Calnon 2004a ).

A shared problem of these various benchmarks, however, is that they do not account for possible racial variations in driving behavior. For example, the differential offending hypothesis holds that certain racial groups may drive more frequently, more aggressively, or in locations with more police presence, and are therefore more likely to attract the attention of law enforcement. The literature offers measured support for this hypothesis; several studies have shown that certain minority subgroups are likely to engage in aggressive driving behaviors at a higher rate and to greater severity than white drivers ( Lange, Blackman, and Johnson 2001 ; Lange, Johnson, and Voas 2005 ; Tillyer and Engel 2012 ).

In summary, the available analyses of traffic stop data have rather consistently demonstrated racial disparities in stopping patterns ( Engel and Johnson 2006 ; Warren et al. 2006 ; Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ). However, the methodological and analytical problems associated with this body of research are now widely recognized, including the inherent limitations associated with using benchmarks to determine racial disparities in vehicle stops ( Walker 2001 ; Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2002 ; Engel and Calnon 2004a ; Fridell 2004 ; Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ; Ridgeway and MacDonald 2009 ). As a result, research emphasis shifted away from examining officers’ initial decisions to stop motorists and more toward officers’ decisions during the stop (e.g., issuing citations, making arrests, and conducting searches). The study of traffic stop outcomes allowed for the use of more robust analytical techniques including multivariate analysis ( Tillyer, Engel, and Wooldredge 2008 ).

17.2.2 Traffic and Pedestrian Stop Outcomes

Many researchers examining racial bias by police have reinvigorated the study of post-stop outcomes, including citations, arrests, and searches. This shift in focus may be due in part to the inherent methodological and statistical problems associated with examining racial disparities in traffic and pedestrian stops. Additionally, some have argued that racial/ethnic bias may be more likely to manifest itself after an initial stop is made and officers interact with citizens ( Ramirez, McDevitt, and Farrell 2000 ; Alpert et al. 2006 ). As noted previously, research examining arrests dominated the policing literature in the 1970s and 1980s. Academics interested in examining racial profiling simply applied the widely used statistical techniques of multivariate regression modeling used in previous examinations of systematic social observation data to current studies using traffic and pedestrian stop data.

17.2.2.1 Citations and Arrests

Rather than focusing on stop or search decisions, the earliest exploration of racially-biased police practices examined the effect of race in the issuance of formal sanctions, such as citations and arrests. The evidence generated regarding the impact of drivers’ race over the likelihood of citations has been mixed. While most studies have reported that drivers’ race has a significant impact over citations, the direction of these reported findings have been both positive and negative ( Tillyer and Engel 2012 ). While some studies have demonstrated that minority drivers were more likely to be cited compared to whites ( Smith et al. 2003 ; Engel, Cherkauskas, and Tillyer 2007 ; Ingram 2007 ), other research suggests that black drivers were less likely to be cited ( Alpert Group 2004 ; Engel et al. 2007 ; Lovrich, et al. 2007 ; Tillyer and Engel 2012 ). These results also varied across racial groups. For example, Alpert et al. (2006) reported that Hispanics, Asian, and Native American drivers were more likely to be cited, while black drivers were less likely to be cited, compared to whites. As a result, there appears to be little consistency regarding the reported influence of race/ethnicity over the likelihood of being issued citations during traffic stops. As concerned in the context of possible police bias, this mixed evidence correlates with differing hypotheses regarding the likely direction of the effect ( Tillyer and Engel 2012 ). Some have suggested that minorities are more likely to be cited once stopped as a form of enhanced punishment. Others have suggested that minorities may be more likely than whites to be stopped as a pretext for criminal interdiction purposes, and then are released with a warning.

Studies examining the impact of race on arrests during traffic and pedestrian stops have been slightly more consistent. Tillyer and Engel (2012) reported that most traffic stop studies found that minority drivers were between 1.5 and 2.6 times more likely to be arrested compared to similarly situated white drivers ( Smith and Petrocelli 2001 ; Withrow 2004 ; Alpert et al., 2006 ). A few studies, however, have reported no racial disparities in arrest (e.g., Alpert Group 2004 ; Engel et al. 2006 ; Tillyer and Engel 2012 ). Other studies suggest that arrest decisions are impacted by both citizen and officer race. For example, Brown and Frank’s (2006) analysis of police-citizen encounters in Cincinnati, Ohio found that after controlling for characteristics of the officer and citizen along with contextual effects, black officers were more likely to arrest black citizens, while white officers are equally likely to arrest both black and white citizens.

In sum, the body of science surrounding racially-biased policing is generally seen as inconclusive ( National Research Council 2004 ). Most recently however, in a meta-analysis of 40 arrest studies using 23 different datasets, Kochel, Wilson, and Mastrofski (2011) systematically computed an effect size for the effect of race in arrest decisions net of offense severity, demeanor, intoxication, and other factors. The researchers reported “with confidence that the results are not mixed. Race matters.” This declaration was based on observed effect sizes ranging from 1.32 to 1.52 (498). The study concluded that blacks were 30 percent more likely be arrested compared to whites, even after controlling for other factors. The authors noted that although previous policing experts have described the collective research findings as “mixed” regarding the effects of race (e.g., Riksheim and Chermak 1993 ; National Research Council 2004 ; Rosich 2007 ), their comprehensive review of the available research, however, is necessarily limited by the quality of the individual studies reviewed. Due to the nature of meta-analysis as a technique, the quality of the meta-analytic results is based on the quality of the individual studies included in the meta-analysis ( Gendreau and Smith 2007 ). Further, their analyses cannot systematically explain why, how, and when race matters in arrest decisions, only that it does.

Specific to traffic and pedestrian stops, the research available generally shows an inconsistent impact of race over the likelihood of issued citations. In contrast, the impact of race over the likelihood of arrest during traffic and pedestrian stops appears to be more consistent, demonstrating racial disparities in arrest decisions. Further, the bulk of the available research demonstrates that minorities (and especially blacks) continue to be arrested at much higher rates than their representation in the general population (Engel and Swartz, forthcoming). Whether this disparity is the result of police bias, however, remains a point of contention throughout the research community.

17.2.2.2 Searches and Seizures

Beyond the decision to stop a minority motorist, racial profiling could potentially manifest itself in officers’ decisions to search. While extant Fourth Amendment precedent limits the utility of contraband discovered outside of reasonable or warranted searches, officers may seek consent to search an individual’s person, effects, or automobile. The relationship between race and search likelihood has been observed across a multitude of jurisdictions, using qualitative and quantitative analyses on both official and unofficial data sources. The bulk of scholarship examining traffic searches suggests that minority motorists are more likely to be searched compared with other racial groups ( Rojek, Rosenfeld, and Decker 2004 ; Withrow 2004 ; Engel and Johnson 2006 ; Roh and Robinson 2009 ; cf. Smith and Petrocelli 2001 ; Paoline and Terrill 2005 ; Schafer et al. 2006 ).

Engel and Johnson’s (2006) review of agency reports from twelve different state highway police/patrol agencies demonstrated consistently higher rates of minority searches compared to white drivers stopped for traffic offenses. For example, using data from the Washington State Patrol, Pickerell, Mosher, and Pratt (2009) found that black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be searched compared to white drivers, regardless of the reason for the search. Close and Mason’s (2007) examination of traffic stop data from the Florida Highway Patrol also showed that black and Hispanic drivers were more likely to be searched compared to white drivers, irrespective of the search type.

