The puzzle is that profiling with certain proxies can seem at one and the same time both rational and unfair. Of course, the belief that individuals within one group are more likely than others to have a certain characteristic or more prone to a particular type of behaviour, may not always be grounded in sound evidence.
The view that one group is on average meaner with money, or richer, or more disposed to dishonesty, may be based on ignorance or prejudice. But where there are statistical differences between groups, it seems logical to act upon them. Is it really worth the police stopping octogenarian women if they're hunting for criminals carrying knives? The appeal of profiling is that it saves time and resources, says Tarun Khaitan, associate professor in law at Oxford and Melbourne universities.
Take an airline that wants to make sure its pilots have vision. Some proxies will be tougher than others to access. A genetic test may be an accurate proxy for predicting whether people will develop a certain disease, but it may be easier and cheaper to gather information on less precise proxies, such as diet or smoking habits.
It's always important to interrogate the numbers, especially when using proxies such as sex and religion. First, how big is the statistical difference? If Second, how many false negatives and false positives will there be? That is to say, how many threats will you miss if you target only one group, and how many innocent people will come under suspicion? Suppose it is overwhelmingly the case that a particular crime is committed by people from a particular religious background.
Which brings us to the impact of profiling on the individuals being profiled. Tarun Khaitan says that groups in a "socially and politically and economically vulnerable position" will perceive profiling as "not just unfair but humiliating".
He offers this example. If a person is profiled based on their star sign, Virgo or a Sagittarius and so on, they may regard that as eccentric and even unjust. They probably won't feel it's demeaning. But we identify ourselves more closely with our ethnicity, religion, and sex, so when disadvantaged people are profiled on the basis of these characteristics it tends to have a far more noxious effect.
Obviously the impact of profiling will depend upon what is at stake. There is also a concern that the increased use of suspensions and expulsions is pushing students to drop out of school.
This fear seems to be well founded as there are American studies which confirm that suspension is a moderate to strong predictor of a student dropping out and that suspension and expulsion are one of the top three school-related reasons for dropping out. Numerous submissions highlighted the negative psychological impact that profiling can have on children and youth who either witness or experience it.
Since the age of 4 he wanted to be a police officer, now he says that he will never be one. More than distrustful. They have become stoic. And that translates throughout their entire social life. Which means they are not very successful at negotiating jobs, or going down and negotiating loans. They become dysfunctional. One woman described experiencing racial profiling as a six-year-old child. The school suggested she be placed in a special education class.
Her parents decided to move her to a new school where an IQ test indicated she should be placed in an enriched class. She is now completing her postgraduate degree in criminal justice. Nevertheless, she describes a continuing impact of being profiled as a bad child from an early age:. Many participants noted that the psychological impact of racial profiling on their children has led to anti-social behaviour, even in young children.
As well, concern was expressed that a potential long-term impact of profiling is an increased risk of criminalization. Several parents commented that one of their main fears was that racial profiling will lead their children, especially their sons, to view themselves as troublemakers and that this, in turn, will result in them behaving badly. Other parents described being terrified that their child will eventually get frustrated with incidents of profiling and react in a way that could lead to a confrontation with the authorities and criminal charges.
He was a quiet obedient child now she is seeing a different child who does not listen to her anymore and also become very disruptive. My fear is that one of these days my kids are going to be a little too fed up with this and they are going to have an attitude, you know, and they are going to be arrested. I constantly counsel my son because of issues like this that occur about going out into the public and how to conduct yourself and what happens if something like this happens, the reaction is anger, the reaction is frustration, at their young age, if they react, then the situation escalates even further.
Persons who work with children and youth confirm that suspended students are more likely to hang out on streets and in malls creating the potential for increased contact with the police. Children who are out of school are more likely to meet anti-social kids and learn or engage in anti-social behaviours. For example, David R. They may make contact with older kids or other kids who are having difficulties. There is some literature that points out if you put anti-social kids together it escalates their anti-social behaviour.
It can have an impact on the community in which they live and, of course, it contributes to an important problem in Canada, which is serious anti-social behaviour, both violent and non-violent. Many parents reported raising their children differently because of a fear of racial profiling. This included counselling their children to behave a certain way, having rules about how their children dress in public and limiting when their children are permitted to go out and where they go.
Parents felt that these strategies and coping mechanisms are necessary to prepare their children for potential incidents of profiling and to protect their children from the negative consequences. This type of experience cannot help but have a profound effect on a child or young person as the fear of racial profiling and the consequent need to alter his or her behaviour becomes ingrained in his or her psyche.
