Racial Profiling

6 Pages 1490 Words

Racial profiling is the tactic of stopping someone because of the color of his or her skin
and a fleeting suspicion that the person is engaging in criminal behavior (Meeks, p.
4-5). This practice can be conducted with routine traffic stops, or can be completely
random based on the car that is driven, the number of people in the car and the race of
the driver and passengers. The practice of racial profiling may seem more prevalent in
today's society, but in reality has been a part of American culture since the days of
slavery. According to Tracey Maclin, a professor at the Boston University School of Law,
racial profiling is an old concept. The historical roots "can be traced to a time in
early American society when court officials permitted constables and ordinary citizens
the right to 'take up' all black persons seen 'gadding abroad' without their master's
permission" (Meeks, p. 5). Although slavery is long since gone, the frequency in which
racial profiling takes place remains the same. However, because of our advanced
electronic media, this issue has been brought to the American public's attention.
Some consider racial profiling a viable tool to reduce crime. The New Century Foundation,
a non-profit organization based in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Oakton, VA, published a
report on the American Renaissance website, stating that African-Americans commit 90% of
the approximately 1,700,000 interracial crimes of violence that occurs every year in the
United States. They are more than fifty times more likely to commit violent crimes
against whites than vice versa. According to this same report, African-Americans are much
more likely to commit violent crimes than whites and when they commit these crimes,
target whites slightly more than half the time. The foundation believes that these crime
statistics warrant racial profiling as a crime deterrent and believe that it may even
reduce crime.
A recent article publish...