[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Racial Profiling
The effects of a post 9/11 society were devastating. Arab-Americans, and those with Arab appearances, increasingly were singled out for questioning and security checks based on their skin color, clothing, name, or religious beliefs. Despite this change in support for racial profiling, the practice is no more appropriate after September 11 than it was during the War on Drugs.Using race to signal criminality, either as the sole factor or based on a general or circumstantial perception that there is a correlation between the race of an individual and her propensity to commit a particular crime, violates civil liberties and hinders potential short- and long-term law enforcement effectiveness (NPR radio broadcast, Sept. 25, 2001).
American society has come to accept that to engage in effective law enforcement activities, local, state, and federal law enforcement agents must be vested with substantial discretionary decision-making powers. Law enforcement officials are responsible for deciding whom to stop or sanction and whom to ignore, thereby defining the parameters of who enters the criminal justice system. However, with such substantial discretionary powers, questions have and will be raised as to whether law enforcement officials exercise their discretion fairly and without discrimination. The disproportionate and unwarranted targeting of people of color for traffic, airport, or pedestrian stops, searches, and arrests has come to be known recently as racial profiling. Although the perception of racial profiling may not always reflect reality, the appearance alone is sufficient to create resentment and distrust of the police in many communities.
The perception that police engage in racial profiling by singling out individuals based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion arises out of a long American history of adversarial relations between law enforcement, communities of color, and other disenfranchised groups. The current popular understanding of the term "racial profiling" developed out of the "profile" of drug couriers created by the Drug Enforcement Agency......
