Monday, July 13, 2020

RACIAL PROFILING Example

RACIAL PROFILING Example RACIAL PROFILING â€" Assignment Example > What Is Racial Profiling? The term ‘racial profiling’ was not in use until the 1990’s. Before its emergence, the police and state troopers had a routine way of checking cars and this routine turned out to be more focused on the minority (especially the blacks and the Hispanics) than the whites (Kops, 2006). From this, the action of federal police was termed as racial profiling. From a lot of stories, the federal police’s actions can be termed racial profiling. Racial profiling is defined as “the practice of targeting individuals for police or security interdiction, detention or other desperate treatment based primarily on their race or ethnicity in the belief that certain minority groups are more likely to engage in unlawful behavior” (Muffler, 2006, p. 2). Indeed there is racial profiling and some consider it as a necessary evil while others consider it an unnecessary evil. Those who consider it a necessary evil argue that some ethnic groups or races are associated wi th certain crimes for example, blacks and Hispanics are associated with drug dealing and drug transportation and so would often be stopped to be questioned about drugs and their cars inspected (Orr, 2009). Blacks are also associated with theft so that if one is spotted with an expensive car, chances are that the car is a stolen one and so would often be stopped (Callahan Anderson, 2001). Muslims or Asians from countries associated with terrorism are also associated with terrorism and would undergo ‘unnecessary’ searches in the name of fighting terrorism. Since these groups are associated with such illegal activities, their races are profiled for those crimes. Those who believe racial profiling is an unnecessary evil argue that it even creates more mistrust and so less information given to the authorities to help cub terrorism, drug trafficking of other crimes that those stereotyped based on ethnicity are purported to commit (Orr, 2009). Why Is Racial Profiling an Ethical Issu e? Ethics is a branch of philosophy with right or wrong as the basic concepts and deals with how man is supposed to live with the idea of good. In life when making decisions about situations, on what actions to take, the most important thing to determine is what is right (Pojman Fieser, 2011). Ethics deals with a proper course of action (Landauer Rowlands, 2001). So why is racial profiling an ethical issue? There is still no agreement on racial profiling as a right action or a wrong action. It is considered wrong by those who believe it violates the rights of the innocent, and considered right by those who believe it is just a way of effectively dealing with crime. Additionally, considering the definition of racial profiling without involving the police actions, racial profiling is just “categorizing individuals according to their characteristics” (EUAFR, 2010, p. 8. So just categorizing someone is not wrong, but thinking of one as a criminal because of the race is wrong. Is Racial Profiling Lawful or Unlawful? Racial profiling as described above, is just categorizing individuals based on their characteristics (which is the race). There are so many reasons why profiling is done especially in fighting crime. It is viewed as common sense in trying to find out offenders. With the right profile, that is, a list of characteristics specific to suspects of a crime, the offenders can be easily apprehended. EUAFR indicates that a more specific profile that does not rely on broad categorizations such as religion, race or ethnicity; has low probability of being discriminatory (2010).

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