The section of the Report entitled Changes in Behaviour has a more detailed discussion of socialization of young people to cope with profiling; however, it is important to note here that these types of experiences during formative years are likely to have an even more significant and lasting impact on a young person than on an adult.
No one would argue that public faith in institutions and systems such as the criminal justice system, law enforcement, customs and border control and the education system is a cornerstone to democracy, order and a harmonious society. All of these institutions require citizens to work positively and cooperatively with them to maximize their success in fulfilling their mandate. For example, a strong justice system requires citizens to have confidence in the fairness of the process; community policing relies on individuals trusting the police and being willing to work with them; and, teachers can only function effectively when they have the respect of their students.
The section entitled The Existence of Racial Profiling has a more detailed discussion of the specific importance of good community and police relations, based on the experiences of various jurisdictions in the United States. However, racial profiling seriously erodes public confidence in these institutions.
Numerous submissions described an increased personal or community mistrust of law enforcement officials, the criminal justice system, the education system, customs officials, store and mall security and society in general. Therefore, the issue of mistrust is not just specific to one community; it permeates all sectors of society.
Mistrust can be engendered by personal experiences, witnessing an incident of profiling, knowing someone who has experienced profiling or simply due to the widespread perception that profiling exists in society.
And, as discussed earlier this mistrust is heightened by unwillingness on the part of the institutions to acknowledge the concern and engage in a constructive process to address it. Participants also explained that their mistrust of institutions can be compounded by the knowledge that the institution lacks racial diversity or that its members are not given in-depth and ongoing anti-racism training. As indicated earlier, the inquiry covered all forms of racial profiling and did not target the police.
However, the institution that was most commonly identified as having lost the faith of an individual or community were police agencies across the province. Many submissions described a shift in perception about policing as a result of even a single incident. Other submissions indicated that a number of encounters had led an individual to lose trust in the police. Many parents described feeling that they needed to warn their children or other young persons in their families to be careful around the police.
They are their friends. I can't confidently say that now to my grandchildren. I don't know what kind of reaction they will receive. I used to feel that it was safe. I no longer smile or acknowledge police officers. I would like nothing better than to be able to say to my grandchildren -- remember to smile at the police officers when you see them -- they are your friends. Turn to them when you are in trouble.
One very moving submission came from a young school teacher who described being surrounded by police cars, being ordered out of his car in the middle of the street and being asked if he had any drugs or weapons in the car. While one officer checked his identification, another searched his vehicle. This occurred in the middle of the day, in the community in which this man teaches. He felt like a spectacle, humiliated and very concerned should any of his students or any of their parents witness the event.
This man had experienced numerous other police stops and searches in a very short time period leading him to feel very frustrated and mistrustful of police. He described the impact of these experiences on his ability to instil trust of the police in his students. Some of the words that were used to describe the effects on relationships with police included: suspicion, distrust, anger, antagonism, hostility and fear.
Many described fearing for their own safety when interacting with police officers and some said that, rather than feeling that the police were there to protect them from crime, they felt the need to be protected from the police. Parents in particular described feeling terrified that their children, particularly their sons, could come to harm every time they leave the house.
One mother described the trauma of learning that her son, a University of Toronto student, was reading a book while waiting for the subway in the station near his home when he was pushed to the ground by two law enforcement personnel. Comments were made to the effect that he could not be a university student and that he could not afford to live in the upscale neighbourhood.
This same type of fear was reported by Stephen Lewis in his report on police-visible minority relations. And, a recent survey of youth in the Toronto area reported a fear of treatment by police. In fact, we have talked a lot about how some members of our community are fearful of police.
We have a connection between police states and repression. Where they have seen abuse and they experience abuse here they say, yeah, cops all over the world are just exactly the same. And this does not contribute to the kind of diverse cultural understanding, acceptance and involvement that this country is supposed to stand for. When discussing feelings of mistrust, most participants also mentioned that they lack faith in the processes that have been implemented to receive complaints against the police or other institutions such as the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.
Participants stated that they felt they were prevented or discouraged from filing complaints, that they lacked confidence in the complaints process as they perceived it to lack independence and that the outcome further compounded their sense of mistrust or injustice. About three times I tried to put a complaint in to police.
