The Causes and Consequences Of Racial Profiling
August 10, 2004
Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. - Demosthenes
Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
Simply because the rooster crows each morning and then the sun rises we should not believe that there is a causal correlation between the rooster crow and the sun rise. One action that is necessarily followed by another action is a factual observation; however, it is also a fact that one action does not inevitably cause the other.
Inductive reason is when we move from the specific to the general. Hence some people believe that the disparity in the numbers of minority and white motorists who are stopped and ticketed by law enforcement is caused by individual officer bias or institutional racism.
Deductive reasoning is when we begin with the general and move towards the specific. There is a disparity between blacks and whites who are stopped and ticketed by law enforcement. However, when more than raw data is examined it becomes obvious that there are a number of legitimate reasons for many of the disparities.
Biased Decision Making
Many African Americans, some criminologists and some newspaper editorialists believe that racial profiling is caused by the bias, prejudice, and the institutional racism of law enforcement. Many African American motorists believe the only reason they are stopped is because of their race.
Liberals have been crying “racial profiling” for many years while conservatives dismiss racial profiling as exaggerations and the hypersensitivity of minorities. Both sides seem to depend on the raw data provide by law enforcement traffic stops that document the disparity between minorities and whites.
In fact two recent Massachusetts “racial profiling” studies caused the Boston Globe to claim in news articles and editorials that racial profiling by law enforcement is a fact. A Globe editorial titled “ Profiles in Prejudice” concludes, although warned by the authors of the Northeastern University study that the disparities do not necessarily document racial profiling, that racial profiling is caused by the biased decision making of individual officers and/or the institutional racism of law enforcement itself.
The editorial also acknowledges that the studies document the disparities are both by race and gender. The editors, displaying a bias of their own, note that law enforcement owes an explanation to minorities while ignoring the fact that law enforcement should also owe an explanation to males. The studies document that the highest disparity is between men and women. Is it the belief of the editors that minorities are important and males irrelevant?
Context of Motor Vehicle Stops Ignored
One of the two studies is an extensive three part series by the Boston Globehttp://www.boston.com/globe/metro/packages/tickets/072003.shtml and the other by Northeastern University http://www.racialprofilinganalysis.neu.edu/. Law enforcement administrators must confront the fact that these studies and many similar studies document significant disparities in traffic enforcement that appear to be based exclusively on race.
Law enforcement and researchers need to examine all the facts concerning traffic stops and ticketing by law enforcement. It is universally accepted by criminologists that traffic enforcement on city streets is often done in a different “law enforcement context” than the troopers on highways. Drive by shootings, motor vehicle theft, and the transportation of drugs in motor vehicles are just three of many issues that are more important to the local police than the state police.
Importance of Perceptions
In Milton, Massachusetts officers were informed that a tall, thin black male wearing a jacket and tan hat was breaking into a car. One of the officers’s noticed a tall, thin black male, in a jogging outfit and carrying wooden stick. Knowing that hat and jacket could easily be discarded and that the stick could have been used in breaking the glass of the car, should the officer stop and detain this man?
The innocent black male who was stopped and detained is a rector in a local Episcopal church. He said that he is still shaken by the event. He claims that his treatment has to do with the way people perceive black people and black men. This incident might be comparable to “driving while black” complaints.
This incident represents just one of many anecdotal stories from the black community concerning racial profiling. Most African Americans and some researchers might think "There go the cops again with their racial profiling." And law enforcement officers will say, just what is it the community expects from us? Do they think we should drive by when this happens?
Causes and Consequences
What we think we see is not always what we get. Perhaps it is time researchers begin looking away from law enforcement as the cause of racial profiling and towards:
(A) the President of the United States,
(B) the Department of Justice (DOJ),
(C) the United States Congress, or
(D) the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) as the reason research documents more minorities
are stopped than whites.
Just, cursory research documents that the practice of racial profiling has deep roots in the annual federally sponsored $37 billion “War on Drugs.” Racial profiling also has roots in just who law enforcement interacts with the most and the reasons for that interaction.
(a) In February of 2004 President George W. Bush declared that racial profiling is wrong and it must end. The President makes his law enforcement racial profiling claim while there can be little to no argument that his administration and the Patriot Act, has lead the fight to water down civil and constitutional rights more than any administration since John Adams.
