Racial Profiling Pros And Cons

Written Task 2 Racial profiling as defined by the National Institute of Justice is “a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion or national origin” (National Institute of Justice). There are two different kinds of racial profiling according to the primary text. There is what can be called "Hard" profiling, that sees race as the only factor in assessing criminal suspiciousness. For an example a police officer sees a black person and, without having any more information on them, pulls him over for a pat-down on the chance that he may be carrying drugs or weapons. The second kind is "Soft" racial profiling, this is using race as one factor among others in criminal suspiciousness. The highway

One of the problems with racial profiling is that it is ineffective, It can be proven to be ineffective by a statistic in Chicago that shows were racial minorities were searched four times as often, but Whites were found with contraband twice as often (12 Racial Profiling Pros and Cons). Racial profiling is also patently illegal, it violates the U.S Constitution’s core promises of equal protection under law and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures (Racial Profiling). Discriminatory omissions or selective enforcement is mentioned by Macdonald in “The Myth of Racial Profiling” and also by the American Civil Liberties Union and is a problem with law enforcement that dates back to as early as the 1950’s and 60’s when southern sheriffs did nothing about groups like the Ku Klux Klan. A more recent example would be when the local police failed to respond to an African American man’s repeated complaints about property damage and being attacked after moving into a white neighborhood in Maryland, The man was eventually arrested because for shooting his gun while trying to disperse a mob outside his home. Racial profiling also is unethical and can raise racial tensions, it is unethical because it targets specific groups, while this may help narrow down a suspect pool, it also can target people who have committed no crime at all. Racial profiling can raise racial tensions in areas where racial profiling is most prevalent by law enforcement. Animosities tend to run high which results in those most likely to be profiled against won’t cooperate with law enforcement when necessary even if they have not committed any