Sunday, February 21, 2010

Racial Profiling Essay

Essay on Racial Profiling

Racial profiling is a method used by local and federal law enforcement agencies to determine whether a person may be suspect of a criminal act. Racial profiling is wrong and is a form of racism, and it also goes against the basic parameters of the Bill of Rights. Racial profiling has been used for decades by law enforcement agencies, dating back to the early sixties during the civil rights movement. One of the most famous accounts of racial profiling was the arrest and incarceration of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who was arrested for murder. The way Rubin Carter was detained by APV that two African American males in a white car were suspects of murder; out of all the African Americans in white cars in the city how could the cops possibly determine which car to pull over, in that caser every white car with two African American males should have been pulled over.

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Many people have been victim of racial profiling or the infamous title “Driving while black”. Though the car may not be stolen an African American driving a Mercades Benz in Beverly Hills dressed in casual clothing, not business attire is suspect of grand theft auto. Since the area is predominantly white being black just looks out of place and you had to have only been there for one reason. How can someone determine just by look if you are guilty of stealing a car, there is no way possible to do this. An African American woman in Chicago was stripped down to her tampon at O’Hare International Airport to prove that she was on her period and not smuggling drugs through states. This does not only occur in ghettos or rich neighborhoods but in every city, on every street, in every state in the United States of America. Even though a percentage of a race may smuggle drugs through airports or across national and international borders does not necessarily mean that every single person does that. The U.S. Customs service is among the worst offenders of racial profiling, a study proved that nine times more black women were x-rayed for drug smuggling that their white counterparts; and the males were not that far off.

A method used by the New York police department to crack down on subway violence was to strongly enforce the minor offenses in the subway, what they found was that the people arrested or detained for the minor offenses were either carrying weapons or had warrants out for their arrest. These same methods were applied to drug trafficking stop vehicles on the highway for minor traffic offenses were often found with drugs or were wanted for other serious violations.

The main reason for this was the assumption that certain races are responsible for certain offenses and crimes. Does this study prove that there is a valid reason for racial profiling, no. No one should be pulled over or stopped for crimes that their race is associated with.

Racial profiling violates our constitutional rights and should be outlawed. There should be legislation against racial profiling and there was some but President Bush vetoed it for reasons unknown. No matter how affective it may be it is a total violation of our human rights.

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