Why do police use racial profiling

Our aim was to gather information to help us guide organizations, individuals and communities on how to identify, address and prevent racial profiling. We connected with people and organizations representing diverse perspectives. We conducted an online survey, analyzed cases called applications at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario HRTO that alleged racial profiling, held a policy dialogue consultation, and reviewed academic research.

We conducted focus groups with Indigenous peoples and received written submissions. Overall, almost 1, individuals and organizations told us about their experiences or understanding of racial profiling in Ontario.

Many police officers and organizations in Ontario acknowledge that racial profiling may occur in police interactions with racialized and Indigenous peoples, and several have taken steps to address it. However, not all have come to accept that it is a concern. We received hundreds of responses about racial profiling in policing. These reports came from all regions of the province. The extensive nature of the experiences and perceptions we heard about is consistent with the notion that racial profiling in policing is a widespread concern across Ontario.

We heard reports of Indigenous and racialized people being racially profiled in various interactions with police, including:. We heard that some people may be exposed to racial profiling based on their unique intersection of identities. For example, Black male youth may be more likely to be singled out repeatedly by police because of stereotypes about being involved with crime.

Truthfully all my friends have been through the same things I have been through. It has become second nature to be aware of the police Just as importantly, racial profiling is ineffective. It alienates communities from law enforcement, hinders community policing efforts, and causes law enforcement to lose credibility and trust among the people they are sworn to protect and serve.

We rely on the police to protect us from harm and promote fairness and justice in our communities. But racial profiling has led countless people to live in fear, casting entire communities as suspect simply because of what they look like, where they come from, or what religion they adhere to. A Joy Foundation Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute , Sethi is investigating the use of lethal force by law enforcement officers, a difficult task given that data from such encounters is largely unavailable from police departments.

Instead, Sethi and his team of researchers have turned to information collected by websites and news organizations including The Washington Post and The Guardian, merged with data from other sources such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Census, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They have found that exposure to deadly force is highest in the Mountain West and Pacific regions relative to the mid-Atlantic and northeastern states, and that racial disparities in relation to deadly force are even greater than the national numbers imply.

Sethi pointed to the example of Camden, N. For many analysts, the real problem with policing in America is the fact that there is simply too much of it. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute.

They argue that broader support for such measures will decrease the need for policing, and in turn reduce violent confrontations, particularly in over-policed, economically disadvantaged communities, and communities of color.

For Brandon Terry , that tension took the form of an ice container during his Baltimore high school chemistry final. The frozen cubes were placed in the middle of the classroom to help keep the students cool as a heat wave sent temperatures soaring. A scholar of Martin Luther King Jr. Terry also thinks the policing debate needs to be expanded to embrace a fuller understanding of what it means for people to feel truly safe in their communities.

Various studies have shown that lead exposure in children can contribute to cognitive impairment and behavioral problems, including heightened aggression. Alexandra Natapoff , Lee S. In recent weeks the pair have hosted Zoom discussions on topics ranging from qualified immunity to the Black Lives Matter movement to police unions to the broad contours of the American penal system. The implications of this enormous net of police and prosecutorial authority around minor conduct is central to understanding many of the worst dysfunctions of our criminal system.

One consequence is that Black and brown people are incarcerated at much higher rates than white people. America has approximately 2. According to a report from the Sentencing Project, Black men are 5. Retired U. She points to the way the Crime Bill legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware ushered in much harsher drug penalties for crack than for powder cocaine. In Connecticut, where a similar state board is gathering and analyzing stop data, Ross said one recent debate between police and community advocates about how stop data should be interpreted concerned stops of motorists that ended with only a warning given by an officer.

Advocates in California say they welcome the opportunity to discuss racial disparities in policing with the new data, complexity and all. This article is more than 1 year old. A police officer stops a driver in Santa Rosa, California, 10 October Police cited 55 people for eating on San Francisco trains. Only nine were white. Read more.

Topics California US policing Race news.