Justifying racial profiling
Introduction
Racial profiling is a practice used by police where they focus on a particular race for scrutiny and intervention. Example of racial profiling is when police stop black men in United States and scrutinize them for drug trafficking. It is an implicit policy; however, it is prescribed protocol in some agencies. It may occur when law enforcement inappropriately considers different races to decide on how to intervene in an enforcement capacity. The aim of this paper is to analysis racial profiling andf the effects it has to the entire society. Ethical issues which appear whenever racial profiling is claimed to occur,are critical and should be discussed by plcing evidence in where law enforcement objectives represent a subset of the desiderata for public policy. Without providing a direct way of trading off these desiderata, strength of available evidence is relevant to this trade-off; current arguments about profiling need to account explicitly for the absence of strong empirical evidence on many of the factors that come into play when assessing profiling. Racial profiling as a public policy by showing that it is necessary and justified to use as active law enforcement, is discussed in this paper. (Schauer).
Racial profiling is considered to happen in many forms but it is important to show that it is itself justified. One form is when highway police stops drivers their aim being to identify those who traffic drugs.In this case it is possible to assess the evidence on the factors that are subject to profiling policy. This important since those who say are subjects to this kind do not have clear evidence. In this paper it is assumed that some of drug laws are just and muist therefore be used.Cosidering the law enforcement act ther are no errors in stopping and searching someone if he or she is a suspect, furthermore he or she is always let go if he is not guilty but if he is not , he is arrested. According to the law all races are treated th same and there are no special punishments for different races. It is assumed that criminals commit same offense and judged according to the law. These assumptions allow the discussion to focus on the main issues specific to profiling as a police strategy”. (Durlauf)
Racial profiling produces individual benefits in its average reduction of crime rate. In the police department there is a police force that deals with police-community relations which devise creative approaches to manage low level disorder such as public consumption of alcohol rowdy youths and civil mediation such as resolving interpersonal controversies or documenting the facts surrounding automobile accidents. Racial profiling is aimed at minimizing crime, traffic violations, drug trafficking, perpetration of felonies and misdemeanors.In curbing these, the police force requires some techniques and tactics. The first tactic is the police to respond immediately at the site of crime. Most of the time police are reluctant to crimes unless alerted by other police men. The reason of responding is however very crucial as it ascertain who has committed the crime, the gravity of the offence and to apprehend the person who has committed the crime. When the forces arrive after the perpetrators have already gone, they will engage in search of that person. The gravity of the search is based on the information forwarded to them by the witnesses. “Mostly the information given is based on the criminal’s physical characteristics, direction of exit and mode of flight. In their search, the police will stop all who match the descriptions given to see whether any in the group can be identified for questioning “ (S.Hampshire).
Mostly, hardworking police will position themselves where there is higher chances of crime or where the response to the reported crime by a complainant is first. These measures may include: spending more time in neighborhoods where level of crime is high or staying alert at certain times of the day. For an action to qualify to be a crime there must be enough evidence and fact. For the police to conduct investigation they rely so much on this evidence whether they were there at the time of crime or it was reported (M Heumann).
Another useful tactic in fight for criminals and crime is proactive apprehension of people who commit crimes where there is no complain from the civilians. In such cases police must use all facts from stated allegations by civilians. “Some of these cases happen where the government is the only complainant, such as prostitution and all traffic infractions” Another case is where civilians have unlicensed firearms which according to the law is assumed that it is a prelude to robbery or deliberate assault. “A police radio scanner, an armored vest, and lock-picking tools might be legal by themselves, however if all this are in possession of one person at once at night near a commercial strip, there is a strong indication of an impending burglary” (S. Gross).
In addition, there are also some proactive apprehensions of criminals for whom the suitable complainant is still to be located. In a case where a driver of a stolen vehicle is apprehended even before the owner realizes that it is stolen, or arresting a burglar who intends to invade a building before the owner of the house gets home.
