RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 1

Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement: Racial Profiling in Modern Policing

Annette Solis

Department of Criminal Justice, The University of Rio Grande Valley

CRIJ-6303: Policing in a Democracy

Dr. Yudu Li

April 19, 2025

Introduction

Racial profiling in the United States has been a problem in law enforcement for generations.

Racial profiling is defined as the practice of discriminatory targeting of an individual for

suspicion and crime based on their race or ethnicity. Racial profiling has sparked great outrage

throughout the United States, that have affected policy debates, reform, and caused public outcry.

Most argue that profiling is an effective tool police use because most crimes are committed by

certain groups, which means the other parts of a police job don’t mean anything but to undermine

civil liberties. Doing so also damages the trust and relationship between a community and affects

minority populations since they feel like they are going to be targeted. In this writing assignment,

we will explore the roots of law enforcement and how racial profiling came to be. As well as the

difference between racial profiling and criminal profiling, traffic stops, use of force, and how this

affects people outside of the criminal justice system. Data will also be included comparing cities

such as New York, Chicago, and California.

The Firsts

The roots of racial profiling trace back to the times of slavery, the black code, and Jim

Crow laws. During this period of time, any type of law enforcement was created to enforce

racially discriminatory laws and practices. These agencies told law enforcement to help anyone

trying to run away, or those who do not work would get punished. These injustices set the

example for systematic biases in any policing, and practices of traffic stops are seen to be mainly

targeting African Americans, Native Americans, and the Latino community. Looking into the

first racial profiling, this happened within the LAPD in the 1970s. A Native American family was

enslaved and created a suit for freedom based on racial profiling, and the court stated: “to

imagine three different complected people, one being black, fair-toned, and copper complected,
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 3

where brought upon the court to produce authenticated bills, it would be a certain person”.

Indicating that those are look white and native must be set free, but those who are any darker

should be placed in slavery because of the color of their skin, he way their hair looks, and

because of how big their noses are (Higginbotham, 2023).Slavery’s impact on today’s world is

much more apparent than just the criminal justice system, unfortunately. With that being said, we

see it more in criminal justice because of the power the police have been given. Just like in those

times of slavery, slave patrols had the ability to almost always exercise discretion to kill those

who fled from their plantations. Police officers today have almost the same power because they

do not suffer severe consequences for the use of force against black people.

Modern Policing

After looking into the roots of racial profiling, there is a debate in today’s world about

what the difference is in racial profiling, and how effective it is, along with discussing criminal

profiling and how these are different. There is the big question of, there is a difference between

criminal profiling and racial profiling? Is racial profiling constitutional? The debate on racial

profiling has been going on for many years, with many opinions being considered. Racial

profiling is illegal, and it violates the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. The practice of racial

profiling only creates a bigger divide between people and law enforcement, especially those of a

different color.

According to ACLU, the definition that we mentioned earlier in the essay makes it clear

that race-based profiling also violates what a police officer is supposed to do, and violates the

Constitution's core promise to protect all equally under the law and to provide freedom from

unreasonable searches and seizures (Bufano, 2024). The perception of racial profiling by

Americans in law enforcement is seen as discrimination against not just black, Latinos, and
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 4

Native Americans, but also includes Muslims and Asian groups as well. Police officers looking

into criminal activity based on race is seen as a poor tactic and not reasonable. Investigating this

activity by police officers is usually always looked at, but the departments usually do not do

anything but give more training, which is usually just like a slap on the wrist to these police

officers. Looking into the effect that this officer’s behavior has on the community is extremely

important because the sole purpose of a police officer’s job is to serve that community (Bufano,

2024). Doing this type of profiling hinders the ability of an officer to do their job because it

takes making the best decision in different actions. If a police officer sees someone’s skin or

appearance and assumes their behavior before assessing them, this would leave a bad impression

not only on the officer but on the department as well.

The practice of criminal profiling differs from racial profiling because of the different

things being looked at about a person. Racial profiling looks at the ethnicity of a person, the way

they look, or their skin color. Criminal profiling is done based on evidence that was gathered

from different crimes, based on the victims and witnesses (Bufano, 2024). Things that are looked

at other than their skin color are the age range, gender, race, and other factors that apply to a

specific group. These things include the clothes they may have been wearing, piercings, tattoos,

scars, etc. Unlike racial profiling, criminal profiling helps a police officer catch a suspect to

prevent future crime and protect civilians from their crimes. Criminal profiling is legal in the

U.S. and is one of the most used tactics to catch offenders. Many law enforcement agencies use

this tactic, so much so that agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) use this

because it benefits to helps protect citizens (Bufano, 2024). Criminal profiling is something that

officers are trained and experienced to do when patrolling neighborhoods and areas of a city
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 5

When it comes to racial profiling, police officers actually need training on how to avoid

profiling. This way police can protect and serve to the best degree with justice and fairness.

