The Roots of Racial Profiling

Why are police targeting minorities for traffic stops?

Gene Callahan & William Anderson from the August/September 2001 issue

(Page 4 of 4)

This Is Your Law Enforcement on Drugs

In the panic created by the drug war, our traditional liberties have been eroded. Rather than regarding case probability as a necessary component of probable cause for searches or seizures, the American law enforcement system has now come to accept class probability as sufficient justification for many intrusions.

Unfortunately, the current protests against racial profiling are not addressing the root causes of the practice. Politicians, eager to please voters, have created potentially greater problems by trying to suppress the symptoms. As John Derbyshire points out, the laws rushed onto the books to end racial profiling result in severe obstacles to police officers attempting to investigate serious crimes. He notes, "In Philadelphia, a federal court order now requires police to fill out both sides of an 8-1/2-by-11 sheet on every citizen contact." Unless our solution to this problem addresses its cause, we will be faced with the choice of either hindering important police work or treating some of our citizens, based on characteristics (race, age, and so on) completely beyond their control, in a manner that is patently unfair.

If we really wish to end the scourge of racial profiling, we must address its roots: drug laws that encourage police to consider members of broad groups as probable criminals. We must redirect law enforcement toward solving specific, known crimes using the particular evidence available to them about that crime. Whatever one's opinion on drug legalization may be, it's easy to agree that the state of seizure law in America is reprehensible, even given last year's minor federal reforms. It should be obvious that there's something nutty about a legal system that assumes suspects in murder, robbery, and rape cases are innocent until a trial proves otherwise, but assumes that a landscaper carrying some cash is guilty of drug trafficking.

Drugs, prohibitionists commonly point out, can damage a user's mind. They apparently can have the same effect on the minds of law enforcement officials.