Examining interaction effects using college campus data, Moon and Corley (2007) found that black male students were more likely to be searched compared to their white counterparts. Based on results from propensity score matching, Ridgeway (2006) reported that black motorists were twice as likely as whites to be searched based on probable cause in Oakland, California. And most recently, Rojek, Rosenfeld, and Decker (2012) reported that young, black males were more likely to be searched compared to young white males during traffic stops in St. Louis, Missouri and Cincinnati, Ohio. Likewise, analyses of survey data from the Police Public Contact Survey indicated that younger drivers, male drivers, and minority drivers all reported higher rates of search compared with other drivers ( Engel and Calnon 2004a ). Similar racial disparities in search rates have been reported in survey and qualitative research ( Brunson 2007 ; Brunson and Weitzer 2009 ).

Despite these consistent findings, Tillyer, Klahm, and Engel (2012) identified several limitations of the analyses examining racial disparities in search rates. First, many studies did not separate mandatory from discretionary searches. Mandatory searches (e.g., searches incident to arrest, inventory searches, etc.) are required by departmental policy and should not be included in analyses designed to examine officer discretion. Second, as with other post-stop analyses, the statistical analyses of searches often are misspecified due to the omitted variable problem (cf. Mustard 2003 ; Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss 2007 ). Third, examinations of officer search behavior is often based on pooled variance models ( Lundman 2003 ; Alpert, Dunham, and Smith 2007 ; Moon and Corley 2007 ), without taking into account the nested nature of traffic stop data that requires the use of hierarchical models. Finally, as with studies of citations and arrests, research examining searches is often not guided by a theoretical framework necessary to understand the reasons for racial disparities in search rates ( Engel, Calnon, and Bernard 2002 ; Tomaskovic-Devey, Mason, and Zingraff 2004 ; Engel and Johnson 2006 ).

The current discussion regarding racial profiling has also shifted from examinations of stops, benchmarks, and search rates, to examinations of contraband seizures during searches. A “hit rate” commonly refers to the percentage of searches conducted by police that result in discoveries of contraband ( Engel 2008 ). In addition to criminologists and legal scholars, economists have entered the racial profiling debate by publishing articles using police vehicle and pedestrian stop, search and seizure data in an effort to determine racial and ethnic discrimination at the hands of the police. Specifically, economists have argued that a statistical comparison of search success rates can be used to distinguish between statistical discrimination and officer bias ( Knowles, Persico, and Todd 2001 ; Ayres 2002 ; Persico and Castleman 2005 ; Persico and Todd 2006 ). The economic perspective explicitly suggests that if one racial/ethnic group is found to be more involved in criminal activity, members of that racial/ethnic group should be subjected to increased police scrutiny in an effort to maximize police resources and increase the rates of discovering contraband. Therefore, under these economic principles, a difference in search rates across racial/ethnic groups is tolerable if the rates of recovering contraband across racial groups are statistically equivalent ( Knowles, Persico, and Todd 2001 ; Anwar and Fang 2006 ).

To identify racial/ethnic discrimination, the analytical strategy utilized is a statistical comparison of search outcomes across racial/ethnic groups, commonly referred to as the “outcome test” ( Ayres 2002 ). If the hit rates are different across racial/ethnic groups, economists argued this is evidence of discrimination ( Knowles, Persico and Todd 2001 ; Ayres 2002 ; Hernandez-Murillo and Knowles 2004 ; Persico and Castleman 2005 ; Anwar and Fang 2006 ; Persico and Todd 2006 ). Using the outcome test method, most studies have reported that first, minorities are more likely to be searched, and second, when searched, minorities are less likely to be found with contraband compared to whites. However, the use of the outcome test as a tool to determine police discrimination has been met with sharp criticism. As noted by criminologists and economists, many of the underlying assumptions required by the statistical model do not coincide with what is known about decision-making during police-citizen encounters, and further the underlying conditions necessary to support the outcome test cannot be met (Anwar and Fang 2004; Dharmapala and Ross 2004 ; Hernandez-Murillo and Knowles 2004 ; Engel 2008 ; Engel and Tillyer 2008 ; Antonovics and Knight 2009 ).

Nevertheless, the accumulating evidence that minorities are more likely to be searched, but less likely to be discovered with contraband begs the question why ? Why are minority citizens searched more frequently for discretionary reasons, but less frequently found to be carrying contraband? The outcome test assumes the response is officer bias, but there are many other potential contributing factors ( Engel 2008 ). Questioning why racial disparities exist demonstrates the severe limitation of this body of research—a nearly exclusive focus on outcome , rather than process . Studying the process of officer decision making is crucial to fully developing an understanding of the relationship between citizen race/ethnicity and police behavior. Unpacking and understanding the process of officer decision making is the next great challenge in understanding police discretion and is rooted in the existence of officer suspicion (e.g., Alpert Group 2004 ; Alpert, MacDonald, and Dunham 2005 ).

17.3 The Future

As noted above, the empirical body of evidence available has clearly demonstrated the routine existence of racial and ethnic disparities in stops, citations, arrests, and searches in police agencies across the country. What remains in debate, however, is whether these racial/ethnic disparities are indicative of officer bias. Unfortunately, our research methods and statistical analyses thus far cannot determine officers’ motivation and intent, and therefore cannot determine racial bias and discrimination. While researchers can identify patterns and trends of disparities, we cannot readily determine the causes of these disparities. This is, of course, a critical limitation of social scientific research in this area. And, as a result, our current research cannot readily assist police agencies with the difficult task of developing policies and procedures designed to reduce racial disparities.

In the majority of studies examining bias-based policing, academics typically acknowledge these limitations of their research designs and statistical techniques, while simultaneously noting the importance of their work as adding to the accumulating body of research. Academics then often advocate for more of the same types of research to continue this incremental advancement in knowledge. In contrast to these recommendations, we believe a significant departure from the existing line of research in this area is necessary to advance the field. It appears to us that the current research has exhausted its value, particularly to practitioners struggling to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in police outcomes. Incremental increases in knowledge based on analyses of new data from traffic stop studies, or slight changes in the measurement of variables in yet one more multivariate statistical equation used to model stops, citations, arrests, and searches will not address the overarching methodological limitations that plague this line of research. We agree with Piquero (2009, 376) that “there should be a high priority of focused theoretical and research efforts that use multiple methods to generate a careful description and understanding of police-citizen encounters, as well as the myriad of factors that influence both police and citizen decisions.” We further note that repeated application of the statistical technique du jour (e.g., outcome tests, propensity score matching, hierarchical linear modeling, etc.) also will not solve the underlying benchmark problem, nor will it address why racial/ethnic disparities persist despite multiple forms of police intervention. After over two decades of focused research on racial profiling, the research community is no closer to assisting practitioners in the reduction of racial/ethnic disparities than we were in the early 1990s.

While patterns of racial/ethnic disparities have been routinely identified and confirmed, research dedicated to understanding why these patterns exist has been limited. Despite the abundance of academic study devoted to this topic, researchers have limited theories to explain the mounting evidence of racial/ethnic disparities. Although some researchers developed partial theories to explain these disparities post hoc (e.g., Parker et al. 2004 ; Tomaskovic-Devey, Mason, and Zingraff 2004 ; Warren et al. 2006 ; Smith and Alpert 2007 ), these theories have not been adequately tested ( Tillyer and Engel 2012 ). As a result, researchers continue to struggle with determining why disparities exist in coercive outcomes during police-citizen encounters (Engel and Swartz, forthcoming).

