Tag: racial profiling

Profiling using race or ethnicity as a factor in making investigative decisions is typically viewed in the academic world as biased as it is usually associated with a disproportionate amount of traffic stops, searches, and arrests of minorities. However, what is often not addressed is that if policing activity is increased in disadvantaged minority areas due to community concerns about crime and disorder, then it is likely that the police will have a disproportionate number of minority contacts that does not suggest biased policing.

While the criminal justice field has no shortage of racial profiling articles ranging from experiments and other studies looking for its presence, or its effect on police legitimacy, inquiring why the police are biased, and how to eliminate the practice but there is only a limited amount of literature that focuses on the level of acceptance, practice, and justification by police officers of what is referred to as racial profiling. Some literature has tried to examine the prevalence with Ioimo, Tears, Meadows, Becton, and Charles (2007) finding in their surveys and interviews of Virginia officers that between 14 and 37% believe racial profiling occurs in their department, between 10-33% have witnessed racial profiling, and between 12-53% believe racial profiling is a somewhat serious or serious problem (percentages vary by urban/rural location, officer race, and officer rank). Glover (2007) in her interviews with Texas officers found that they used racial profiling in an out-of-place doctrine, which applies to both Blacks and Whites (as referenced by the radio call out of a “White Boy in a Non-White Boy Place”). An individual in a place not typically associated with their race, for example a White person in a Black neighborhood, or vice versa, cued officers to stop and investigate.

The inclusion of race or ethnicity as a means of narrowing investigative focus will likely only be just a portion of  profile or investigative focus but if that information is available, it likely will be important and should be included and accounted for in law enforcement actions. For example, if the police were dealing with a specific drug problem, and they know that a particular ethnic group typically controls or is involved in that illegal market, it would simply make no sense for officers to ignore that fact for the sake of political correctness or out of fear of bias accusations for focusing on a particular group. As an investigator, not using every bit of viable information available suggests being a substandard investigator. Conversely, race and ethnicity carry no real value if their perceived association with crime is so broad that it provides no differentiating power and become the prime reason for making investigative stops and queries. For example, we know that males exhibit a very large disparity in criminal offending compared to females. It would not be unusual to consider the default gender for crime as male, however, as an investigative tool, gender has a limited predictive power. Stopping every male seen on the street for field questioning on a particular type of crime or specific incident simply because they’re male is also suggestive of poor investigative technique as the net is simply cast too wide to be efficient or effective. However, in any type of criminal profiling, investigators are trying to determine who is the most likely person(s)  as a subject or investigative focus. Information they have, based on past experience and documentation, may suggest a greater likelihood that person or persons have particular characteristics (age, gender, race) that increase the odds they may be the ones being sought or focused on by law enforcement.

While the specific subject of profiling wasn’t part of the interview questions in my dissertation, the subject was referenced by seven percent of the patrol officers interviewed in the discussion of cues, and that portion, and the officers’ responses and rationalizations, are included in the section below:

While only mentioned by four officers, the results of profiling as a cue to problematic or suspicious situations bears some additional explanation. While mentioning it in response to cues that trigger suspicion or activity, the profiling and its results involve to a great degree officers’ beat knowledge and their use of intelligence. Officers did not refer specifically to racial profiling and in my observations, I did not see any officers exhibit any biased speech or actions nor did I observe them make any investigative decisions that appeared to be based on race or ethnicity. Rather, officers referenced profiling in the context of utilizing what is known about a geographical area, including the demographic makeup such as race and ethnicity, age, and SES, and what is known about residents and the most likely offenders that reside in a particular area. This information can serve as a cue that focuses and narrows their investigative efforts. The information officers use comes from both departmental and officer intelligence. The department provides the records and databases that allow officers to reference past similar incidents, and the individuals involved, as well as current criminal trends. Officers also rely on their beat knowledge and their time and experience patrolling, answering calls on the beat, knowing who their “problem people” are, knowing what kind of people on their beat that may be involved in certain crimes, and possessing information from investigating and gathering intelligence from past incidents on the beat. One officer said, “There’s a lot of ethnic people there, new Americans, and to be perfectly frank, there’s some profiling that goes on, it happens, but if we’re not doing that then we’re not doing our job the best we can because it’s no secret in some areas who the problem makers are. And people [in our society] feel differently about that, you can take it for what it’s worth.”

However, the inclusion of race and ethnicity may label such behavior as racial profiling (Ramirez, Farrell, and McDevitt, 2000). In the recent past, racial profiling was defined as using race  “as a key [emphasis added] factor in police decisions to stop and interrogate citizens” (Weitzer and Tuch, 2002, p.1), However, a more current academic viewpoint defines it simply as “the use of race or ethnicity, or proxies thereof, by law enforcement officials as a basis for judgement of criminal suspicion” (Glaser, 2014, p. 3) meaning that if officers consider race or ethnicity as one of the factors in making a decision to investigate, make a traffic stop, or conduct a field contact they have engaged in racial profiling.

