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Talk:Racial profiling controversy (view source)
Revision as of 18:31, July 19, 2010
, 18:31, July 19, 2010A number of questions which the article hasn't addressed yet
*However much the racial profilers try to divert attention away from the facts of crime, those facts remain obdurate. Arlington has a 10 percent black population, but robbery victims identify nearly 70 percent of their assailants as black. In 1998, blacks in New York City were 13 times more likely than whites to commit a violent assault, according to victim reports. As long as those numbers remain unchanged, police statistics will also look disproportionate. This is the crime problem that black leaders should be shouting about.
*However much the racial profilers try to divert attention away from the facts of crime, those facts remain obdurate. Arlington has a 10 percent black population, but robbery victims identify nearly 70 percent of their assailants as black. In 1998, blacks in New York City were 13 times more likely than whites to commit a violent assault, according to victim reports. As long as those numbers remain unchanged, police statistics will also look disproportionate. This is the crime problem that black leaders should be shouting about.
==Expansion==
We need to expand this article, because there are two or three meanings of "racial profiling".
#Incorporating race in a [[profile]] of characteristics for a particular suspect or a group of criminals
#The misuse of race, particularly in such a profile, to discriminate against members of a race; i.e., to target innocent members of a race for harassment
There is also a movement asserting that any use of race in a profile will necessarily be misused.
I recall as early as 1982, activists complaining that police misused race in profiles of vagrants in Manhattan, specifically at the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street. The claim was that blacks were being stopped and questioned in disproportionate numbers.
It all hinges on what the proper proportions might be. Should police stop (and question or search) people in proportion to the likelihood that they may be doing something wrong?
If a caller says a Caucasian women in her 20s stole something from a store counter, should the police question Caucasian women in their 20s, or should they stop black and Hispanic women too? How about old white and Asian men?
If most crime in a neighborhood is committed by people of a certain sex or age or skin color, or wearing a certain style of clothing, or speaking a certain language, should police contact focus on those people?
How much of the complaints of "driving while black" come from innocent people, versus complaints from guilty people (or their sympathizers)? How would we measure that?
Or how much of this is a present reaction to the blatant racism of the past? --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 14:31, 19 July 2010 (EDT)