Importantly, there is also little evidence available to suggest that the frequency of racial disparities have been reduced as a result of research efforts, or based on changes in police policies, procedures, and training. National estimates of the rates of police-citizen contacts with minorities have remained relatively stable over time ( Langan et al. 2001 ; Durose, Scmitt, and Langan 2005 , 2007 ), suggesting there have not been significant reductions in racial disparities despite years of attention by legislatures, police administrators, academics, and the public. The only other study attempting to examine this issue suffers from severe methodological constraints. Although Warren and Tomaskovic-Devey (2009) reported that racial disparities in hit rates decreased as a result of media attention and changes in legislation in North Carolina, they did not control for any other rival explanations—including changes in specific training, supervisory oversight, departmental policies, among many others—and further were unable to properly establish time ordering to demonstrate cause and effect (Piquero 2009). Therefore, despite this important first step forward taken by Warren and Tomaskovic-Devery (2009) in an attempt to address these issues, the impact of specific attempts to reduce officer bias remains untested.

Further, we believe that even using new statistical techniques in racial profiling research that are promising (e.g., Ridgeway and MacDonald 2010 ) will not result in significant progress until theories of police discretion grounded in the daily work of police officers are developed and applied to this research (Engel and Swartz, forthcoming). As clearly articulated by Piquero (2009, 372),

the science of racial profiling research rests on a weak data and knowledge base, and although there has been some important methodological/statistical progress, we are likely not yet in a position to reach definitively any strong set of conclusions concerning whether racial profiling exists (even if we can arrive at some working definition and operationalization of it) and most certainly which set of policies can diminish and/or eliminate the explicit/sole use of race/ethnicity in police decision making.

Therefore, the challenges that remain for both research and practice are considerable.

17.3.1 A New Research Agenda

It is based on this review of the state of research in bias-based policing that we call for new approaches and changes in our current research agenda. In short, we argue that it is time to advance research that will better aid practitioners interested in reducing racial/ethnic disparities. A similar argument was made fifteen years ago by Sherman (1998) when he advocated for the use of science to help the police find humane crime fighting practices rather than simply look for failures in policing. That Sherman felt compelled to justify the moral soundness of police crime reduction research illustrates how radical this idea was at the time. This also led to the changing of the core research questions that were being asked by prominent researchers in the field and promoted the evidence-based movement in policing ( Weisburd and Neyroud 2011 ). In the same vein, we argue that rather than continually documenting racial/ethnic disparities in police stops and stop outcomes (e.g., citations, arrests, searches), academics should pursue and advance research specifically designed to reduce racial/ethnic disparities in police decision making and then test the results. How do we know, for example, that the changes in police policies, procedures, and training recommended by researchers have any impact on police behavior? Police agencies across the country spent millions of dollars on changes to policies and training designed to eliminate racial profiling—has it had an impact? The research community has been silent on these critical issues. Many academics, private companies, former practitioners, etc. provide training for police agencies to reduce racial profiling; yet are these trainings effective?

The research questions that must be addressed are: (1) why racial disparities persist in the outcomes of police-citizen encounters, and (2) what works to reduce these disparities. To address these questions, we propose the advancement of a research agenda that includes the implementation of stronger research designs, greater use of mixed methods and qualitative research, and increased use of panel-wave and longitudinal data.

First, the selection of strong research designs is critical, though the selection of the appropriate design should be guided by the questions asked rather than simply relying on external standards. The considerable advances in police effectiveness research, compared to racial profiling research, is due in part to the use of strong quasi-experimental designs, and when appropriate, randomized controlled trials. There is no reason these designs cannot be applied to study the impact of policies, procedures, and training on racial bias. The type of research proposed might include pre- or post-tests of the impact of different policies, procedures, and training implemented by police agencies, or even quasi-experimental designs where some officers, units, etc. are provided specialized training and others are not. Changes in officers’ attitudes, levels of racial disparities in stops, post-stop outcome measures, and citizens’ perceptions could all be measured outcomes. This is not to suggest that other research designs have no value. To the contrary, many important topics cannot be examined with randomized controlled trials or even strong quasi-experiments. But to say that there is a place for all systematic methods is not to say that any method can be fruitfully applied to any question, or that all research methods are created equal. Concerns over police discrimination against minorities can be, and must be, translated into falsifiable and therefore testable hypotheses.

Moreover, research has demonstrated that citizens’ experiences during police-citizen encounters significantly influence their attitudes toward law enforcement ( Brandl, Frank, Worden, and Bynum 1994 ; Weitzer and Tuch 2004 , 2005 ; Engel 2005 ). Given that citizens’ contact with police is most likely to occur as the result of a traffic stop ( Durose, Schmitt, and Langan 2007 ), coupled with the impact that these contacts have on the formation of citizen attitudes, perceptions of racial/ethnic disparities within this context could seriously undermine police legitimacy ( Tillyer and Engel 2012 ). Therefore, researchers might also focus on testing the impact of particular focused policing strategies on citizens’ perceptions of racial bias and police legitimacy. Additionally, police research that examines effectiveness (often measured as reductions in crime) might also include measures of changes in disparate outcomes as an indicator of success. In short, we argue that our collective research agenda should be expanded to focus on research that will assist in the reduction of racial/ethnic disparities, and increases in legitimacy and transparency in policing (e.g., Weitzer and Tuch 2004 , 2005 ; Tyler 2006 ) rather than simply continuing to document racial/ethnic disparities in stops and stop outcomes.

Second, prior to the development of testable interventions, studies of police bias will inevitably rely on non-experimental approaches. But to better understand racial bias, we clearly need to better use mixed method and qualitative examinations of police decision making. In this regard, direct observation of the police, their decision making, and their interactions with the public is critical. Some promising research in this area includes rich qualitative work (e.g., Kennedy 1997 ; Brunson and Miller 2006 ; Brunson and Stewart 2006 ; Engel et al. 2007 ) that helps provide context and may stimulate further theoretical development. This work successfully expands the initial research questions asked in the biased-based policing literature to incorporate police legitimacy research.

It should now be clear to the research community that black box evaluations and secondary data analyses without detailed descriptions of the original data collection effort are seldom helpful. It is essential to capture information about the process so that practitioners can implement and researchers can replicate. For example, a recent study showed that police removal of homeless encampments may have lowered crime ( Berk and MacDonald 2010 ), but the results are unlikely to help policy makers because of inadequate descriptions of the intervention, outcomes, setting, and mechanisms ( Eck 2010 ). Further, this study led to uninformed speculations on the nature of the intervention ( White 2010 ), which in turn led police administrators to question “who will police the criminologists” ( Beck, Bratton, and Kelling 2011 ). Though this example comes from the police effectiveness literature, the same sort of problems exist in racial profiling research when secondary data sets are used and the researchers neither directly observed the police nor understand the details of how the data were collected, and consequently cannot sufficiently describe or understand police decision making.

Longitudinal studies, such as those using panel or time-series designs, show promise in addressing many of the methodological shortcomings found in the current body of research. Unfortunately, these types of data are very limited and attempts to compile an applicable dataset would introduce a host of measurement issues, as independent data sources vary widely. One promising research endeavor is the National Institute of Justice’s recently funded National Police Research Platform ( Rosenbaum, Schuck, and Cordner 2011 ). Providing researchers with longitudinal data on police practice will allow analyses to model the effects of changes in training protocol, workforce changes, and officer perception over time ( National Research Council 2004 ).

