Racial profiling is the discriminating behavior of law enforcement officers by targeting persons for criminal allegation based on their race, ethnicity, religious belief, or nationality. These are some of the factors that are often used by security agents in imposing abnormal police stops, searches, and even eventual arrests. Due to this, for many years, blacks, Hispanics, Arabs, and Muslims have been given unfair treatment only because of their race. When it comes to these minorities, some phrases, such as driving while black and flying while Arab, are used to segregate them from equal access to services. To some extreme extent, this racial profiling has the possibility of leading to police brutality (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). In racial profiling the police or any law enforcement agents uses more force, this sometimes becomes inhuman when dealing with suspects from the minority group. This paper will look deep into the effects of racial profiling, policies put in place and their effectiveness to curb this social issue.
For those who have never had an experience of racial profiling or have not associated with anyone who has experienced it, it may seem to be an everyday issue or a mere inconvenience. However, this issue is more profound than an annoyance and it has a direct consequence on the victims (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). Those who have faced profiling have been affected emotionally, physically, and mentally even in extreme cases some have been affected financially and physically (Harris, 2020). The effects include post-traumatic stress disorder and other forms of stress. This leads to the creation of perceptions in the victims, so they avoid using the available community resources (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). Further, it was found that the disorder affects not only the direct victims but also others beyond the direct experience. Racial profiling has significant indirect effect on families, friends, and relatives. This has shown why profiling is so harmful, and it, therefore, needs measures to combat it.
The target population of racial profiling has raised some concerns on their access to the services and even the quality of services they receive. According to Kovera (2019), many participants noted that the psychological impacts of racial profiling had made their children develop anti-social behaviors even at a young age. One will find that most of the time, white people associate black people with criminality without even realizing they also do it. Another study showed that when resumes are in the application for jobs, it was found that, stereotypically, those with white names received more call back. This is more than fifty percent, compared to those with black names (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). This is even after they all have similar qualifications. Even some blacks and Asians raised an issue that they were paying more car loan interest than the white despite having the same creditworthiness.
Some policies have been put in place to address the issue of racial profiling. There is an attempt to reduce homelessness and housing inability. This is because racism and the policies that support it use people of color to charge high rental costs, evicting and even make them overcrowded (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). Therefore, these policies will curb the issues where households with low incomes pay almost half of their rent earnings, increasing their risk of homelessness (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). Also, this is an attempt to improve access to preschool and childcare. This will help in reducing the inequalities that exist in the opportunities of children from the racialized groups, it will also help the parents from high childcare costs.
Some policies have been put in place, which has detrimental effects on the target group. Primarily through racial targeting, the police will search blacks more often than whites. Evidence has shown that it would be better for them to focus more on the right people who are minorities. Through this, it shows that racial targeting did not even improve the accuracy of the police: it did not even result in the balance between how white was treated compared to blacks (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). It made even the police accuracy worse than before, this hit rate occurs across different departments and places.
Racial profiling is wrong and not productive. It affects the power and the crucial role of law enforcement authorities in keeping the public safe. It originates from stereotypes, negative attitudes, and prejudice against racialized groups, and they are often linked with criminality. Racial profiling is different from legal criminal profiling, which uses fair suspect descriptions. Profiling may make the trust of public institutions to be undermined (Harris, 2020). This is because there is a relationship between public confidence and law enforcement, which leads to public safety. Through this, people will not be willing to cooperate and even give evidence in court if they have been fed a negative perception about how the law is enforcement (Lang & Kahn-Lang, 2020). It should also be noted that profiling could happen at any decision-making stage. It can lead to implicit biasness on conscious and unconscious personal prejudice toward racialized people.
References
Harris, D. A. (2020). Racial profiling: Past, present, and future? Criminal Justice, 34, 10. Web.
Kovera, M. B. (2019). Racial disparities in the criminal justice system: Prevalence, causes, and a search for solutions. Journal of Social Issues, 75(4), 1139-1164. Web.
Lang, K., & Kahn-Lang Spitzer, A. (2020). Race discrimination: An economic perspective. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 34(2), 68-89. Web.