Eliminate Race as the Only Reason for Police-Citizen Encounters* (original) (raw)
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Philosophy <html_ent glyph="@amp;" ascii="&"/> Public Affairs, 2004
On the Use of Racial Profiling as a Law Enforcement Tool
2005
The "End Racial Profiling Act of 2001" (ERPA) states that "no law enforcement agent or law enforcement agency shall engage in racial profiling" and mandates states to "collect detailed data on stops, searches, seizures, and arrests." We develop a stylized dynamic model of highway policing to study the long-run consequences of ERPA. In the model, color-neutral police officers receive incentives to arrest criminals, but face a per stop cost which increases when the racial mix of the interdicted differs from the racial composition of the population. Incarceration rates are defined to be racially "fair" if the racial composition of the prison and criminal population is identical. The model predicts that the long-term racial composition of the prison population may not be fair and that ERPA may increase fairness. Ceteris paribus, however, ERPA may lower efficiency (the number of criminals in jail). Finally, we characterize and compare the incentive schemes for crime fighting that a government would optimally set with and without ERPA.
Oxford Anthology on the Philosophy of Race ed. N. Zack
Philosophical reflection on racial profiling tends to take one of two forms. The first sees it as an example of ‘statistical discrimination,’ (SD), or when, if ever, probabilistic generalisations about group behaviour or characteristics can be used to judge particular individuals.(Applbaum 2014; Harcourt 2004; Hellman, 2014; Risse and Zeckhauser 2004; Risse 2007; Lippert-Rasmussen 2006; Lippert-Rasmussen 2007; Lippert-Rasmussen 2014) . This approach treats racial profiling as one example amongst many others of a general problem in egalitarian political philosophy, occasioned by the fact that treating people as equals does not always require, or permit, us to treat them the same. The second form is concerned with how racial profiling illuminates the nature, justification, and reproduction of hierarchies of power and privilege based on skin colour and morphology. This form of reflection on racial profiling is therefore less about the justification for judging people based on the characteristics of the group to which they (appear to) belong, and more concerned with the specific ways in which the association of racialised minorities – and, in particular, black people – with crime, contributes to, and reflects, racial inequality, unfreedom, and oppression.(Kennedy 1998; Zack, 2015; Lever, 2005; Lever 2007). Both approaches to profiling have much to recommend them and, taken together, they form an essential component of the political philosophy of race. The statistical approach has the merits of linking racial profiling, as practice, to a body of other practices that generate and justify inequalities based on factors other than race, but it typically offers little by way of insight into the role of racial profiling itself in sustaining racial inequality and injustice. The racial construction approach, for obvious reasons, is rather better at the latter task, but its insights tend to come at the price of a broader understanding of the ways in which inequality is reproduced and justified, or of the ethical dilemmas raised by our competing claims to security. As we will see, insights from both approaches can be synthesized to clarify what, if anything, is wrong with racial profiling and what broader conclusions for equality and security follow from the study of profiling.
Why Racial Profiling is Hard to Justify: A Response to Risse and Zeckhauser
Philosophy and Public Affairs 33.1. (2005) 94-110
According to Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser, racial profiling can be justified in a society, such as the contemporary United States, where the legacy of slavery and segregation is found in lesser but, nonetheless, troubling forms of racial inequality.1 Racial profiling, Risse and Zeckhauser recognize, is often marked by police abuse and the harassment of racial minorities and by the disproportionate use of race in profiling. These, on their view, are unjustified. But, they contend, this does not mean that all forms of racial profiling are unjustified; nor, they claim, need one be indifferent to the harms of racism in order to justify racial profiling. In fact, one of the aims of their paper is to show that racial profiling, suitably understood, “is consistent with support for far-reaching measures to decrease racial inequities and inequality.”2 Hence, one of their most striking claims, in an original and provocative paper, is that one can endorse racial profiling without being in any way indifferent to the disadvantaged status of racial minorities. I I n an initial response to these claims, I argued that Risse and Zeckhauser tend to underestimate the harms of racial profiling.3 I suggested two main reasons why they did so. The first is that they tend to identify the more serious harms associated with profiling with background racism, and therefore to believe that these are not properly attributable to profiling itself. The second reason is that they ignore the ways in which background racism makes even relatively minor harms harder to bear and to justify than would otherwise be the case. Hence, I concluded, racial profiling cannot be a normal part of police practice in a society still struggling with racism, although under very special conditions and with special regulation and compensation in place, it might be justified as an extraordinary police measure. I I want to stand by those claims. However, Risse’s response to my arguments persuades me that I misinterpreted his earlier position in one significant respect.4 So I will start by explaining what interpretive mistake I believe that I made. I will then argue that despite Risse’s patient and careful response to my arguments, my initial concerns with his justification of profiling remain valid.