17.3.2 Conclusion

Fridell and Scott (2005) have suggested that police administrators need to be concerned about three ways that issues of police racial bias might manifest themselves: “Bad apple” officers, well-intentioned officers in need of guidance, and institutional practices or policies that might inadvertently contribute to the problem. Each involves different types of agency responses to identify and correct the problems. Fridell and Scott identified seven areas that police agencies can consider for responses to racially biased policing: (1) institutional practices and priorities; (2) accountability and supervision; (3) recruitment and hiring; (4) education and training; (5) minority community outreach; (6) policies prohibiting racially biased policing; and (7) data collection. Within each of these categories are a set of reasonable recommendations that, on their face, are believed to reduce police bias. Yet the evidence regarding the actual impact of these recommendations is nearly non-existent. A closer look at the available research surrounding these recommendations demonstrates that we are often operating in the dark. For example, only a handful of studies have considered the impact of recruitment, training, and education, on police behavior generally, and even fewer have focused specifically on reducing biased policing (e.g., Worden 1990 ; Sun 2002 ; Engel and Worden 2003 ). The same critique regarding the lack of evidence can be applied to each of the categories noted by Fridell and Scott (2005) .

Fridell and Scott concluded their article by arguing that “law enforcement has never been better situated to address these issues” (2005, 359) and that “the police are more capable than ever of effectively detecting and addressing police racial bias” (2005, 343). However, based on the lack of available evidence to guide practitioners, we are less optimistic at this stage. While many agencies can readily identify racial/ethnic disparities, they often cannot detect bias, and they further cannot determine why these disparities exist or how to effectively reduce them. Further, as police agencies continue to promote and advance practices that have demonstrated effectiveness (e.g., hot spots and other types of focused policing strategies), it is likely that racial/ethnic disparities in stops and stop outcomes will continue or perhaps even increase based on differential offending patterns and saturation patrols in predominately minority areas ( Engel, Smith, and Cullen 2012 ). This is not to suggest that Fridell and Scott’s identified categories to reduce police bias are inaccurate; we agree that these areas are ripe for reform and that changes in these areas have the potential to reduce racial bias in policing. Rather we argue that specific guidance based on social scientific evidence regarding the types of training, practices, recruitment, policies, supervision, education, etc. to reduce police bias currently does not exist. This is where, we believe, our research community should focus if we are serious about both the role of science in policing and the need to reduce racial/ethnic bias in policing.

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Ethical Profiling

  • Published: 17 December 2010
  • Volume 15 , pages 131–145, ( 2011 )

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  • Michael Boylan 1  

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This essay will argue for ethical procedures governing criminal profiling. A model based upon psychological/behavioral data, witness data, and forensic profiling data is sketched out. This model fits the legitimate uses of criminal profiling as an investigation procedure. Racial profiling as a primary sorting factor does not fit the preferred model and has significant downsides and so is rejected as a primary sorting mechanism in criminal investigation procedure.

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Of course there are other socially constructed racial stereotypes as well—such as the rabid Islamic extremist. As will be shown later in this essay such stereotypes have vague connection to some empirical data, but the conclusions are not supported by inductive logic.

Of course the ideal of the criminal profiler who uses physical evidence and witnesses testimony (when available) to construct a psychological/behavioral model of the perpetrator first appeared in fiction through characters such as Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Sometimes real life follows art.

cf. also to Schlesinger ( 2009 ), Kocsis ( 2003a , b , 2006 ), and Rossmo ( 2000 ).

For the sake of completeness, let me report that any coercion on Malvo was held to be within his power reasonably to withstand. Thus, his sentence was not affected.

It should be noted here that the sort of profiling described by this author is general profiling—using statistics to create type analysis . Instead, I have argued for an individualistic-style, token , profiling.

This point links with my own examinations of a couple of actual cases in Boylan ( 2008 ).

Jeffrey Reiman ( 1996 ) discusses automatic procedures that limit police discretion (and thereby support the liberty of all). A Batson style test with reasonable procedures that are developed over time would be in the spirit of Reiman’s argument.

There is a brief discussion of the pros and cons of a form of the exclusionary ruling for evidence obtained via racial profiling by David Wasserman ( 1996 ).

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Greg McCrary, former field agent for the FBI, Michael Bolton, criminologist and former police detective, and Mary Lindahl, a high profile forensic psychologist for their real world insights that have greatly improved my essay. All errors, of course, are my own.

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Boylan, M. Ethical Profiling. J Ethics 15 , 131–145 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9092-9

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Published : 17 December 2010

Issue Date : June 2011

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9092-9

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Ethics of Racial Profiling in the United States Essay

When it comes to the criminal justice system, there are many issues in every sphere. The given system is comprised of the administration of justice, law enforcement, and corrections, all of which have specific challenges. Racial profiling is one of the issues many people of color have to deal with. Racial profiling can be referred to as the process of law enforcement personnel identifying someone as a suspect of criminal activity due to the race, nationality, or faith of the individual in question.

Criminal profiling is seen as using a set of features that the authorities assume are linked to violence. Due to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, racial profiling has been among the most sensitive human rights problems of the past decades. Moreover, many believe racial profiling to be effective since it essentially should ensure national security, which is crucial. However, statements that values must be compromised in the service of national defense should be avoided. All people should be equal before the law, which is challenged by racial profiling. Differences in treatment must be corroborated with valid evidence, especially in the event of racial discrimination. Thus, the matter requires more careful consideration than it has received thus far.

The book by Bohm & Haley provides an overview of the issues and ethics of policing in the United States. According to the authors, the issue of racial profiling is a growing concern that is often justified by minor violations by individuals that could be ignored (Bohm & Haley, 2017). As for the methods that could stop the procedure, the most crucial approach is introducing new racial and cultural diversity training (Bohm & Haley, 2017). In this case, law enforcement personnel training should aim to embrace diversity rather than condone biased attitudes (Bohm & Haley, 2017). Moreover, to eliminate racial profiling, data on the suspects and stopped individuals must be collected to monitor the process and ensure justice.

Hence, from this personal analysis, among the learned topics is the complexity of law enforcement and prevailing ethical issues of the system, especially racial profiling that permeates the lives of many immigrants or people of color. In this case, the given issue, which also is a rising concern of the nation, must be paid attention to, and justice should be administered accordingly. Among the most common methods that can be aimed at the elimination of racial profiling is the training of law enforcement personnel and monitoring of the arrests of suspects.

Bohm, R.M. & Haley, K.H. (2017). Introduction to criminal justice . McGraw-Hill Education.

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IvyPanda. (2023, April 17). Ethics of Racial Profiling in the United States. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethics-of-racial-profiling-in-the-united-states/

"Ethics of Racial Profiling in the United States." IvyPanda , 17 Apr. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/ethics-of-racial-profiling-in-the-united-states/.

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IvyPanda . 2023. "Ethics of Racial Profiling in the United States." April 17, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethics-of-racial-profiling-in-the-united-states/.

1. IvyPanda . "Ethics of Racial Profiling in the United States." April 17, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethics-of-racial-profiling-in-the-united-states/.

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IvyPanda . "Ethics of Racial Profiling in the United States." April 17, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/ethics-of-racial-profiling-in-the-united-states/.

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Chapter 6: Criminal v. Racial Profiling and Surveillance

Chapter abstract.

This discussion will entail both empirical data and the work experience of a thirty-eight year law enforcement veteran comparing criminal profiling with actual practice in comparison of this authors insinuation that the birth place of criminal profiling is found in Terry v. Ohio. It is the contention of this document that criminal profiling is a day to day practice of street officers and the much romanticized criminal profiling as viewed by the media is a by-product of good street cop methodology, unlike racial profiling. Readers are asked to draw a comparison between criminal profiling, racial profiling, and Homeland Security. The reader may find similarities between Chapters Six and Thirteen, although they reiterate material discussed they provide for differing contextual thinking relative to both topics discussed.

