Racial Profiling: A Persistent Issue in America

Throughout American history, there has been, without a doubt, an indisputable sense of racial tension among the various ethnic groups of the nation. These issues have been traced back since the establishment of the colonies and are still prevalent today in one form or another. Although the tension is no longer as intense as it was before, it continues to exist today in modern society in the form of racial profiling. Racial profiling can be defined as the use of race or ethnicity as criteria for suspecting someone of having committed an offense. In recent decades, a trend has been observed in which police forces have been distinctively targeting black and Hispanic Americans more often than other ethnic groups. Police departments have argued

that it has been necessary to do so in order to protect the general public, but studies have shown that it has not been beneficial. Not only is racial profiling unjust towards ethnic minorities, it is also ineffective and unnecessary.
The most distinct pattern that has appeared in several studies is that even though blacks and Hispanics are stopped most frequently, they yield the lowest proportion of people who have actually broken any law. A study conducted on the police stops in New York in 2009 has revealed that, “contraband… was found in only 1.6 percent of the stops of black New yorkers, [for] Hispanics, it was just 1.5 percent, [and] for whites, who are stopped far less frequently, contraband was found 2.2 percent of the time” (Herbert). These numbers have revealed an issue in the system as blacks and Hispanics have lower percentages even though they composed, “84 percent of the stops in the first three-quarters of 2009” (Herbert). The disproportion between the amount of searches between whites and minorities is simply appalling. A study conducted by Stanford researchers shows that if the police searched all civilians on the same standard of suspicion as white people, they would have searched 30% fewer black drivers and 50% fewer Hispanic drivers (Andrews). People of black and Hispanic ethnicity have spoken out against this injustice, claiming that they are subjected to harassment whenever they have been stopped by the police simply because of their ethnic background. This has developed into a very concerning issue as some citizens cannot trust those who have sworn to protect them. This sense of distrust has been show in a survey conducted in Los Angeles California where it was, “found that less than half of black residents consider the police honest and trustworthy” (Mather,Chang).
Although this issue has been extremely prevalent in the modern society of the United States, some argue that racial profiling does not exist at all or it actually benefits society. Tension between different ethnicities and races has been deeply integrated in American history. Over time, some people may have grown accustomed to these conditions. As a result, they do not acknowledge it as an issue, but a normal part of daily life. On the other hand, some people perceive racial profiling as a benefit because it prevents crime. This opinion comes as a result of associating an entire minority with the actions of its few. These people believe racial profiling is justified because criminals are commonly seen to be of the same race of those being unjustly targeted.
The existence of racial profiling and its effects are indisputable.

There is an abundance of evidence in support of this as well as the claims of experts and even law enforcement officials. In an article from the LA Times, LAPD watchdog takes a long look into allegations of racial profiling, the police Chief of the LAPD, Charlie Beck, explains how although it is not rampant, he acknowledges the existence of racial profiling (Mather, Chang). Racial profiling has not provided any benefit to society at all, as recent events have proven. In fact, it has created an even more unsettling issue in which a significant fraction of the minority population does not trust the police. A survey conducted in Los Angeles reported that, “less than half of all residents, of 49.7%, agreed that the LAPD officers treated people of all races and ethnicities fairly” (Mather, Chang). This results are critical because the population cannot trust the police with what they had sworn to do.The Police Accountability Task Force in Chicago reported that, in 2016, “black and Hispanic drivers were searched approximately four times as often as white drivers, yet {the department’s} data showed that contraband was found on white drivers twice as often as black and Hispanic drivers” (Makarechi). These unsettling results reveal the ineffectiveness of racial profiling as more minorities were searched but the fraction of them that were arrested was much smaller. Bob Herbert of the LA Times explains it concisely in his article, Jim Crow Policing, that, “the fact that a certain percentage of criminals may be black or hispanic is no reason for the police to harass individuals from those groups when there is no indication whatsoever that they have done anything wrong”

(Herbert).
Overall, recent events and statistics have shown that the police have been blatantly discriminating against ethnic minorities such as black and Hispanic Americans. The statistics revealed that blacks and Hispanics have been stopped much more often than other ethnic groups due to racial profiling. In addition, of those high proportions, the percent of those stopped that had actually committed a crime among blacks and Hispanics was lower than the rates among whites.