The third technique is deterrence by mere presence. Presence of police prevents criminals who are about to commit a crime from committing. This is because the specter of capture and incarceration overshadows the benefits of committing a crime. Deterrence which is a way of winning without fighting is the best since some criminals who have intentions of committing crime, shy away from their actions in the sense that they might confront with the policemen (Race).
"Racial profiling is time and cost efficient, because it enables police to limit search for criminals. Due to the outlined measure, the police conjecture necessarily increases. Statements such as “I am looking for five black gentlemen in leather jackets...” are mostly used. However, police cannot rely too much on the evidence offered even though the citizens depend too much on them. It is therefore wise to use racial profiling and other proactive measures otherwise lack of these measures would mean that police will make no arrest.
While police’s duty is to protect and honor human rights, it is known that they are the one that expose civilians to criminal activities which results to loss of property or body harm. Due to this reason, it follows that in state of law enforcement, most crimes are deterred and others intercepted before they happen. However police cannot be everywhere and thus they should work on presumptions, predictions, intuition and interference. This will help them at the end where they require hard facts and evidence.
Cases of illegal immigration have of late increased where aliens from other nations invade our country and overtake businesses owned by Americans. Racial profiling can help us to solve this problem by giving police liberty to use sense in these obvious situations. With racial profiling allowed, police will be free to act on these illegal immigrants whenever they come across one. Beside racial apparel, racial profiling helps to limit immigrants since it would not be possible for the government to identify those who look like immigrants. It is very true that they have to be caught on suspicion basis and this job has to be left to our dear police who we pay dearly and if we cannot trust them, we are headed nowhere on these issues. If police are given mandate to act on this criterion, the percentage of illegals caught will be raised and this will be a boost in this fight. This gives the state a practical answer, and by putting this to practice, through attrition the problem starts to resolve itself. In 1954 approximately 80000 illegal immigrants were caught and due to fear of being caught, more than 600000 fled back to their countries. This is a practical solution, isn’t it? Million of illegal’s who abandoned the country at that time, left on their own. Since this operation was abandoned due to political interest, it would have a greater impact today.
Racial profiling is not bias, but it's based on truth with statistical evidence proving this, a terrorist goes on a plane with explosives but they did not explode due to technical problems. His intentions were to bring down the entire flight and kill millions of people in a major city in US. This man to the Al Qaeda was a hero though he did not succeed because of technical problem. Following the evidence provided the man belonged to the Al Qaeda and he had attended a training camp for terrorists. This man should have been prevented from boarding the flight since he had bought a one way ticket and he was on the terrorist watch list. In the case of terrorism police should use all measures to prevent it from happening. Racial profiling in this case is the best form of prevention where any suspicious person is scrutinized and questioned. For us to protect our country, racial profiling should be used abundantly. In the above case, if it had been used because of his name, the man could have been scrutinized before buying one ticket. If proper procedures were followed, the airport security with the help of policemen could have discovered the explosives. Racial profiling in this case could have saved many innocent lives that could have died.
Terrorism is a major problem which should be fought with all means. On September 11 1998, 19 Middle Eastern terrorists carried a terrorist that destroyed the World Trade Center, Pentagon in Washington D.C and killed many innocent lives. The government then headed by Bush announced a fight against terrorism. The question is; how were they going to stop this, if not by scrutinizing Muslims and arresting individuals who were suspected to be terrorists? Law enforcement personnel were to use all means to track and question them.
In another example, a car with five black who look really mean drives in a neighborhood of another man. These men are smoking weed and its smell lingers as they drive past. They saw his wife and daughter who were in the front yard. They pulled over their car, and made sexist remarks to him on what they would want to do to his family. The man hurriedly moves his wife and daughter inside. They looked him into his eyes with mean looks and asked him if he would let them inside his house. The guy refused to let them in reason being to protect his family and not racial bias.
The president, Congress and FBI together with all agencies who have a duty of protecting the nation should not in any way let the bad guys in the house. Since they have evidence of which they are, more than 99% are Muslims while more than 94% have Muslims names and majority of them are of Middle East nations or African nations. Their intentions are well known is to destroy Americans. However some of the Americans are so much concerned over their rights and jeopardize the welfare of the whole nation (Cohen).