Now knowing the difference in how racial profiling is damaging, and how there is a

difference between being racially profiled and criminal profiled, it’s important to understand how

the use of police force affects minorities in urban poor areas. Documented research of racial and

ethnic disparities has been seen in areas where police to citizen encounters are more common. In

poorer areas, there was higher involvement in African American criminal profiling, but based on

the crime was actually racial profiling. These concerns have been seen since the late 1900s and

popularized the notion of “driving while black” (Legewie, 2016). Studies have shown that

vehicle stops and the use of force are based on the color of a person’s skin. Comparing the years

1998 and 1999 in New York City, we see that Hispanics and African Americans were stopped

more compared to those who were white. Looking at stop and traffic stop data, it shows that

force used on whites was a lot less than the force used on African Americans, leaving it at 16.5%

for whites and 22.2% for African Americans (Legewie, 2016). Studying the police behavior and

seeing what structural factors are there during a stop is a theory that changes the racial threat

hypothesis. This hypothesis shows that the size population of minorities increases, and because

of this, the most dominant groups feel threatened and feel that supporting control measures, such

as being aggressive with police, is better. This could lead to more arrests and police use because

of the number of minorities in the area. Looking further than the racial threat theory, it is

important to see that because high-crime areas, or areas with a disadvantage economically, police

are going to use force, but this force is usually seen on African Americans and people of other

races. While some may defend these tactics and are for the force, this does not make the crime

rates decrease. The excessive use of police force creates interactions that could lead to greater
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 6

events (Legewie, 2016). When it comes to bigger cities and cities that have a set area where

police are clearly not welcome, this creates conflict and concerns about the people on both sides.

The history of police and black communities has remained for years throughout the entire

country. This level of threat created anger in not only the black communities, but within the

police community because of the emotional state they get into when a officer is attacked by the

acts of these communities. Police respond aggressively in order to get justice for those who were

assaulted or disrespected. Although the increase of force is not ethically good in police, there is

the argument that police-citizen interactions created the tension in the first place.

Racial biases in Different Cities

Putting different cities into perspective on how they handle racial profiling, we look into

California and how police have shown racial bias in stops and searches. In 2022, there were

higher rates of handcuffed Black and indigenous residents during traffic stops than there were of

white people. Contributing data from across the state showed an annual racial profiling report,

which showed vehicle and pedestrian stops throughout 535 different law agencies. Findings in

these analyses show that there was a consistent amount of racial disparities in stops and searches,

and transgender and youth of color were stopped more frequently. Some important findings

showed that black residents were stopped the most, about 5.4% of the state’s population. Latinos

were also stopped, which made up about 32.4% of the population. Whites and Asians had the

least amount of stops; the rates were lower than the proportion of the population. Native

Americans were stopped and searched, which shows to be twice the rate of white people sitting

at a 22.4% stop rate. Native Americans were also handcuffed at the same rate as all groups at

17.8%, compared to 10% of whites. Lastly, black residents were detained in a patrol car or on the

curb at the highest rate of 20.2% of the stops in California. Black residents were also at a three
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 7

times higher rate of a charge of resisting arrest, making it 19.2% of stops (Levin, 2024).This data

shows how biased the police are when it comes to people of color, and the trend has been

documented by the government. These types of discriminatory stops are usually seen in “pretext

stops”, which a stops that are made for a minor problem and turn into an investigative stop.

White citizens were stopped less, but seemed to have the most contraband and evidence of

crimes while being searched. Besides racial bias, police also showed bias on transgender people

more than cisgendered people. About 50% of transgender people were stopped, detained,

handcuffed, ordered out of their cars, or had force used against them (Levin, 2024). One

important note is that the youth with disabilities and those experiencing mental health crises.

These types of people and children are more prone to police violence and are at a higher risk of

police contact, force, and death because they are not in the right state of mind. Most police see

this as a threat, no matter the age, and tend to use force when it’s not needed. Reports show about

6,4000 stop of students on campuses from K-12 in 2022. Kern High School in Central Valley,

California, reported 545 stops of students. Departments sent out over 100 deputies to protect

schools, and at different points, police conducted stops on over 240 students instead. The reason

for the stops was that there was reasonable suspicion of a crime against the student. In schools,

black students on campus were handcuffed at nearly double the rate of their classmates. The rate

for the black youth was 20.03%. To compare, Asian Americans were at 11.73%, 11.07% for

Latinos, and 9.13% for white students. Schools that had law enforcement officers in white

neighborhoods often protected the students and were seen as safer. Schools whose law

enforcement was based on a district with a larger number of black students were often treated

more harshly as criminals and feared (Levin, 2024). Police are starting to make it difficult early

on for the youth that they are there to protect them.

