Ethnic Profiling

Is ethnic profiling necessary in order to effectively prevent terrorism?

Less than one percent of Muslims globally have engaged in terrorism. However, Asians (specifically those of Middle Eastern descent) are 42 times more likely to be the target of counter-terrorism as a result of ethnic profiling. “Ethnic profiling is the use of racial, ethnic, national, or religious characteristics as a way of singling out people for identity or security checks.” As a result of ethnic profiling, an ongoing debate has sparked which often one perspective questions the morality and legality for profiling and the other perspective believes that profiling is necessary for the safety of citizens. In addition, profiling has increasingly become a more urgent topic

This rhetoric can encourage for more terrorism to take place, especially in the Western world where this rhetoric is most prevalent. Anti-Muslim rhetoric can encourage terrorism because it causes some Muslims to feel hatred toward Westerners and be violent to Westerners as a result. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion after reviewing all of the information given, that ethnic profiling should not be used to prevent terrorism. Not only does profiling encourage terrorist acts, it has a countless amount of ethical implications as explained by the Open Society Justice Initiative. This source persuaded me that ethnic profiling is ineffective, supported by studies that have been conducted. I believe that focusing too much on one group of people could result in authorities missing out on thoroughly checking other groups of people that could be just as dangerous or terrorists themselves. Stereotyping a group of people because of their race, ethnicity, or religion is not the solution because not everyone in a certain group of people think and behave similarly. As Richard M. Banks states in his argument, it is acceptable to look for suspected terrorists based off of the descriptions given to law enforcement. Nonetheless, targeting and unfairly treating a certain group of people because some of the suspected terrorists were coincidentally of the same ethnicity, race or religion is taking it to the extreme and is an indisputable act of discrimination. More investigation does need to be directed by experimenting the effectiveness of ethnic profiling on a large scale and recording the results of it because most studies conducted previously are outdated. In such studies, the actions and behaviors of people need to be monitored closely instead of the profiling method. To help solve the terrorist issue, security measures need to be