Homeland Security

There cannot be Homeland Security without first Hometown Security. This discussion is premised on a number of criteria that is essential to ethical foundations in the CJ system. First, private security does not have to play by the same rules as government employees. Freedom of privacy, albeit not specific in the U.S. Constitution is defined by court rulings relative to existing language. It is further the contention of this section that profiling is used in the private security sector with impunity. For example in casinos when a private person swipes his her credit card the facility has information that a public agency does not have ready access, such as credit report, where you have lived for previous ten years, whether you own your home or rent, criminal check and if anyone in your family is in the gaming business (police background investigation requires waivers to obtain information). Therefore the bureaucratic arena that the criminal justice system resides is drastically restricted by legal obligations and the private sector has far outpaced their governmental counterparts in the technological advances arena. To coin a phrase, “We’re so far behind we think we’re first.” First of all the private sector is generally financially better prepared to meet its needs; second the private sector does not have to deal with huge bureaucracies to gain a purchase; they are not concerned with individual liberties as the public sector employee; and finally, the private sector planning and development is not encumbered with politics.

When I speak of the private sector, I do not wish for you to envision the security guard at a gated community, although their radio equipment and surveillance equipment is state of the art, more so than most CJ practitioner. Rather I offer my comments toward the corporate security responsible for multi-continent computer security, responsible for guarding high tech industrial secrets, background investigations that make public servant checks pale by comparison, satellite positioning and bank transactions that if breached would cost this Country Billions of dollars.

The private sector is far more advanced, they have the means to provide their workforce with the most modern up to the minute equipment and they do not deal with the same impediments as the criminal justice practitioner. Further their use of obtained information is generally not subject to public scrutiny and is an actual form of criminal profiling. This is probably just one more reason why the public sector should embrace the private sector security corporations if not for their hand me downs, then for their expertise and contemporary methodologies.

Having stated the purpose of this article it is essential to provide a description of criminal profiling as detailed in current research and then the brief discussion of Terry Stops criminal profiling. According to Hatch-Maillette, Scalora, Huss & Baumgartner (2001):

Individuals who demonstrate heavy involvement with the legal system are an undeniably important population to consider in terms of economic, social, and ethical issues. To the extent that knowledge of these people can be amassed, researchers and clinicians can begin to address the financial and societal burdens experienced by those who are indirectly or directly affected by our criminal justice system. One way in which our understanding can increase is by systematically examining the thought content of criminal offenders in hopes of detecting patterns in specific categories of cognitions that are indigenous to the type of crime committed (p.115).

Criminal profiling according to Muller (2000) “is the process of using available information about a crime and crime scene to compose a psychological portrait of the unknown perpetrator of the crime (as cited in Bartol & Bartol, 2008, p.56). Criminal profiling in this fashion is instrumental providing investigators with a psychological evaluation of relevant information of offender and his/her possessions and the technique for interviews (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). Additionally, the information from a crime scene of an unsolved homicide may offer legitimate information for the investigator; however not all offenses are appropriate for criminal profiling. Crime Scene Analysis (CSA) probably the most romanticized by the media is the most popular (Bartol & Bartol, 2008).

As asserted by Ressler, Burgess & Douglas (1988) CSA “Criminal profiling is a six-stage process” (p.58). The stages: Profiling Inputs and concerns, collection of all information; Decision Process Model in which the information is analyzed; Crime Assessment or in this stage is the term, getting into the mind of the criminal; Constructing the Profile is performed in this stage consisting of age, characteristics of the offender, race general appearance of offender, relationship to victim and any other notable features; Investigation whereby the profiler submits a report to the agency; and finally Apprehension assuming the correct offender is caught (Ressler et al., as cited in Bartol & Bartol, p.58-59). There are two other forms of profiling offered which will receive no other attention than honorable mention in this discussion are Investigative Psychology (IP) and Diagnostic Evaluation (DE) and as pointed out by Bartol & Bartol (2008) “CSA does have the potential to be scientific with some work, but the main problem seems to be that it does not want to be scientific. Unlike, CSA, IP was designed from the beginning with science in mind…IP has a great deal of potential to become a science, but it still has a long way to go before it will be recognized as a discipline in itself” (p.62).

Is criminal profiling of use to the police profession or perhaps in diagnosis of perpetrators for rehabilitation purpose, the evidence provided is scant however it does indicate promise (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). CSA is more reliant upon experience and intuition. Criminal profiling will be tested longitudinally as evaluation of offenders prove positive and providing testing is best available with the IP as more empirical studies can make its claim (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). Criminal profiling as described thus far has been primarily reserved for serial killers. Strong ethical foundational requirements of the custodians of the information is not limited to this domain.

Maillette et al. (2001) insist that “one instrument developed to measure specific aspects of criminal thinking regardless of offender type, is the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS)”(p.105). The PICTS assesses eight thinking styles including: Mollification-rationalization; Cutoff-rapid elimination of deterrents to crime; Entitlement-ownership or misidentification of wants and needs; Power Orientation-aggressive behavior; Sentimentality-compensating for previous conduct; Super optimism-ego to maintain criminal life style; Cognitive Indolence-lazy thinking; and Discontinuity-little premeditation (Maillette et al., 2001).

The PICTS instrument is a better fit than is the CSA as the former removes more of the assumptions and speculation from offender behaviors. Again as previously stated CSA is made for television and big screen as compared to the latter that is descriptive and is more open to other criminal conducts unlike CSA which is restrictive to serial killers (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). Thus is descriptive of other types of profiling and providing a segway to the next portion of this discussion.

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968) is the Supreme Court Case that provides for police officers to use their training, experience, knowledge, skill, and observation to intercede on behalf of the public into criminal conduct. None the less it is a court sanctioned form of profiling, specifically criminal profiling that as contended early on in this discussion is the basis of other forms of profiling, both positive and negative. In brief, an experienced Cleveland police officer (detective) observed conduct of three men that rose to the level of casing a store in preparation to rob. The police officer acting on reasonable suspicion removed the trio from an automobile and patted them down. The pat down revealed what appeared to be weapons on two of the culprits and resulted in a search that confirmed the officer’s suspicions. The court held that in these circumstances an over the clothes pat down to provide safety for the officer is sufficient and does not rise to the level of a seizure but rather a stop and a frisk that is not a search (White, 2007).

The preceding is descriptive of common sense police work that orchestrated profiling at differing levels. In recent years racial profiling that is perpetrated on highways and streets based solely on race is a form of police misconduct. Clearly stated racial profiling is ethically, morally, and legally wrong. However, an officer acting on observed conduct that raises the suspicions of the police that criminality is afoot is criminal profiling and occurs hundreds if not thousands a times daily across this country. If not for profiling what would constitute a reason for a stop? How much police work would be done? It is in this manner that criminal thinking is apparent in behaviorism or mannerisms that create suspicions.

Criminal thinking is important in all fashions of profiling however the type and manner of Terry Stops is critical to day to day operations preventing crime. As an example of ethical conduct enjoined in policing; you the police officer finds a women that is scantily dressed, standing on a corner in an area of high incidences of prostitution, waiving at passing motorist. Your observations include at least two vehicles stop, the women puts her head inside the passenger window, but they move on. Finally a third vehicle stops and the women gets in. You follow from you unmarked police car at a distance until the suspect vehicle secludes itself behind an area strip mall. You approach the vehicle in the dark secluded area on foot, and find two males passionately involved. You shout bias comments at them and send them on their way, angrily thinking how much of your time they had wasted. Guess you showed them with your comments or did you? What ethical dilemma may arise in this scenario? How should you have handled this? What outcomes may result because of unethical inactions?

The longevity of CSA or IP is essential in long term investigations. Unfortunately these methods are currently without sufficient empirical studies of any magnitude; yet PICTS provides evidence that certain characteristics may be tested. It is incumbent upon police leadership to provide training and education and ethics guiding the conduct of officers so that profiling constitutes legitimate form (White, 2007).

