Abstract
The horrific September 11th 2001 attacks by the terrorist in the US has seen thousands of Muslims subjected to screening of their personal data and transactions, searches, arrests solely simply because their profiles have matched certain base criteria that is being used to track terrorists and in addition is an affiliation with Islam religion and not a terrorist. This has resulted to some public objection from human right watch as in the year 2005 the Open Society Justice Initiative which works around the globe advocating for Rights based law reform, launched an effort to address ethnic profiling by police in Europe in the fight against terrorism. Therefore, this paper will look at the long term outstanding sensitive issue in security matters, of racial or religion or ethnic profiling in law enforcement and its pros and cons at the same time giving suggestion on the terror war focus.
Introduction
The concept of community policing referrers to the act of collaboration between the police and community which invokes identifying and solving community problems related to law enforcement. This deviates from the historical ideology that police are sole guardians of law and order but rather community become active allies in the effort to enhance law enforcement (vijay, 2007, p. 67) to realize a safe and quality existing neighborhoods within the locality. Therefore Community policing in this sense has an expanded outlook on crime control and prevention as opposed to the historical view of crime control. In addition the community policing is structured on the basis of the theory that law is centered on the basis that law is society, and hence to manage the community (Barker, Mayhall, 2007, p. 240) the society should be active participants in the structuring and ownership of the law that affects their community that enhances better life.
Main body
The entire undertaking involves the members of the community voicing their concerns, contribute advice, and take action to address these concerns trough a constructive partnership with the police force. Through community insolvent in law enforcement is essential to deter crime and create more vital neighborhoods since it is logical that people criminal are within community. But the key issue is the constructive trust between police and citizens. In this regard racial or ethnic profiling mean the use of religious or ethnic or racial stereotypes in making law enforcement procedures; decisions in arresting , stopping and searching for the criminals. In a more broad perspective profiles are compilations of identifiable characteristics (Richard, 2007, p. 123) believed to correlate statistically with certain conducts. On the current unfolding in the crime environment is the most security threat: terrorism. Which is believe to bring the new a wakening in the security scenes.
The US currently is stepping up war on terror aided by it’s allies as French, Germany, Britain therefore the concern is whether to use the community policing in fighting terrorists precisely with Muslim community and the US law enforcement agents with quite little history of Muslim community police cooperation with European countries. Pros attributed to use of racial or ethnic profiling in law enforcement anti-terrorism activities is the fact that it shall help direct scarce law enforcement resources toward those individuals considered more likely to engage in terrorism (Richard, 2007, p. 123) and secondly profiles reduce the number of persons subjected to the inconveniences and interferences which are involved in the counter terrorism without specifications of the activities. In addition through employing the right and appropriate criteria profiles prevent occurrence discrimination, by avoiding discretion and reducing the potential negative effect of individual prejudice that may result from law enforcement agency operations (Richard, 2007, p. 189).
Therefore in order to fight terror through profiles without causing conflict of interest examination of past terrorist attack, operation mode during composition of known terrorist organizations within the community that is suspected to hold in its geopolitical region the terrorists. The concept being to identify patterns among (vijay, 2007, p. 89) the individuals that have been involved in terrorist activities and develop profiles on the basis of common characteristic that should help during operations to sample out the likely individuals and hence avoidance of involving non partisans.
There are cons expressed are that consistent patterns that could provide the basis for a precise profile, prove elusive in the most historical undertakings in the criminal cases. Secondly in an attempt to look to factors which have deep roots in public opinion, such as race,religion, nationality and origin it may result into discrimination of a give race or religion or ethnicity in addition racial or ethnic profiling brands an entire community(s) (Richard, 2007, p. 216) as targeted suspect which in return deviate from professional (Barker, Mayhall, 2007, p. 31) law enforcement to reliance persons behavior. For instance the current war on terror, the European countries have been focusing Muslim communities as objects of special attention in the fight against terror and terrorism. Similarly profiling misdirects law enforcement resources and alienates some of the very persons whose cooperation is necessary for effective crime detection and terrorism prevention in the entire dealing with the terrorism (Barker, Mayhall, 2007, p. 231). Therefore successful operation would require tolerance, creativity, understanding and, patience of all stakeholders involved in the profiling.
Conclusion
However to Sum up the discussion a bout the use of religious or racial or ethnic profiling in law enforcement in regard to anti-terrorism activities it is evident that the current fight is the a attack on the individuals especial the Muslim community since most of the counter terrorism mechanisms and powers are disproportionately experienced by the Muslims and the entire community. Such actions included the irregular stopping’s of the individuals , abrupt searches that are conducted hence indicating the focus of the fight is based to individuals as brand of terrorists yet there are specific individuals who execute terror acts. Therefore in order to win the war on terror the focus should be diverted to the act of terror not the community that are holding the suspected terrorist as Muslims. This will facilitate the clear understanding of the terrorist and terrorism through the use of intelligence systems with the aid of radicalization and data trawling as tools to engage the communities to Build a fairer criminal justice System the society today.
Reference
Barker R T, & Mayhall P, (2007), Police-Community Relations; Upper saddle river: Prentice Hall.
vijay Agnwey, (2007), Interrogating Race and Racism; Toronto: University of Toronto.
Richard N Kocsis, (2007), Criminal Profiling; New York: Humana press.