Racial Profiling: Useful or Harmful? When enforcers of the law go about their jobs they use many techniques to decrease their suspect pools, one of the most controversial techniques officers use is racial profiling. People believe racial profiling causes police distrust and at the same time encourages “fishing expeditions”. When should officers be allowed to use racial profiling, and when shouldn’t they?
The most common use of racial profiling is in traffic stops, but this is one area racial profiling should not be practices by enforcers of the law. Most of the data collected for purposes of racial profiling reporting is based on traffic stops (Del Carmen 41). A downside to racial profiling is that it discourages African Americans from …show more content…

In fact nobody can point to a case in which racial profiling successfully worked to stop a terrorist from boarding a plane. What works is good intelligence and screening for truly suspicious behavior (Tanovich 1). Del Carmen says, “It is not logical to experience racial fear due to this: only nineteen men committed terrorism, while approximately three million Arab Americans live in the U.S. most of whom will never be involved in a terrorist act.”(50). When military and government groups depend on racial profiling to stop terrorism, they decrease their chances of finding who is actually guilty. Therefore racial profiling should not be used to track terrorists. When people criticize the police officers using racial profiling, they don’t consider the police forces opinion of racial profiling, because if they did, they would realize most officers feel the same way the citizens do. Countless hours will be wasted targeting individuals simply on the basis of religion, skin color, citizenship, or race (Tanovich 2). Judge Timothy K. Lewis says, “Focusing on race in deciding who to investigate, arrest, or prosecute diverts attention from actual criminal behavior and from the actual perpetrator of a crime.” (2). An increase of racial profiling may lead to an increase of police distrust among minority groups (Lever 1). Patrol officers