Racial Profiling as a Crime-Fighting Technique

In discussing the merits of racial profiling as a crime-fighting technique we must first examine the concept of race itself. Physical anthropologists have determined that modern homo sapiens evolved from non-human ancestors in Africa some 50,000 years ago, based on DNA studies and the analysis of proteins, and that "racial differences developed as evolutionary adaptations to the different environments into which they moved" (Hocutt 2004:1).

There is no question that there are a great deal of obvious physical differences among human beings. No one denies also that there are groups of people who share common features with others of similar origin and genetic makeup.

The word race has been used in many different and often contradictory ways. We refer to the "human race" when we mean all of humanity. Cultural conventions going back as early as the ancient Egyptians divided people into four races defined by color (Hocutt 2004:1). In the United States governmental demographic statistics ask for information based on racial classifications, such as Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, American Indian, Asian, Eskimo, and Pacific Islander. The Centro de la Raza, a Mexican-American organization, uses the term raza or race as a shorthand for culture, to mean all Mexicans, which includes people of all racial classifications.

In other words race is an imprecise term that means different things to different people. It is also highly controversial, since concepts of race have historical

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p on your phone and monitor email traffic. It also significantly reduced the need for warrants and the oversight of courts when law enforcement decides someone is suspicious and worthy of being monitored. While a master's degree is increasingly required for high officials in law enforcement, such as police chiefs, no one could creditably claim that street cops or even the personnel of the federal security forces are highly educated, especially in the realms of anthropology or sociology that are the disciplines most relevant to understanding the cultures of targeted minority groups. Therefore racial profiling opens up a Pandora's Box of potential abuses based on ignorance, when it is the cop on the beat who makes the decisions as to whom to pick up. Does he or she know the difference between a Muslim and a Sikh, or a Lebanese Christian or Egyptian Copt and a Sufi? I will make one more point before fleshing out these generalities with specific examples of the harmful consequences racial profiling has on the lives of individual people. I fully recognise that from the point of view of law enforcement there is a certain practical logic in being suspicious of groups of people because of their associations with members of their ethnic c

Category: Government - R