NCJ Number
198754
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 19 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2002 Pages: 673-703
Date Published
December 2002
Length
31 pages
Annotation
This article discusses research on racial profiling and how weaknesses in current research have caused problems for courts deciding racial profiling claims.
Abstract
Focusing on racial profiling and the law, this article presents a discussion of constitutional constraints on the use of race by police, legal remedies for racial profiling, evidentiary difficulties in equal protection cases, and the use of statistics in racial profiling. In order to illustrate the ways in which the use of social science may be an aid to the courts, the authors distinguish baseline versus benchmark data discussing how the existence of racial profiling in traffic stops may be ascertained using both agency-related and baseline data. After discussing the ways in which data collected from traffic stops may be collected, analyzed, and interpreted, the authors present their findings concerning the present state of research on racial profiling. The authors assert that courts and policy makers are ill equipped to reach reliable conclusions about the possible unequal treatment of minorities by the police due to methodological and analytical defects in the current state of racial profiling research. The authors conclude that the risks of negative publicity and liability for agencies that conduct racial profiling research are greatly outweighed by the potential for changing discriminatory practices uncovered by such research and for adopting coherent policies addressing the use of race in law enforcement decision-making. References