Until recently, African-American drivers on the New Jersey Turnpike stood a much greater
chance than white drivers of being stopped by the state police for a random drug search. This
practice -- an example of racial profiling -- ended abruptly last year when public outrage forced
the removal of the state police superintendent.
The outcome in New Jersey was, however, the exception rather than the rule. In fact, law
enforcement agencies throughout the nation commonly use tactics that subject members of
certain minority groups to closer scrutiny than others.
For example, for several years police have known that African-American gang members
from New York City fly to Florida to buy cocaine. These gang members then use rental cars to
transport the cocaine back to various locations in the northeastern United States. Aware of this
pattern, police officers from various agencies select primarily cars driven by African-American
males traveling northbound on Interstate 95 to stop and search for drugs. While this practice has
occasionally led to seizures of illegal drugs, it also results in the stopping or detention of
countless innocent individuals.
Racial profiling is not limited to policing on the highway. An African-American actor is
suing New York Cityafter he was arrested in the lobby of his apartment building. He was
arrested, along with five other African-American males, during a police operation to arrest
suspected drug dealers. The actor was placed into custody for five hours and strip searched, even
though he possessed no drugs and had committed no crime.
It would be easy to condemn and ban racial profiling if it were simply a matter of bigotry.
But law enforcement officials, including some African-American police chiefs in big cities,
defend it as a way to target limited resources on likely lawbreakers. Profiling, they say, is based
not on prejudice but on probabilities -- the statistical reality that young minority men are
disproportionately more likely to commit crimes than others. Citing these facts, the courts have
repeatedly upheld the constitutionality of routinely using race as a criterion for selecting the
targets of enforcement action.
Yet the premise that racial profiling is an efficient way to catch criminals is fatally flawed.
When police use race-based profiles, they devote time and attention to individuals
who are not involved in illegal activity -- leaving real criminals free to carry on. Assuming that all
members of a race are legitimate targets for police action simply because they share the same
skin color with some criminals is an unsound assumption on which to base an enforcement
strategy. For instance, the vast majority of serial killers are white. Yet would anyone argue
that because all white people are potential serial killers, they should be subject to random police
stops? From a law enforcement perspective, race is not the best method for deciding who's a
criminal.
Racial profiling has fed tensions between police and minority communities. It has triggered
widespread complaints among minority men, including many middle-class professionals, of
police harassment based solely on their skin color.
Political opposition to the practice is mounting. President Clinton recently called the practice
"morally indefensible" and ordered federal law enforcement officials to collect
information on the race and sex of people they stop. Vice President Al Gore and his former rival
for the Democratic presidential nomination, ex-Sen. Bill Bradley, both promised to ban racial
profiling by federal authorities.
Progressives should press for an end to profiling on both civic and practical grounds. First,
racial profiling corrodes the presumption of innocence to which all American citizens are
entitled. It is always dangerous to stray from the bedrock liberal principle that individuals
must be judged on their own merits, not on their class, race, ethnic background, or gender.
Second, whatever gains the police may reap from profiling are overwhelmed by its costs:
alienating law-abiding citizens and reinforcing the view in poor communities that the
police are an occupying force rather than a common instrument for self-defense.
Moreover, police now have an alternative: new, community- based strategies buttressed by
real-time access to information that can help them target people who have actually committed
crimes as opposed to people who happen to be members of racial or ethnic minorities. After all,
profiling uses race as a proxy for criminal intent or culpability because police often lack specific
information about specific individuals. Modern information systems and strong police
community interaction that foster the exchange of information will ensure that police make
decisions based on facts and data instead of race.
The problem with racial profiling is not that it targets "dangerous people in dangerous
places." It is that it targets inaccurately and in ways that breed resentment and mistrust
between the police and poor communities. What we need is the right kind of targeting, based on
better information about lawbreakers and closer cooperation between the police and the
community. We propose a Third Way: replace racial profiling with new tools that will help the
police to make better judgments, deploy their resources more strategically, and most important
of all, enlist citizens in crime-riddled neighborhoods in their own self-defense.
Whether in an inner city neighborhood or on an interstate highway, the use of accurate and
timely information allows police to identify both the location of criminal activity and the people
involved in it. Information plays a key role in the identification of "hot spots" and the
repeat offenders that the criminal justice system should target. If state troopers have information
about specific people or vehicles involved in the transportation of illegal drugs, they will not
have to rely on racial or ethnic profiles.
Advances in technology promise to significantly change the way we address crime in our
cities, towns, and on our highways. The information technology revolution has enhanced the
ability of people in the criminal justice system to collect, process, and disseminate information.
Linked information systems, wireless data technology, and systems that link the community with
police can provide police with the information they need to identify trends and situations that
demand attention. Police officers already can access information and images of persons who are
wanted for crimes via laptop computers in their police cars. Additionally, officers can
use these same laptops to file reports and complete other administrative tasks. This allows them
to stay in the field longer. Regional agencies linked by information and communication systems
can work together to target the locations where crimes occur and the people who commit them.
The same information systems also can be used to monitor police performance, flagging behavior
patterns that may signal bad decisionmaking.
Technological advances also can make it easier for citizens to provide police with
information about criminal activity. For example, some police departments are using
the Internet to let citizens file police reports and obtain information about crime in their
neighborhoods. Other departments are using advanced telecommunications technology in
conjunction with an easy-to-remember, non-emergency number (311) to improve the response to
both emergency and non-emergency calls for service, and to create discretionary time for
community-oriented policing.
