Arguments Against Racial Profiling In Law Enforcement

Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Racial profiling is a controversial topic that continues to be carried out today by law enforcement officers across the nation. In fact, each year, tens of millions of people report that they had been unfairly singled out by law enforcement based on their race. In essence, racial profiling is described as using one’s race or ethnicity as the basis for suspecting someone of committing an illegal act. Thus, it relies on negative and untrue stereotypes regarding the one’s racial background. Also, it clearly violates major constitutional rights based on equality and fairness. While some people still support racial profiling and claim that it is an effective method in catching criminals, studies have proven that

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has reported that “racial profiling is in every instance inconsistent with this country’s core constitutional principles of equality and fairness” (ACLU). The Constitution guarantees people equal protection under the law, and in racial profiling this essential principal is infringed upon. In New York City, “young black males are stopped, frisked, and harassed in breathtaking numbers” (Herbert). This is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prevents the use of unreasonable searches and seizers. In racial profiling, when citizens undergo stop and frisk procedures carried out by police based solely on their race, this is completely unreasonable since it violates their rights for reasons not based on evidence. Also, the Fourteenth Amendment states that no state shall “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Since certain minorities are far more likely to be stopped by officers while white people are far less likely to, it completely goes against this promise of equal treatment. The fact that racial profiling violates these main constitutional ideals shows it cannot be justified as a viable option for law

Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City from 2001 to 2013, stated that, “New York City is the safest big city in the nation and our crime reductions have been steeper than any other big city’s” (Bloomberg). He claims that the use of stop and frisk methods based on racial profiling had contributed to the severe decline in crime rates during his time as mayor. While the statistics he presented are true, little, if not any of it had to do with the stop and frisk methods. In fact, crime rates had been declining rapidly, and even more so, when traditional policing methods were in practice before Bloomberg was mayor, proving that racial profiling did nothing to contribute to the decline of crime rates in New York City. Writer Heather MacDonald, who also claims to support racial profiling, listed examples of instances carried out by police officers when racial profiling seemed reasonable; she described that police used “soft racial profiling—pulling someone over because driver and car and direction…fit the components of a courier profile...” (CITE). By this statement, though, it appears that MacDonald is mixing up the distinct difference between racial profiling and criminal profiling—what she described is a clear example of criminal profiling: using facts and evidence to identify the perpetrator. Of course, in cases like these there is a place for race in police work, but