In order to protect our nation, racial profiling is highly required. All Muslims, those with Muslim names and all those that meet the profile of the majority of terrorists must be scrutinized so as to provide better security for the whole nation. Even though not all Muslims are terrorists, it is very evident that all terrorists are Muslims and therefore we cannot take chances but act accordingly.
Liberals will talk of failed civil and human rights. The entire Muslim community will fuss about profiling and racism. However in order to protect the freedom of many racial profiling must be used (Taylor).
War against terrorism is not about racism or judging a person by his color. Also it is not about judging a group because few men and women within it have bad actions or are criminals. But it is war against enemies who the government know how they look like, sound like and their names. The best thing to do now is to use this information to protect the entire nation without violating civil rights of any individual. If used properly profiling position will insure security and safety of the nation.
"Racial profiling is not the only factor when it comes to catching criminals - age group, looks. Black motorists who are pulled over by highway police argue that it’s because of their race. They claim that they are harassed and searched but these allegations are mostly untrue since there are video cameras in patrol cars which were installed due to the controversy of racial profiling. With these cameras some of the charges claimed have been proved as lies. In addition, drug trafficking is a major threat of peace and development and judging by the number of arrests, small groups are highly represented among drug traffickers. Even though blacks are less than 14%in the population, they make up to 60% of arrests in America for drugs and illegal weapons. Against these results police arrests and scrutinizing appears appropriate (S. Gross) (Derbyshire).
Though minority is pulled over by police, study shows that they are a subject to disproportionate traffic stops. There is problem however which can show whether police pulls over, searches, or arrests too many blacks. The arising question is what comparison is made to know that the police are arresting more blacks. According to reports from anti-profiling activists, police pulls over for genuine traffic violations reason, and not just drivers. A benchmark should be done to show whether it is true or they just pull any driver for no reason. If in any case it turns out that minorities are subject to traffic violations or that they drive more recklessly, then it is true they should be a subject to more stops. In the case of age the blacks have more young immature drivers than whites do and this will lead to more arrests of blacks compared to whites. Also if we apply the police deployment patterns with racial driving patterns, then if more police are on the road when a certain group is driving as in case of weekends where blacks mostly drive then they will be a subject of more stops (S. Gross).
It is necessaryfor activists and government to have clear evidence is before generalizing and saying that certain groups are subject of racial profiling. This would mean that there is need for construction of new data sets or econometric ways which allow researchers to note effects of deterrence and racial profiling. On the basis of stops and scrutinization, there is enough evidence. Mostly the arguments presented to the authorities concern plausibility of empirical claims and they highly support racial profiling.In the cases of muslim and terrolism there is no doubt that enough evidence has been produced. Stops and searches should be encouraged by anybody in this nation if future generations welfare is a factor to consider.racial profiling is therefore justified to use as active law enforcement.
Works Cited
Durlauf, S.N. "wp2005-02.pdf (application/pdf Object)." 15 January 2005. Assessing Racial Profiling. 11 November 2010 <http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/econ/archive/wp2005-02.pdf>.
Cohen, G. "On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice." Ethics (1989): 99, 906-944.
Derbyshire, J. "In Defense of Racial Profiling: Where is our Common Sense?’ ." The National Review (February 19 2001): 38-40.
Heumann,M. Good cop, Bad cop: Racial Profiling and Competing Views of Justice . New York: New York Press, 2004.
Race. "An Ethical and Policy Analysis of Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement Decision making." Queensland University of Technology Law & Justice Journal (2001): 270-275.
Gross S, Barnes,K. " Road Work: Racial Profiling and Drug Interdiction on the Highway." Michigan Law Review (2002): 101, 3, 651-754.
Hampshire, S. Justice is Conflict. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Schauer, F. Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003.
Taylor, S. " Racial Profiling:The Liberals are Right." No 17 Legal Affairs (1999): 1084.
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