Another officer explained,

“I mean there’s definitely profiling. I mean we profile on our job all the time, it’s not just based on race though some of it could be that, if it’s primarily– like this neighborhood here is a primarily white, well to do neighborhood. If I see a group of lower class people, just based on their dress, walking through this area, that to me is a pretty big cue. It’s not a guy in a suit walking a dog, and I should be focusing on them because they don’t really belong in that neighborhood and in this case we’re getting some backlash from the apartments over here, they know that’s where they’re coming from or they’re coming into the area to specifically target the area and so developing that profile, knowing your neighborhood and knowing what doesn’t fit is the biggest part of it.”

In this particular account, while the officer recognized that race may be a factor in developing a profile of what belongs in a neighborhood or area, other factors may come into play like SES in developing an investigative focus. Another officer saw profiling, despite the negative connotations, as the core of law enforcement. Knowing, or trying to determine, who the “problem people” are, or where the problem areas were, or what things did fit into an area, in order to focus your efforts, was effective policing in this officer’s view.

“It kinda gets into profiling, looking for certain kinds of vehicles, certain demographics, I mean I got all these nice neighborhoods I’m never called to and where we were just driving on Beat V, we get a lot of calls there. Profiling has such a negative connotation lately but I mean that’s really the basis of law enforcement is knowing what areas you’re going to be more successful and fruitful in finding crime. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t drive through some of these areas like X and Y [upscale neighborhoods], I will go through those areas but I don’t spend much time there ‘cause we get about one burglary a year or one unauthorized car entry theft a month. I just took a vandalism on [Beat] Z where three vehicles had their windows smashed out with rocks, it’s not uncommon in that area, it would be very uncommon in those upscale areas.”

The negative connotations, referred to by the officer, surrounding profiling suggest that profiling is an example of either overt or implicit bias towards a segment of the population, usually minorities (Tomaskovic-Devey, Mason, and Zingraff, 2004; Banks, Eberhardt, and Ross, 2006). The officers in this study tried to draw a distinction between this negative connotation of profiling and efficient and effective patrol work by indicating that race could be one of a number of factors in developing a profile. This may be more of a practitioners’ viewpoint in that they are trying to engage in what they believe, through experience, is effective and efficient police work. As Barlow and Barlow (2002) contend, “Many police officers view racial profiling as an appropriate form of law enforcement. Although they might not use the term racial profiling to describe what they do, police officers participate in this practice because they believe it is precisely what their supervisors and the majority public want them to do.” (p. 4). While officers in the study tried to downplay race as a factor in forming profiles, the content of some their statements also indicated they were cognizant that race may be a factor in their profiling.

If officers do not believe they are inappropriately focusing on segments of the population, they may perceive there is a lack of bias in their investigative work. For example, Harcourt (2004) stated that using race in policing is legitimate and constitutional if it is a narrowly tailored policing technique that reduces the profiled crime in an efficient use of police resources and does not including a ratcheting effect on the profiled population, that is, when a supervisory effect on the profiled population is disproportionate to the distribution of the offending of the racial group (p.6). If officers in this study were utilizing race or ethnicity, or other characteristics, like SES, age, or gender, in an effort to narrow their investigative focus they may consider it proper when its use constituted efficiency and effectiveness in policing while not disenfranchising the portion of the population that have those characteristics. However, the extent of officer action as it contributes to a perception of disenfranchisement, may be subjective. For example, a large police presence in a neighborhood or area or heavily focused investigative efforts directed toward the group in question may not be perceived as disenfranchisement by law enforcement but as a focused effort to address an incident or problem. However, this may be perceived as disenfranchising by neighborhood residents or the members of the targeted group (Maher and Dixon, 2001).

Despite such behavior being labeled racial profiling in the criminal justice literature, in an effort to engage in efficient and effective policing these officers expressed that they should consider all the characteristics that might be a factor in developing intelligence and narrowing their investigative focus, including race. In these officers’ view, considering race in developing an investigative focus or recognizing it as a factor associated with certain criminal activity doesn’t automatically mean that bias was involved. Rather, officers stated they are trying to utilize the information available to them to address criminal activity. As one officer said, “I think you can profile people and I’m not saying all black people commit crimes, that’s not what I’m talking about. I think that if somebody is doing something and they just happen to be like that [of a particular race or ethnicity] then that might be your problem and issue, but I’m just trying to stop a crime before it happens. I don’t really care what color you are, purple, black, or blue, whatever, you’re here in an area you probably shouldn’t be in and you’re doing something.”

So the questions become, can you conduct a thorough investigation if you ignore a relevant piece of demographic information about potential suspects? Is it possible to consider that profiling information and make use of it without being or exhibiting bias? Should we ignore reality for the sake of political correctness? How can we recognize and separate potentially biased investigative practices from legitimate use of a demographic to focus law enforcement efforts? Tell me your views on profiling use race and ethnicity as a factor; what have you experienced, utilized, or seen? Let’s start a discussion.