(b) The U.S. Attorney General, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency or the Secret Service should concentrate their terrorism intervention efforts towards people of Middle Eastern ethnicity.
( c ) The federal Comprehensive Crime Act of 1984 not only allows law enforcement agencies to keep the vast majority of assets they seized from drug dealers, the Department of Justice has a policy in place that allows law enforcement, in states that did not allow their agencies to keep the asset forfeiture, to “adopt” their seizures.
(d) The DEA from the early 1990s began reporting that, “large-scale interstate trafficking networks are controlled by Jamaicans, Haitians, and that black street gangs dominate the manufacture and distribution of crack.” Internet search engines concerning the “War on Drugs” reveal government sponsored reports that document the predominant wholesale traffickers are Colombian, Dominicans, Chinese, West African/Nigerian, Pakistani, Hispanic and Indian.
Dispite the hue and cry concerning racial profiling there is nothing illogical or illegal in using race and/or socioeconomic educational factors concerning criminal justice intervention. The Bureau of Justice Statistics data reveal that in Arlington, Virginia minorities make up only 10 percent of the population yet they account for 70 percent of the reported robberies. In New York City minorities are 13 times more likely than whites to commit a violent assault. Nationwide blacks are 6 times more likely than whites to be murdered and 7 times more likely than whites to be the murderer.
There is cause for concern that must be addressed by law enforcement, researchers, and newspaper editorialists. When using raw data only, it appears that race and ethnicity is both the cause and consequence of this violence. When using only the raw research data from traffic stops it appears that the race and ethnicity of the drivers is what causes law enforcement officers to stop and ticket them.
Regardless of what the Boston Globe claims the two recent studies document that is not true. Also, data documents that when socioeconomic and educational demographics are factored in, the race and ethnicity of victims and the perpetrators of violence are a roughly the same.
People who live in communities that have the most crime need law enforcement the most and often they demand more not less intervention. Raw research data will reveal the disparities between law enforcement intervention in minority and white communities.
Bias Free Law Enforcement Intervention
The front page of the August 7, 2004 Boston Globe headlined, “Law enforcement agencies vow, ‘We’ve had enough. Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O’Toole announced plans to launch Operation Neighborhood Shield in Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan and the South End. There is no question that these are minority communities and law enforcement will interact with minorities far more than whites. Researchers and Globe did not accuse O’Toole of racial profiling. To deny that race plays a factor in their intervention efforts they must deny reality.
The use of inductive reasoning allowed the Globe to confirm what they already believed was the truth. The editors believe that the disparity in the numbers of minority and white motorists who are stopped and ticketed by law enforcement is caused by individual officer bias or institutional racism.
Included in Operation Neighborhood Shield is road traffic enforcement. Raw research data on traffic stops alone can not and will not reveal why minorities and males are stopped more than whites and females. Too find the cause of the disproportion number of motor vehicle stops for minorities all law enforcement data needs to be explored, with an open mind, in an unbiased manner and using all the facts.
Conclusion
The prime directive of all investigations, studies, and research should be that they are moral, ethical, technically competent and unbiased. All of the information must be revealed and no significant data should be omitted or minimized. Investigations, studies and research can prove to be harmful as well as helpful to individuals, organizations, and communities.
The researchers in both of these studies have met all the above criteria. The Boston Globe has not. Given the editorials and articles it is obvious that the Globe is more concerned with getting the general public to believe their goal is getting at the truth about law enforcement and racial profiling. However, someone at the Globe made the decision to pick and choose “scientific facts,” “official figures,” and “statistical evidence” so that the general public will think the “truth” is what the Globe believed was the truth before either of the studies took place.
The racial profiling information the Globe presents in a series of articles is not necessarily wrong, however, it is packaged to present their ideological held beliefs to be the truth. The Globe did not analyze the data in an open and honest fashion. The raw research data can be used to attack or defend law enforcement. There is little to no question that the Globe chose the former rather than the latter.
Eileen McNamara, a Globe columnist, recently noted that pitting one group against another in order to claim the moral high ground is as old and as odious as injustice itself. That is precisely what the Boston Globe does with domestic violence data (females v. males) and now they repeat their divisive journalistic behavior (blacks v. whites) with racial profiling.
