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Essay on Racial Profiling
What is racial profiling? The most common example of police racial profiling is "DWB", otherwise known as "driving while black". This refers to the practice of police targeting African Americans for traffic stops because they believe that African Americans are more likely to be engaged in criminal activity. While racial profiling is illegal, a 1996 Supreme Court decision allows police to stop motorists and search their vehicles if they believe trafficking illegal drugs or weapons. More traffic stops leads to more arrests, which further skews the racial profiling statistics against African Americans. Studies have shown that African Americans are far more likely to be stopped and searched. Are African Americans really committing more crimes or are they just caught more often because the police target them? This is a vicious cycle that even the strictest law enforcement advocates would admit is patently unfair.
Racial Profiling is any police or private security practice in which a person is treated as a suspect because of his or her race, ethnicity, nationality or religion. This occurs when police investigate, stop, frisk, search or use force against a person based on such characteristics instead of evidence of a person's criminal behavior. It often involves the stopping and searching of people of color for traffic violations, known as "DWB" or "driving while black or brown." Although normally associated with African Americans and Latinos, racial profiling and "DWB" have also become shorthand phrases for police stops of Asians, Native Americans, and, increasingly after 9/11, Arabs, Muslims and South Asians.
Racial profiling can also involve pedestrian stops, "gang" databases, bicycle stops, use of police attack dogs, suspicion at stores and malls, immigration worksite raids, and in the 2000 presidential election in Florida, harassment on the way to polls, "voting while black or brown". Customs and other airport officials also engage in racial profiling of passengers......