I found no way to get any justice. There would be little guarantee of victory and any award would not cover legal costs. I filed a complaint through the appropriate police services review board. The result was totally unsatisfactory. The reviewing officer merely compounded my humiliation by affirming that the police were not at fault.
How foolish of me! The justice system only protects those they choose to, the rest of us are castaways, the ones not worthy because of either our social or economic background.
I will not do so in the future, either. However, if there is a problem that absolutely requires police assistance and I can request help on the phone anonymously, so they can't see that I'm Black, then I will. This in turn causes a negative backlash in the community. This is part of the reason that the police force gets very little cooperation when dealing with the Black community. If a person does not feel valued by the system, you will in turn see how that person can become a negative force.
There are good cops, but the bad ones make us mistrustful of all police. It makes it hard for them to solve crime. Being interrogated and thoroughly searched eight out of nine times is not the same as being searched from time to time or being treated fairly. It is being targeted. It is imperative that to ensure people crossing the border respect Canadian laws, our Customs and Immigration Officers recognize that ethnicity, accent, country of citizenship, style of dress, or make of vehicle does not indicate criminal intent or criminal activity.
Aberrant behaviour becomes the norm for those who have no reason to respect the law. This does not serve the greater public good.
These consequences of racial profiling have been confirmed by the experience of jurisdictions in the United States. James concludes that the adversarial nature of police stops contributes strongly to Black youth hostility towards the police. While police agencies are negatively impacted in their ability to effectively serve the public by allegations of racial profiling, the effect on the individual who develops a mistrust of the police and criminal justice system can be even greater.
A criminal defence lawyer has written:. It perpetuates a cycle whereby youths lose respect for the law; this in turn leads a small number of them to act out. The mistrust of police was also cited as contributing to an unwillingness to pursue a career in policing.
Before I understood their job to protect the building, but now if I see a guard I want to avoid them and walk away. I don't have respect for them. In the context of the education system, many parents reported feeling that they have lost faith in teachers and school administrators.
They indicated that this loss of confidence makes them feel uncomfortable sending their child to school and that they must seek out opportunities to transfer their child to another school or take them out of school altogether for home schooling. In either case, major inconvenience can be the result, not to mention the disruption to the child.
In addition, parents reported their children mistrusting the education system as well as losing respect for their teachers. He is very intimidated and traumatized by the issue. He gets anxious in the presence of the school officials.
There is no trust after what they did to him. He stays clear of authority figures. The trust is broken. Focussing on his studies has become pressured and difficult.
He is very uncomfortable in an environment that should be conducive to learning. I am angry and very frustrated and cannot take it any more. I have taken my child out of the school system and placed him in my mother's care and he is now doing home schooling. But I truly feel uncomfortable leaving her at the school but feel like I have no choice at this time being a single mom.
I feel betrayed, manipulated and abused. This is how I feel. It is an uphill battle. Ultimately, it is society that is most harmed if racial profiling results in the loss of confidence in law enforcement, the criminal justice system, the education system and other institutions. As demonstrated by the impacts of profiling outlined above, the social cost of creating a mistrust of institutions includes a lack of respect shown to people associated with them, greater acting out against those institutions or the law, and an unwillingness to work with those institutions, for example by reporting crime, acting as witnesses, etc.
The American experience has shown that these are tangible results of racial profiling and that eliminating racial profiling can result in bridges being built between the institutions and communities, to the greater good of all:. Many other U. Communities rally behind the approach, showing that if [law enforcement] authorities can use their power transparently and selectively — focusing [sic] not on whole classes of young people, but on clearly dangerous offenders, and even then judiciously and with fair warning — support for [law enforcement activities] will be forthcoming.
It is public policy in Ontario, as expressed in the preamble to the Ontario Human Rights Code , to foster a province in which all persons feel an equal part of the community and able to contribute fully to the development and well-being of the province. And this feeling exists for recent immigrants as well as for persons whose families have been here for many generations. Many participants in the inquiry reported feeling like an unequal or less worthy member of society as a result of their experience of profiling.
This realization was described as a humiliating, dehumanizing and painful one:. I've gone to school in Canada since Kindergarten and being "Canadian" is the only identity I have. It became painfully clear at that moment that there were two levels of citizenship. Those of Caucasian descent, and those from other countries.
I would never be able to be a full Canadian citizen -- one that was treated with all the privileges of being a citizen. It was a very dehumanizing experience. I wish I could feel like my Canadian citizenship rights and status as a Toronto dweller were as secure as my White colleagues. This behaviour causes an enormous amount of self loathing. It continuously causes one to feel somewhat inferior.
