Essay About Modern Day Police Officers And Racial Profiling

Have you ever been pulled over and really thought that there was no real reason to be
pulled. More than likely it was because of your skin color or by what modern day police officers
call it racial profiling. But the real question is the high number of involvement involving blacks
and Hispanics with minority crime But when it comes to racial profiling there is two types
profiling. The first is what we call “hard’ profiling which uses race as the only factor in making
criminal suspicions. For example an officer sees a black person and, with out more to go on,
pulls him over for a pat down. The officers do this on the chance that he may be carrying drugs or
weapons. ( Mac Donald 22-25)
The next type of racial profiling is called “soft’ racial profiling. This type uses race as
one factor among others in looking for potential criminals. The highway police, for example,
have intelligence that Jamaican drug posses with a likeness for Nissan Pathfinders. They use
these vehicles for transporting marijuana along the northeast section of the United States. The
racial profiling argument doesn’t just stop at highway stops. When police statistics show the high
number of minority traffic stops, police argue in order to look for drugs. (Jackson1-5)
According to a racial profiling crowd, the war on drugs immediately became a war on
minorities, on and off the highways. There evidence for racial profiling comes in two categories.
Which are anecdotal, which is of limited value; and statistical, which on examination proves
entirely worthless(Cooper 78-82) Black drivers today almost routinely claim that the only reason
they are pulled over for highway stops is their race. In a lot of cases once they are pulled over
they say, they are subject to harassment, including unnecessary searches. Some of these
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outrageous stories as unbelievable they may seem there true. But without question there are
obnoxious officers out there, and some even ignore their training and target minorities. But since
the placement of video cameras in patrol cars for the main purpose of racial profiling
controversies(Mac Donald 17-22). Most charges of police racism, testified under oath have been
written off as lies. The allegations that police single out minorities for unjust law enforcement
stands or falls on numbers and statistics. In lawsuits against police departments across the
country, the ACLU and the Justice Department have done studies allegedly demonstrating
selective enforcement. None of this holds up to any public or political scrutiny.(Jackson 23-27)