. . . . . . . . . . . 73
3. Wen Ho Lee case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4. Racial profiling in national security issues as a
public policy issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
____D. International Ramifications . . . . . . . . . . . 86
____E. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .87
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
This research paper discusses and analyzes racial profiling as a public policy and legal issue. The main focus of the paper is on the use by law enforcement authorities of indicia of race (such as skin color) or of ethnicity (such as religion, national origin, etc.) as the or as a basis for criminal investigative and related activities.
The thesis of the paper is that racial profiling in the United States originated with deeply ingrained racial prejudice on the part of the white majority; but its incidence has closely tracked public perceptions of the threat posed to that majority by various minority groups in times of national stress and danger.
White prejudice against African-Americans and the institution of chattel slavery were inseparable. The Civil War and Reconstruction in the South, times of great upheaval, led to the first major legitimization of racial profiling, namely, the Black Codes and their successors, Jim Crow laws. Racial profiling was used for many decades against Asian Americans, culminating in the forced incarceration in internment camps of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II.
In the 1980s police in many jurisdictions used racial profiling as a means of identifying persons who were driving on the nation's highways and who were stopped, searched and/or arrested. Racial profiling on the nation's highways developed out of the federal government's War on Drugs and associated public fears that African-Americans were largely responsible for rising crime rates and, especially trafficking in illegal dru...