Getting into the minds of the criminal has its place, especially in treatment of offenders but not in the fast pace of policing from the street level. Again, it has come a long way; demonstrating merit nonetheless has not passed the empirical research test to date (Bartol & Bartol, 2008). On the other hand Terry type profiling has been in place for over forty years and remains solidly situated based on court fashioned reasoning.

Privacy and being free from government overreach was a key component by the architects of the American Constitution. What is privacy and where does it apply? As previously noted, citizens have given up information when signing for a credit card and privacy of the information by citizens of the information obtained by private corporations is not totally restricted. In other words most have given up their right to the information when they sign for the card. The same applies to telephone contracts and other media devices often used in our high-tech society.

What about public spaces as it relates to privacy? There is a limited expectation of privacy in public spaces. This hold true for airwaves in social media and the courts have ruled regarding secondary data (telephone numbers) maintained by private companies. This has not been without controversy.

Evaluating the Use of Public Surveillance Cameras for Crime Control and Prevention ( Taken directly from Urban Institute Report )

The Urban Institute studied the surveillance systems in three cities, Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; and Washington, D.C. In response to this knowledge gap, The Urban Institute (UI) undertook a rigorous process and impact evaluation of the implementation and use of public surveillance cameras for crime control purposes; The results of the evaluation, funded by U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (the COPS Office), illustrate the variety of ways in which cameras can be implemented and used by jurisdictions and suggest that these differences affect the degree to which cameras reduce crime (UI, 2011).

Working With an Outside Evaluator

In-house evaluation provide by the COPS Office and the Urban Institute and this study relied heavily on literature review of European and U.S. cities.

Developing an Evaluation Plan

The evaluation process of this study involved the synthesis of qualitative data obtained from interviews with 44 stakeholders representing the planners and public officials involved in each city’s decisions to acquire and employ this technology, as well as the law enforcement officers, civilians, and other local criminal justice practitioners engaged in camera use. This was supplemented with interviews, document review relating to implementation and monitoring use. The UI team observed monitoring practices and use of the cameras by patrol, detective and supervisory personnel of the police department (UI, 2011).

Findings on the implementation and use of public surveillance systems varied from each municipality as the City of Baltimore saturated the test area and provided 24 hour monitoring of the live video stream. Chicago employed an extensive wireless network of cameras and enabled access to all sworn officers; while Washington implemented the fewest cameras in specific high-crime areas, restricting the monitoring due to privacy safeguards (UI, 2011).

Identifying Goals and Objectives

The process evaluation component of the present study is based upon qualitative data and is organized around the following research questions: Why do cities choose to invest in public surveillance technology for public surveillance purposes? What do they hope to gain from their investment? What factors play a role in decisions about the types of cameras that are purchased and how they are deployed and monitored? How is the public involved in decisions to invest in and use public surveillance cameras? How are cameras used to support real-time arrests, and how are they used for investigative purposes? What are the advantages and limitations to using public surveillance cameras for prosecution purposes?

Thus, the process measures collected during the course of this evaluation were guided by the types of information that would be most helpful to those cities that are considering investing in public surveillance technology, as well as those that are looking to improve or expand current public surveillance use (UI, 2011, p.9).

Evaluation Experiments

Prior evaluations have contributed greatly to the knowledge of how best to measure public surveillance technology’s impact on both crime and possible displacement or diffusion effects. The impact evaluation relies on quantitative data on reported crimes, demographics, land use, camera installation locations and types, and cost data. UI researchers used these data to conduct both general and crime-specific time series and difference-in-differences analyses to examine the impact of public surveillance technology on crime.

Researchers also employed detailed location-specific diffusion and displacement analyses to determine the degree to which crime was reduced, diffused, or shifted to nearby areas. Stemming from findings from the impact analysis, a cost-benefit analysis of camera use was conducted in two study sites, Baltimore and Chicago. The cost-benefit analysis explored whether the costs associated with public surveillance technology are proportionate to any reductions in crime and increased efficiencies in investigations that may be attributed to the intervention (UI, 2010).

Data Collection

The methodology employed in this evaluation combines the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative component is embodied in a process evaluation designed to document the installation and use of the public surveillance systems in three U.S. cities: Baltimore, MD; Chicago, IL; and Washington, D.C. Interviews with jurisdictional and law enforcement leaders, sworn officers, detectives, prosecutors, and civilian camera monitors, along with the review of policies, budgets, and other documents, form the backbone of the process evaluation.

As indicated above the evaluation process of this study involved the blending of qualitative data obtained from interviews with 44 stakeholders representing the planners and public officials involved in each city’s decisions to acquire and employ this technology, as well as the law enforcement officers, civilians, and other local criminal justice practitioners engaged in camera use. This was supplemented with interviews, document review relating to implementation and monitoring use. The UI team observed monitoring practices and use of the cameras by patrol, detective and supervisory personnel of the police department (UI, 2011).

Summary of Project

The Baltimore study realized a reduction of crime of over 35% and the stakeholders considered the cameras an effective tool. Chicago study indicated a 20% reduction in crime and the average monthly crime counts relating to drug and robbery crimes in the highly publicized area decreased by approximately 33% and violent crimes in the camera area decreased by 20%. In both locales they had study areas that showed no decrease as well. However the drop in the crime rates outweigh the camera cost as illustrated in the Chicago study the city saved $815,000 dollars a month in criminal justice and victim costs.

Washington, D.C. camera program was instituted in 2002 primarily for monitoring events. Due to the public outcry regarding citizen privacy the system is not monitored as the other two studies and the officers in D.C. feel it is hit or miss. The value of the comparison demonstrates the camera is smart technology and smart policing but the cameras alone are insufficient to reduce crime (mere presence). The systems must be monitored 24/7 and information gleaned from the surveillance systems must be provided to patrol officers or as in the Chicago study each patrol sector monitors camera information from their patrol vehicle.

Patriot Act

The USA Patriot Act expanded the definition of terrorist organization as: “any group two or more individuals, whether organized or not, that commit or initiate to commit terrorist activity, plans a terrorist activity, or gathers information for potential targets of terrorist activity” (Aziz, 2003). This definition imposes an ideological test for examination of any representative of a political/social group who publically supports or endorses terrorist activity. By this definition the standard only requires that the individual knew or should have known, but not actual knowledge of terrorist activity. Welcome to federal law. The above is not inconsistent to definitions of Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968, The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) originally designed to cover activity of the Mafia in domestic criminal law (Goldsmith, 1988). Critics will argue the USA Patriot Act is https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/what_is_the_patriot_act.pdf (Link to Patriot Act) applied through double standards for Israeli organizations and individuals involved in known terrorist activity in contrast to those with affiliation with Iraqi relief foundations (Aziz, 2003).

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was established in 1978 when Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which is codified, as amended, at 50 U.S.C. §§ 1801-1885c. The Court sits in Washington D.C., and is composed of eleven federal district court judges who are designated by the Chief Justice of the United States. Each judge serves for a maximum of seven years and their terms are staggered to ensure continuity on the Court. By statute, the judges must be drawn from at least seven of the United States judicial circuits, and three of the judges must reside within 20 miles of the District of Columbia. Judges typically sit for one week at a time, on a rotating basis (U.S. Courts. gov.). The following link is provided for rules and procedures of the court. http://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FISC%20Rules%20of%20Procedure.pdf

According to Goldsmith (1988), The U.S. Supreme Court has instructed federal courts to follow the continuity-plus-relationship test in order (RICO Act Standard) to determine whether the facts of a specific case give rise to an established pattern. Predicate acts are related if they “have the same or similar purposes, results, participants, victims, or methods of commission, or otherwise are interrelated by distinguishing characteristics and are not isolated events” (p. 971).

