RACIAL PROFILING BY THE POLICE

Racial profiling is widespread in most societies across the globe and it is no

different within police departments across the United States. The hypothesis
of racial profiling can be divided into two main categories, ethnic and nonethnic by definition and both encompass a wide range of sub-issues. A police
officer may not target an alleged suspect or anyone for that matter based
solely on ethnicity or cultural origins. In many instances the cultural
background of alleged suspects in a crime is used to determine how they are
treated and this unfortunate outcome is against their constitutional rights as
individuals.
Examples of racial profiling by the police
Arresting someone in the vicinity of a crime scene based on ethnicity.
Stereotyping alleged suspects
Using race to automatically determine if they should intervene as a
police officer
Stop a member of the public and question them purely based on
ethnicity
Automatically suspect and arrest someone because of their cultural
background
Automatically assume someone is guilty based on race or color
Assume they should stop and search an individual because of their
cultural background.
Use race as a determining reason to detain an individual
Demographics and cultural background account for many people being
targeted unfairly by police.
Racially profiling an alleged suspect based on their language or dialect
Many Hispanics and Latinos have been unfairly profiled due to the incorrect
perception that they are automatically guilty of drug related crimes due to the
historical prevalence of the international drug trade of their country of origin.
African-American citizens have been racially profiled unfairly too, simply
because they are black they are perceived as suspect and much of this can
be attributed to possible links to apartheid where black people were
automatically guilty because of their color, and the perception has been
proliferated by mouth rather than fact. Many African-American taxi drivers
have been profiled by police in the same manner.
The American Constitution is well known for people citing the 4 th Amendment
when refusing to verbally comply with police, however what many do not know
is that the 14th Amendment allows for all citizens to be treated equally under
American Law and this is certainly not the case when it comes to
discrimination or racial profiling based on cultural background, ethnicity,
language, color or even because of the perception that a person is
automatically suspect because of who and what he is based on the above.
This violates the American Constitution in every respect.