Racial Profiling and its concerns in policing

Racial profiling is one of the most intricate and divisive issue in front of law enforcement experts today. It is a concern that provokes heated debate and widespread division within all sections of the society. In simple words racial profiling is actually, a compensation and relaxation given to a person on the basis of his color of the skin, his cultural or ethnic background or some other political or racial similarity. This practice is condemned in most of the countries but one simply cannot eradicate this from our society because both persons involved in this practice are bonded together in some way or the other and it is almost impossible to stop racial profiling completely. At first I thought that racial profiling is just common in those countries and societies having less educated people and a low literacy rate. But that’s not the case, this practice in more common in the societies we live. And we see them on daily basis, and yet are unable to do anything about it.

Whether racial profiling by police officers is a matter of awareness or actuality loses importance when taking into account the pervasive civic belief in its continuation and the successive legal responsibility for law enforcement agencies that come across accusations of racial profiling. The observance of racial profiling has no place in law enforcement. It is an action that weakens the public trust which is essential for a successful community policing group. Police must be supposed as both providers of public security and courteous to the public liberties of those they have avowed to protect and serve. While the majority of police officers serve up their society in a proficient and principled manner, the dispute over the actuality of racial profiling as a practice in law enforcement is loudest on the side of its continuation on a public level.

Often it is seen that a police official will be lenient to some people and harsh to the rest just because he is ethnically or racially alike with him and others are not. One fine example of such practice was in the movie “Rush Hour” when the Police Officer (Chris Tucker) ignores a person in the bar smoking weed and pot, just because he was of the same color as his. Well, the movie is one of my favorite. Well, coming back to the topic I would like to add that this practice never comes under the radar because it is not thought to be very harmful and damaging, but believe me it is. And by the end of this report, I can bet that you will be on my side.

Let us discuss the damages of racial biased policing to us and our society in detail. Have a look:

• Giving unfair advantage to someone on the basis of race leaves the other person shattered, he starts to think negative about that race. And when things get complicated this negative thinking may turn into something serious and may result in some violent outcomes.
• It is against the law if a police officer is harsh with the people unnecessarily.
• People will easily lose confidence in the police department if these events of racial profiling are increased.
• This practice will boost up and encourage criminals if they knew that some of their ethnic or racial brother is there to protect him. This will disturb the law and order situation of the society. As it happens in another movie titled “Fight Club” (one of my favorite too). When Edward Norton goes to police to lodge a complaint, he realizes that those police officers were his own men and didn’t registered any complain.