The FBI is authorized under the Patriot Act to request, and now authorizes the court to issue search warrants for citizens believed to be involved in terrorist activity. The court is the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court. Activities may include act such as non-violent protest against the government as covered under the First Amendment (Constitutional Foundation, n.d.).

Ethics will ultimately determine discretion, greater good in balance with being morally correct will determine accuracy; however each case will be determined by its own set of circumstances and no one definition of ethics will fit every circumstance and perhaps they may co-exist. The main question posed for citizens is whether this is too much authority by the government or is the question, if a citizen is not doing anything wrong they have nothing to worry about. Is ethics left for the eye of the beholder or is ethical conduct left for those that shall pass judgment in hind sight? This may always be the prevailing and lingering question when dealing with ethics?

Aziz, S. (2003). The laws on providing material support to terrorist organizations: The erosion of constitutional rights or a legitimate tool for preventing terrorism? Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights, 9(1), 45-92. Retrieved from

Bartol, C. R., & and Bartol, A. M. (2008). Current perspectives in forensic psychology and criminal behavior (2nd Ed .). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Constitutional Rights Foundation (n.d.). Patriot Act: What Is the Proper Balance Between National Security and Individual Rights? http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-patriot-act.html

Goldsmith, M. (1988). Rico and pattern: The search for continuity plus relationship. Cornell Law Review, 73 (5). : http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr

Hatch-Maillette, M. A., Scalora, M. J., Huss, M. T., & & Baumgartner, J. V. (2001). Criminal thinking patterns: Are child molesters unique? International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 45(1), 102-117.

Ressler, R. K., Burgess, A. W., & & Douglas, J. E. (1988). Sexual homicide: Patterns and motives. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center and U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Service (2011). Evaluating the use of public surveillance cameras for crime control and prevention. http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=412403

U.S. Courts. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts. Rules of Procedure. http://www.fisc.uscourts.gov/rules-procedure

U.S. Department of Justice, BJA Center for Program Evaluation and Performance Measurement

Justice Research and Statistics Association http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/evaluation/

The USA Patriot Act: Preserving Life and Liberty. U.S. Department of Justice. Federal U.S.C. Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 U.S.C. § 1961–1968 (1968). https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm

White, M. D. (May 30, 2007). Current issues and controversies in policing . Boston, MA: Pearson: Allyn and Bacon.

Ethics in Life and Vocation Copyright © by Mark Whitman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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  • Published: 08 July 2013

Racial profiling in medicine

  • Aravinda Chakravarti 1  

Nature Medicine volume  19 ,  page 808 ( 2013 ) Cite this article

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Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in a Post-Genomic Age

  • Jonathan Kahn

The field of human genetics is moving beyond using genomics as a tool for deeper understanding of human disease pathophysiology to the possibility of translating this knowledge for efficient treatment. A particular emphasis is being placed on 'individualized medicine', promising to tailor treatment based on each of our genomes. This ideal vision, however, can cause unease when our notions of genetic individuality intersect with those of ancestry and race. Jonathan Kahn's book, Race in a Bottle , is a contemporary medical story born of this nexus. In it, he skillfully uses the story of the drug BiDil, a therapeutic for heart failure marketed specifically for African Americans (but whose use has declined markedly because it provides no unique benefit in comparison to similar drugs), as the backdrop for examining the expanding role of race in medical genomics, even when the same science has called the existence of race into serious doubt.

As Kahn highlights in the book, the innocuous birth of BiDil in 1992 was no predictor of its contorted history. BiDil is a combination of two vasodilators, hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate (H-I), which are presumed to act through the nitric oxide pathway to provide benefit to patients with congestive heart failure. They were combined into one pill for easier administration, although each was already available in generic form. Between 1980 and 1991, two major clinical trials in the United States, involving patients of both European and African ancestries, clearly established that angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors should be the preferred drug for patients with heart failure and that the H-I combination should be used in individuals who did not benefit from this frontline therapy. Sensing a market opportunity, Medco Research obtained the intellectual property rights to BiDil, demonstrated its bioequivalence to the H-I formulation and approached the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996 for approval to market this 'new' drug. The FDA refused, arguing that clinical trials showing the utility of H-I for heart failure did not meet the stiff criteria for such approval.

There was a suspicion that the nitric oxide response, and heart failure, was somehow different in blacks than in whites. So Jay Cohn, a respected cardiologist and owner of the original BiDil patent, reanalyzed the original clinical trial data to demonstrate that H-I did work better in blacks than whites, a contention described and contested in the book. This finding not only led to a new patent but prompted its new owner, NitroMed, to conduct a fresh clinical trial in 2001, involving only African-American patients with heart failure, to demonstrate BiDil's utility in this group. None of these facts are in doubt. What is doubted, however, is the implicit assumption that BiDil is not useful for white patients, the chronology of key events and the motivations of various actors in medicine, industry and government—factors that morphed an otherwise convenient drug formulation into a race-specific drug. Kahn makes the charge that “BiDil was not about personalizing medicine; it was about exploiting race to obtain cheaper, quicker FDA approval for a drug.”

So, was BiDil simply an exception? Race in a Bottle suggests not and that 'ethnic' drugs will rise in the future. Kahn contends that genes that show sequence variation between individuals sampled from various races have become a convenient ploy to explain the underlying complexity in trait, disease and pharmacologic variation across humans. His concern is that the equally complex historical, social and environmental factors underlying race are not equally appreciated in biomedicine. How else can one explain the attempt by researchers to explain population disparities in disease using millions of genetic variants but not millions of nongenetic variables? He has a point.

Genetic analysis strongly suggests that early humans first arose in Africa and emerged out of Africa only ∼ 100,000 years ago, a fairly recent development, evolutionarily speaking, which explains why we are all closely related. Any classification of biological races within our species is arbitrary because there are no major discontinuities in our diversity across the globe. Importantly, genetic data show that currently populous groups are not necessarily reflected by their past abundance, and human history is one of repeated admixture, not maintenance of purity. It is this genetic admixture that has left an imprint on every human disease with a genetic component, including common chronic ones. Thus, it is quite unlikely that the genetic variations underlying our diseases, which represent only a small fraction of our genetic diversity, will vary markedly across humanity.

Despite this expectation, the natural history of most diseases shows a worse prognosis in minority groups across the world. Kahn correctly argues that this has much to do with the poorer social and physical environments of these groups and the lower level of medical attention they receive. But some of it is confounded with our genetic heritage, as well. Removing health disparities is our social and medical obligation, and, despite Kahn's emphasis on social factors, will require facing the full complexity of both race and genes.

BiDil was marketed as a drug to treat heart failure in African Americans, implicitly arguing that there is a distinct biological cause for the disease among these individuals, despite data to the contrary. In spite of expert analysis and testimony and the FDA's rules for introducing drugs, and despite aggressive marketing by NitroMed of BiDil as an ethnic therapeutic, the evidence, and Kahn's book, clearly shows that BiDil should have broad utility for all humans. It is sad that its controversial marketing was a major factor in its clinical demise over time. The book emphasizes that, given the great cost of bringing any drug to market, we need to get the facts right.

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Racial Profiling: Trust, Ethics, Police Legitimacy

Introduction, critical analysis of research sources, the definition and origins of racial profiling, reasons why the police use racial profiling, perception of racial profiling in the society, impact on the life of minorities, racial profiling in the us and its impact on canada, how to combat biases.

