Racial Profiling
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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 w
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ural result of this reality for police. Therefore, in order to protect minority neighborhoods, there has to be a strong and assertive police presence and activity in these neighborhoods (Puddington 5). Racial profiling does not stem from racism or prejudice against particular racial groups, but a logical extension of an unfortunate reality (Puddington 6).
However, racial profiling violates the basic civil liberties of people from minority groups. Fundamentally, it contributes to the social injustice perpetrated against African-Americans and other minority groups ("ACLU-TN"). This practice of racial profiling contradicts one of the main principles of the Fourth Amendment stating that police cannot stop and arrest an individual who is not a criminal suspect. However, with the passage of recent Supreme Court decisions that permitted the right of the police to stop drivers to search for evidence, the fundamental rights of people from minority groups are threatened (Harris). In New York City in 1997 and 1998, the street-crime unit targeted minority neighborhoods in making their arrests. Although they searched approximately 45,000 people, they only arrested about 9,500 people. Therefore, many innocent people were subjected to arbitrar
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1453
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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