After looking into the LAPD and seeing the racial biases in California, it is difficult to

imagine that it is not like this around the rest of the country. In Chicago, there are the same issues

of black drivers being stopped by police in regards to where they are going and what they plan

on doing. This racial bias in traffic stops is replacing stop and frisk because of how

discriminatory it is. Along with police stops, researchers found that black drivers were ticketed

for speeding more than other drivers across the city. Researchers showed the data where half of

the drivers being ticketed for speed were black, found at a 54% probability of being issued a

camera ticket. Continuing research showed that about 50% of black drivers, 70% of police

stoppers were compromised compared to white drivers, which sat at 20% (Xu, Levinson,

Tilahun, Askari, Dennis, Smart, & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2024). This went to show that this was

not by coincidence, but that there was a block-by-block bias of traffic enforcement, which

showed black drivers had a higher rate of being stopped. An analysis was conducted by

researchers to show illustrations of traffic patterns and how a day in 2020 would look in the

larger area of Chicago. Cellphone signaling locations were modeled and generated a “synthetic”

population that reflected different races throughout the day. The Chicago Police Department

showed nearly 650,000 traffic stops, and over 700,000 tickets were issued by cameras across the

city. It was analyzed that no matter in the city, black drivers are going to have a higher proportion

of being stopped. Looking at whether the stops are justifiable or not is a little questionable, and

the stops and arrests they are doing are starting to place citizens in dangerous encounters (Xu,

Levinson, Tilahun, Askari, Dennis, Smart, &Tomaskovicdevey, 2024). Overall, the number of

stops seen in Chicago has targeted black Americans more than any other race, which has led to

dangerous encounters for the citizen, along with the way schools treat different students. Both
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 9

California and Chicago had their problems with police and racial bias, each having its own

problems.

After viewing the last two cities, the last city we will be comparing to see the difference

in racial profiling will be New York City. It is a known occurrence that the police of New York

City illegally stop and frisk people on the street, and the department is usually lax on

punishment. A judge in New York County reported that most of the time in cases where there

was a stop-and-frisk violation made by an officer, when the results were reviewed, there were

few penalties or no discipline imposed on the officer. It was not that discipline towards officers

for illegal stops was not pursued, and penalties for the wrongdoing of stops and searches are rare

(Sisak, 2024). Guidance is often given to officers rather than penalties in these types of stops and

frisks. Officers are also disciplined for wrongdoing by a panel at the city's agency, or after an

investigation that was conducted interlay by the NYPD. Another judge who has been overseeing

the NYPD’s reforms since 2013 has reported that in-depth examinations for efficiency and

integrity were requested in order to over the policies and procedures. Reports have found that

even after 10 years of cases, the NYPD has failed to address any unconstitutional conduct made

by its police officers. There is no real transparency, and the department does not take

accountability for its police officers. The judge states that the police should not be trusted, and

something needs to be done for the better of the city (Sisak, 2024). In 2013, U.S. District just

Shira Scheindlin ruled that the NY police department had been violating the civil rights of people

of color through its stop-and-frisk policy. This tactic was supposed to be used to stop crime and

get guns and drugs off the streets. Instead, it has been used to indirectly profile people, causing

harm throughout the city. Since the judge’s ruling, stops and frisks have dropped from over

680,000 to 12,000 stops a year from 2016 to 2019. The number continued to drop, going down to
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 10

9,500 in 2020, and 8,900 in 2021, but rising again to over 15,00 in 2022 and 2023 (Sisak, 2024).

The main target in these stops continues to be black people, and the average continues to go up

from 52% in 2012 to 54% in 2022. Recommendations for taking steps in transparency and a

better disciplinary process have been reported.

Solving Disparities

After looking into the problems and how racial profiling affects communities, and those

being profiled, how do we fix this? There seems to be no end to who will racially be profiled,

how, when, or where. Looking into the media, we have all seen Black and brown people being

mistreated by police officers and law enforcement for no reason. Fortunately, this has fueled a

national outcry and has brought people together to stop the unnecessary mistreatment. We are

taught that policing and law enforcement are no different from us, except that they are there to

protect us. Recent killings such as George Floyd's brought the nation together, and are such an

important event for colored people all around the nation because of the unnecessary use of force

against these colored communities. These events spread protests and demands for systematic

change, and citizens throughout the nation would not give up until something was changed.