Ethno-Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement: Concepts and Recommendations
2009
The question of ethnic and racial discrimination has became an extremely important point in legal discussions relating to the proliferation of new law enforcement authorizations employed in the “war against terrorism”. The old desire within law enforcement to minimize human decision-making and to deploy automated investigating or screening processes brought a revitalization of formerly discredited measures such as profiling. Also, the fast development of informational technology enables the interconnection of various commercial and law enforcement databases, and also the melding of formerly independent immigration, criminal etc. data-sources. The IT sector in the security business brings lucrative opportunities, thus the private sector is no longer only an innocent victim of excessive government legislation, on, for example, reporting requirements, but also a keen partner. In connection with these developments, we can witness a renewed debate over preventive measures based on ethno-racial profiling. Some commentators emphasize that ethnic profiling is in principle unacceptable. The result, according to these critics, is the harassment of the innocent minority middle class, which is subjected to a kind of “racial tax” that affects all aspects of people’s lives. A further unwanted result is the strengthening of racial/ethnic essentialism, reductionism to black and white/Muslim and non-Muslim/Roma and non-Roma/immigrant and non-immigrant, etc.). Another, straightforwardly pragmatic criticism has been calling attention to the practical ineffectiveness of racial profiling: inherent in the prima facie plausible reasoning based on statistics there is a profound (and provable) error, since racial profiles are, both over-inclusive and under-inclusive – over-inclusive in the sense that many, indeed most, of the people who fit into the category are entirely innocent, and under-inclusive in the sense that many other types of criminals or terrorists who do not fit the profile will thereby escape police attention. The essay's scope is limited to clarifying some of the crucial concepts and definitions and enumerating some possible legislative remedies to its problems.
The Art of the Unseen: Three challenges for Racial Profiling
The Journal of Ethics, 2011
This article analyses the moral status of racial profiling from a consequentialist perspective and argues that, contrary to what proponents of racial profiling might assume, there is a prima facie case against racial profiling on consequentialist grounds. To do so it establishes general definitions of police practices and profiling, sketches out the costs and benefits involved in racial profiling in
Racial Profiling and a Reasonable Sense of Inferior Political Status
This paper presents a novel framework for evaluating racial profiling, including 'rational profiling' that does in fact decrease crime rates. It argues that while profiling some groups, such as African Americans and Muslims, is impermissible, profiling others, such as white men, may be permissible. The historical and sociological context matters significantly. Along the way, the paper develops a new theory of what expressive harms are, why they matter, and when it is the responsibility of the state to correct them.
Racial Profiling: A Persistent Civil Rights Challenge Even in the Twenty-First Century
Case Western Reserve law review, 2016
is an urban sociologist that teaches classes in Public Safety & Justice Management , Contemporary Urban Issues, and African-American Images in Film, and a research associate in the Criminology Research Center at Cleveland State. His research interests include issues affecting minorities and the urban poor, with a specific focus on race, crime, and the criminal justice system. His particular area of expertise is racial profiling, as reflected in his 2011 book, Racial Profiling: Causes and Consequences (Kendall-Hunt Publishing Co.). This research led to the use of traffic cameras in the city of Cleveland, which was intended as a means to reduce the racial bias in traffic enforcement. His recommendation to then-State Senator and current Board Commissioner Nina Turner, calling for a statewide commission on policing, led to Governor Kasich's establishment of The Statewide Taskforce on Police-Community Relations, to which both Dr. Dunn and Commissioner Turner were appointed. He also p...