In contemporary societies, even such tolerant and multicultural as the Canadian one, racial profiling is a serious and urgent problem. Not only is it used to justify the illegal and anti-societal actions of some policemen, as it often happens in the United States, but it also has an impact on the everyday life of society. It impacts the way, in which people drive, study, work, communicate, socialize. To understand why racial biases appear and find ways to deal with them, it is necessary to examine the aspects of racial profiling.

This paper will give a definition of racial profiling, explore its origins, and explain how it changed from legal practice to a form of discrimination. It will also show how the police use racial profiling to justify their actions and control the behavior of citizens. The author will argue that the reason, for which minorities are overrepresented in criminal statistics, is not that they commit more crimes than white people. The paper will demonstrate that racial profiling hurts various aspects of the lives of minorities. It will also propose effective measures to combat the racial biases that have appeared in the society because of racial profiling.

To perform the present research, the author has used scholarly sociological sources. Each of those sources helped the researcher to analyze a particular aspect of the examined problem.

The article by T.G. Gardner (2014) gives a comprehensive definition of racial profiling and outlines its primary aspects. Gardner criticizes the shallow and insufficient understanding of racial profiling that prevails in contemporary research literature. Instead, he proposes to put this phenomenon into a larger context and connect it to the concepts of race and criminality. Also, Gardner presents a statement that is incredibly important for this research. According to him, the reason behind the high number of crimes committed by minorities is that the police, following the principle of racial profiling, merely devotes more attention to minorities and the neighborhoods where they reside.

The landmark book by C. Tator and F. Henry (2006) presents an analysis of racial profiling in Canada. It challenges the widespread notions that Canada is a tolerant, multicultural country and reveals the actual problem that the country has. The authors examine the origins of racial profiling, describe how it is perceived in the society, and depict its consequences for the minorities.

The article by S. Wortley (2003) examines the connections between crime and race in Canada and the public perception of this connection. The author evaluates various theories that explain why minorities are overrepresented in national crime statistics. Substantial attention is devoted to the problem of racism in the Canadian justice system. Wortley emphasizes the necessity for those researching this issue to play a leadership role to help resolve this problem, which is one of the reasons the present research was conducted.

The article by J.C. Cochran and P.Y. Warren (2012) is devoted to the problem of the perception of minorities by the police. The authors present the result of their analysis of statistical evidence and prove that the evaluation of a citizen’s behavior made by a policeman is seriously influenced by the assumptions that exist regarding the race of that citizen.

The study by J. Helleiner (2012) is focused on a narrow but essential subject: the impact of the racial profiling that exists in the US on the beliefs of the inhabitants of Canadian territories that lie close to the border with the US. The author has demonstrated that the biases of the neighboring country can penetrate the Canadian border and influence the minds of the citizens.

Racial profiling can be defined as an assumption that a person should be regarded as a potential criminal based on their racial background. The primary institution that promotes and enforces racial profiling in society is the police. Being once a preventive practice that helped to discover criminal activities such as drug abuse, illegal immigration, and terrorist attacks, racial profiling grew to become a stereotype. Because of this stereotype, police forces started devoting more attention to minorities and, naturally, discovering more crimes committed by their representatives. In the meantime, white people might be committing the same number of crimes, but the lack of police attention prevents society from knowing this fact. In such a way, racial profiling turned into another form of discrimination, leading to frequent arrests and unjust accusations of minorities, as well as the inappropriate attitude of the police towards them (Gardner, 2014).

Several reasons can be mentioned, for which the police enforce racial profiling and use it constantly. First, it helps them find more criminals (either the real ones or the wrongly accused innocents), thus demonstrating the public that they are doing a good job. Second, it allows them to find someone to be made guilty. For instance, if a real criminal is unknown, but a non-white person can be accused, the police might accuse them, and the public will most likely trust them because of the stereotypical views that are widespread among people (Cochran & Warren, 2012). Third and the most important, racial profiling gives the police more power and allows them to infringe on human rights when they find it useful (Wortley, 2003). The police know how strong the stereotypes are in society, and they rely on the strength of these stereotypes, using racial profiling as leverage to establish their control over the population.

As it was mentioned above, the reason, for which police find power in racial profiling, is that society enforces the racial stereotypes related to criminal activities. Such a problem exists in many contemporary multiracial societies. It is especially true for the United States, where the excess of racial profiling led to something that might be called a struggle between the police and black citizens. In Canada, despite the respectable label of “multiculturalism,” racial profiling in society is also a problem. Many Canadians believe that racial profiling is a recent phenomenon caused by the intensification of immigration. However, the experience of black Canadians proves that racial profiling has a long history in Canada. Even though the problem is not harsh compared to the United States, white Canadians are still used to thinking that immigrants or native people are more likely to be criminals than the people of their race (Tator & Henry, 2006, p. 56-59).

Racial profiling has a severe negative effect on the life of minorities. They are more likely to be accused of a crime that they never committed. They are also more likely to be shot by the police during an arrest since the police either expect them to be dangerous and prone to resistance or do not value their lives and respect them as much as they value the lives and respect white people. Driving is also more complicated for minorities than for white people: the former is stopped far more often than the latter. Racial profiling has a strong impact on minority youth. Being seen as criminals and treated as such, young people are more inclined to become criminals, which further enforces the stereotype. Racial profiling also makes white people suspicious of minorities, which makes it hard for the latter to be hired, receive proper medical attention, get a bank credit or sign a lease contract (Tator & Henry, 2006, p. 59-65).

It is well-established that the racial profiling problem in the US is especially harsh. This situation has a direct impact on racial profiling in Canadian territories that are close to the border with the US. In these territories, many white people hear about the situation in the US and believe that it is the minorities who are responsible for their image in society and, therefore, for racial profiling. Also, the opportunities for border mobility are limited for minorities, which is the effect of racial profiling. Both the residents and the authorities of the Canadian border territories believe that non-white immigrants from the US are more likely to commit acts of violence than white people who cross the border. The existence of such views on Canadian territory poses a threat to the well-being of Canadian minorities (Helleiner, 2012).

Racial profiling should aid the police in preventing crimes but should not be the basis for an automatic assumption that all minorities are potential criminals. Racial profiling should serve justice and help achieve equality in society, keeping all people protected regardless of their racial background. It is therefore highly necessary to combat the biases that appear because of racial profiling. Two main ways can be proposed to handle this problem. First, popular awareness regarding this issue should be raised. The primary channels of information should be media (especially the Internet) and schools. The latter is important since, being taught not to trust biases, school students will grow up to be citizens that maintain equality. Second, the police should be accountable for who they are stopping, searching, and arresting. They should have less liberty in this question.

In this paper, I have analyzed various aspects of racial profiling with the use of relevant research literature. I have performed a critical analysis of my sources regarding the chosen topic. In the paper, I have defined racial profiling and examined its origins. It was concluded that the reason, for which minorities are overrepresented in crime statistics is the special attention of the police to their behavior. Also, I have analyzed the public perception of racial profiling and biases, their negative impact on minorities, and the influence of the racial problems of the US on Canadian society. I have proposed the following ways to handle the problem: raise the popular awareness about racial profiling and increase police accountability.

Cochran, J.C., & Warren, P.Y. (2012). Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in perceptions of the police: The salience of officer race within the context of racial profiling. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 28 (2), 206-227.

Gardner, T.G. (2014). Racial profiling as collective definition. Social Inclusion, 2 (3), 52-59.

Helleiner, J. (2012). Whiteness and narratives of a racialized Canada-US border at Niagara. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 37 (2), 109-136.

Tator, C., & Henry, F. (2006). Racial profiling in Canada: Challenging the myth of “a few bad apples.” Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Wortley, S. (2003). Hidden intersections: Research on race, crime and criminal justice in Canada. Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, 35 (3), 99-118.

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