Community interventions built trust in some communities, but that starts with community

members developing and creating strategies that lead to better outcomes. Getting the public to

start trusting law enforcement is the first step, because without the community, the police are

basically nothing.

To drive change, there must be more diversity in police departments, more bias training,

and oversight in committees in order to monitor police conduct. Analyzing patterns of those who

are stopped, search, and arrested will help researched provide better understanding of why

something was dine, and nip in the butt when it happens.

Conclusion

Racial profiling in policing today is not as simple as said to be, and is a problem that is

continuing to grow instead of reverting. Historical injustices continue to shape how law

enforcement officers do their jobs today, and a lot more carelessness in power is starting to show.

Although we had decades of civil liberties, policy reforms, and public outcry, communities of

color will always have the burden of police looking out for them, no matter if they did something

wrong or not. This inequality the law enforcement agencies are showing, will only continue to go

downhill as they continue to show a cycle of fear, alienation and fear.

Racial profiling goes beyond the encounters for those being stopped, but for those around

them as well. Family and friends see how a close person of theirs was treated, and the influence

of law enforcement becomes less significant. While many police officers do their work with

pride and justice, it takes a couple of police officers with the wrong intention to show the

discriminatory reality of policing. Overall, being able to eliminate racial profiling would improve

practices significantly and bring communities between law enforcement and people of color and

other groups together.

References

Bufano, V. (2024). Racial Profiling VS. Criminal Profiling: The Difference. Criminal Justice

Blog, American Military University. https://www.amu.apus.edu/area-of-study/criminal-

justice/resources/racial-profiling-vs-criminal-profiling/

Carvalho, A. A. S., Mizael, T. M., & Sampaio, A. A. S. (2021). Racial prejudice and police

stops: A systematic review of the empirical literature. Behavior Analysis in Practice,

15(4), 1213–1220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-021-00578-4PMC

Edwards, G., & Rushin, S. (2022). Police vehicle searches and racial profiling: An empirical

study. Fordham Law Review, 91(1), 1–52.

https://fordhamlawreview.org/issues/police-vehicle-searches-and-racial-profiling-an-

empirical-study/

Franchi, M., Zamfirescu-Pereira, J. D., Ju, W., & Pierson, E. (2023). Detecting disparities in

police deployments using dashcam data. Proceedings of the 2023 ACM Conference on

Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. https://doi.org/10.1145/3593013.3594020

arXiv+2

Higginbotham, F., M. (2023). Shades of Justice: Racial Profiling Then and Now. University of

Colorado Law Reviewq

https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=lawreview
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 13

Laurencin, C. T., & Walker, J. M. (2020). Racial profiling is a public health and health

disparities issue. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, 7(3), 393–397.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00738-2

Legewie, J, (2016). Racial Profiling and Use of Force in Police Stops: How Local Events Trigger

Periods of Increased Discrimination. The University of Chicago Press Journals.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/687518#_i34

Levins, S. (2024). California Police Show Severe Racial Bias in Stops and Searches, Data Finds.

The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/03/california-police-

stops-racial-bias

Lofstrom, M., Hayes, J., Martin, B., Premkumar, D., & Barton, S. (2021, October). Racial

disparities in law enforcement stops. Public Policy Institute of California.

https://www.ppic.org/publication/racial-disparities-in-law-enforcement-stops/

Pierson, E., Simoiu, C., Overgoor, J., Corbett-Davies, S., Ramachandran, V., Phillips, C., &

Goel, S. (2020). A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the

United States. Nature Human Behaviour, 4(7), 736–745. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-

020-0858-1

Sisak, M. R. (2024, September 23). The NYPD often shows leniency to officers involved in

illegal stop and frisks, report finds. Associated Press.

https://apnews.com/article/4ed177b9ce85dbe5ccd7a048dccd8457
RACIAL PROFILING IN LAW ENFORCEMENT 14

Talbert, R. D., & Matos, D. (2024). Self-reported unfair police stops and skin tone, ethnic

origin, and citizenship status among Latino adults. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.

https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492241293652

Walsh, C. (2021). Solving Racial Disparities in Policing. The Harvard Gazette.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/02/solving-racial-disparities-in-policing/

Warren, P. Y., & Tomaskovic-Devey, D. (2009). Racial profiling and searches: Did the politics

of racial profiling change police behavior? Criminology & Public Policy, 8(2), 343–

369. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2009.00556.x

Xu, W., Li, H., Levinson, D., Tilahun, N., Askari, S., Dennis, Z., Smart, M., & Tomaskovic-

Devey, D. (2024, June 3). Study finds racial bias in traffic stops by Chicago police.

Cornell Chronicle. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2024/06/study-finds-racial-bias-

traffic-stops-chicago-police