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Racial Profiling

In 1999 racial profiling became a national concern. Racial profiling is a practice of using race as the primary indicator of criminal behavior to stop or arrest individuals from minority groups (Barovick; Getlin). According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), African-Americans and other minority groups have been unfairly targeted by law enforcement officials. For example, in a Maryland case filed against the state troopers, plaintiffs claimed that even though African-Americans constituted only 17 percent of the drivers driving on I-95, 70 percent of the drivers pulled over were African-American. On the other hand, state troopers only pulled over 23 percent of the white drivers who made up 75 percent of the drivers (Barovick). Even though law enforcement denies the existence of racial profiling, it originates from the government's "war on drugs." One of the products of this war is the racist profile of drug couriers -ù people of color. Therefore, police have been able to use the pretext of looking for drug criminals to stop drivers that fit the stereotype (Harris).

Essentially, racial profiling taps into one of the irreconcilable conflicts of American society -ù liberty versus security. Although focusing on racial groups can result in the violation of individual liberties, police have also made headway in reducing crime by targeting high-crime minority neighborhoods (Getlin). However, the costs of increasing safety may come at a high price to many people of color who live in the very communities that are most in need of police protection.

With racial profiling, crime has been significantly reduced in major cities, such as New York City. Since the implementation of an aggressive strategy against "quality-of-life" offenses that has revealed the presence of criminals with a vast quantity of concealed and illegal weapons, the quality of life of New Yorkers has improved (Puddington 3). Many crime-ridden neighborhoods hav...

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Racial Profiling. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:59, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1687787.html