Unfortunately, the criminal justice community has been slow to exploit the full potential of
the new technologies. Many agencies can't afford cutting-edge technology; others have senior
executives who don't grasp how technology can leverage existing resources toward more
effective policing. The federal government should raise awareness among federal, state, and local
criminal justice agencies about what new information tools are available and how they can be a
"force multiplier" for police.
Research confirms what Americans instinctively understand: Crime is heavily concentrated
in certain locations. A small number of addresses tend to generate a large amount of crime, and
these addresses tend to be clustered in particular neighborhoods. Some studies indicate
that as much as 50 percent of all crime occurs at about 3 percent of addresses. For violent crime,
this concentration is even more pronounced. The pattern holds true for urban, rural, and suburban
settings.
Therefore, it is crucial for law enforcement authorities and community leaders to cooperate
in targeting those "hot spots" where most crime takes place. Efforts by police
and prosecutors to target hot spots should also be coordinated with other public and community
agencies, such as those responsible for after-school programs, housing, and drug treatment.
Maryland Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has spearheaded a statewide
"HotSpots" program that should become a model for the nation. State grants initially
supported 36 multi-agency and community-based efforts to reclaim the neighborhoods hardest
hit by crime and drugs. The state helps crime-ridden communities develop a comprehensive
strategy that includes community mobilization, community-oriented policing, community
probation, and delinquency prevention.
This information-driven approach has had dramatic results. HotSpot locations experienced
significant decreases in serious crime that doubled both national and state averages, leading
Maryland to double the number of HotSpots communities that receive state funds.
Research also shows that a small proportion of high-risk offenders accounts for a large
proportion of crime. An exhaustive study of career criminals conducted by the National
Academy of Sciences found that while half of all offenders commit more than one crime per
year, 10 percent of offenders committed more than 100 crimes per year. A study in Baltimore
found that almost 60 percent of adults arrested were under some form of criminal justice
supervision (i.e., probation or parole) at the time of their arrest.
Incredibly, many police departments continue to rely on random, race-based searches and
detention even though it is clear that most crimes are committed by individuals who are not only
well known to the law enforcement community, but who are also under criminal justice
supervision. Some jurisdictions have realized impressive reductions in crime by targeting these
high-risk individuals. Boston, for example, quelled a severe epidemic of youth violence by
identifying violence-prone youth, who were then contacted by social workers, probation
officers, and church leaders. These youths quickly discovered that they were being closely
monitored not only by law enforcement officials, but by a caring community. The city coupled
this initiative with an expanded effort to track down people who were selling guns to youths. The
results were impressive. For two years, there were no gun related homicides in Boston committed
against or by a person under the age of 18. Additionally, Boston substantially reduced its level of
youth violence.
Boston's success shows that assertive police action is not the only way to reduce disorder
and violence. Community-backed approaches work better than reliance solely on police action.
Police officers must recognize that treating citizens with respect is their profession's highest
priority. Police departments must redouble efforts to screen applicants for this awareness and
eliminate those who lack it. While hiring requirements should be set locally, based on the
specific needs of specific communities, departments nationwide are exploring residency and
mandatory education requirements as ways to enhance the quality of their law enforcement
officers.
Many police agencies have begun requiring an associate's degree as a minimum academic
credential. Others offer signing and retention bonuses for people with bachelor's degrees. It is
generally agreed that better-educated applicants have better communications skills and
are more versatile problem-solvers. However, such requirements often make it hard to recruit
minority officers due to intense competition in the job market for minority candidates with
college degrees.
Law enforcement agencies traditionally have tended to recruit college students majoring in
criminal justice or criminology. Many police agencies also provide continuing education benefits
to their officers only for criminal justice studies. To widen the pool of potential recruits,
law enforcement should look also to students with a broader educational focus.
Everywhere, the quality of police training must be dramatically improved. Law enforcement
professionals must be trained to identify conditions, trends, and behaviors that are true indicators
of criminal activity. They must also be trained to understand and articulate the cornerstone
principles of American justice, such as the doctrine of probable cause. Police training must focus
on improving the quality of decisionmaking and use of discretion. We must invest more in
innovative training techniques, such as interactive software programs that present trainees with
scenarios and evaluate their reactions.
Police executives should collaborate more closely with minority representatives to develop
policies and programs aimed at lessening racial tension. Police strategies and tactics should be
developed with community input, so the community is aware of what objectives are being sought
and how the strategies will work. Police must not only tell the community what they are doing,
but must learn what true collaboration means. Community oversight boards and federal
supervision over local police focus attention on this issue but do not foster collaboration
and therefore, in themselves, are not the answer. Most important, we must remember that this is
not just a problem for police. Federal, state, and local government officials (in the legislative and
executive branches) must provide the leadership, the ideas, and the commitment needed to spark
a revolution in criminal justice practices, learning from what has been successful and abandoning
strategies that have failed.
Finally, leadership matters. Racial tensions between the police and communities are low
where police executives take a strong stand against discriminatory or biased actions and hold
their police officers strictly accountable when they violate such strictures. Police officers
will not become involved in situations that increase racial tensions if police managers make it
clear that inappropriate police behavior will not be tolerated.
Today's welcome reductions in crime allow many Americans to feel safer in their
communities. Yet some Americans -- particularly minorities -- live with fear daily, not just of
crime but also of abuse at the hands of police.
A progressive anti-crime strategy should have two key aims: reducing crime and improving
relations between minority communities and the police. These goals are compatible and mutually
reinforcing. There is simply no need for Americans to choose between greater public safety and
policing methods that fail to treat all citizens with equal respect.
It is time to end racial profiling and replace it with information-driven strategies -- enabled by
the new tools of technology and grounded in strong community support -- that constitute a Third
Way approach to public safety for the 21st century.