Individuals who felt that they had accomplished much and were contributing significantly to Canadian society contrasted their sense of value added to Canadian society with how Canadian society appeared to view them. They felt that no matter what they do and how successful they are, they are still assumed to be part of an undesirable element of society and this was very distressing to them.
I am also a homeowner and professional. I contribute to society as much as other Canadians. But [as a result of being followed by security] I felt that I was not worthy to be in their store.
I am respected by my students and peers, but [because of the inappropriate questions I was asked by Customs on returning from Jamaica] I was made to feel like a second class citizen. And this made me feel less than a human being.
And this shows that my contribution to Canadian society is not valued. Persons who have immigrated from other countries also described a profound sense of not belonging as a result of experiencing profiling.
They described it as a sense of being rejected by mainstream Canadian society and being told that they would always be considered an outsider. Some immigrants also told of a sense of disillusionment or betrayal as they had come to Canada to escape an unjust society and expected that they would be treated equally here. One account that clearly illustrated this came from a woman who immigrated to Toronto from Chile. She had participated in a demonstration and was arrested along with other demonstrators.
When her lawyer emphasized that she had been a Canadian for 27 years, the Justice of the Peace emphasized that she was born in Chile. As a result, she spent four nights in jail, simply because of racial profiling. The Justice of the Peace Review Council investigated the case and determined that the comments by the Justice of the Peace were inappropriate and he was required to issue an apology.
But, this did not change the fact that a decision was made that resulted in this woman spending four days in prison. The initial charges were eventually withdrawn. She described the feeling that this experience left her with in the following words:.
Persons who identified as Muslim, Arab and South Asian described feeling unwelcome after the tragedy of September 11, There was a significant reluctance on the part of members of this community to come forward with their accounts due to a fear of potential consequences. Nevertheless, some of the examples the Commission heard included:. We have heard so much hate and incitement to hate post September 11, but we thought we could face it all as long as our children were protected.
When our daughter came home crying, we knew we had lost our strength to go on and to stand up to racial profiling. It was simply becoming overwhelming. We are not sure what will be next. Representatives of Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities also pointed out that one of the chief complaints has been that it has been treated as a community to be looked into, rather than invited to help solve the problem.
This community is just as concerned about Canadian safety and security as everyone else and would like to be invited to the table to offer assistance or advice on improving security for everyone, rather than to just be treated as a security threat.
For example, a Korean woman described members of her family getting together to seriously discuss returning to Korea. Not surprisingly, parents also described this feeling of damaged citizenship having taken its toll on their children. Other parents stated:.
Finally, many described feeling ashamed to be part of a society where racial profiling exists and appears to be tolerated. Undoubtedly, the damage to feelings of belonging and citizenship that results from racial profiling is undesirable on several different levels.
Firstly, it is not consistent with the values that Canadians and Ontarians hold in high esteem. It should be of significant concern to us to know that fellow citizens do not feel that they are being treated with the same dignity and respect or feel as if they are seen as less worthy of recognition or value as a human being or as a member of Ontario society. Secondly, there is a direct cost to our society of fostering a two-tiered sense of citizenship.
Experience has shown that persons who do not feel valued in society cannot contribute or participate to their full potential. And, if a large segment of our population is not attaining its fullest potential, neither is our community. Foremost among these are a diminished sense of patriotism, loyalty and national unity. Members of racialized communities in Ontario have described themselves as living within a perpetual state of crisis due to the effects of racism. The African Canadian community in particular stressed that racial profiling is having an overwhelming impact in their community.
The sense of injustice that develops among individuals in these communities creates a state of psychological imbalance and inner conflict and reinforces their concern that racism exists and that they may be subjected to it at any time. In South Dakota , widespread reports of racial profiling led to hearings before the state legislature, where Indians testified about their being stopped and searched not only based on race but also on religious articles hanging from rearview mirrors, and regional license plates that identified them as living on reservations.
In June scores of Indians in the state's Bennett County complained to Department of Justice attorneys, alleging racial profiling at the hands of sheriffs there, including vehicular stops in the absence of reasonable suspicion, the administration of breathalyzer tests without reasonable suspicion, warrantless searches of homes and vehicles, and demanding to see drivers licenses and vehicle registrations while inside bars.
Black and Latino pedestrians are regularly stopped and frisked without reasonable cause. In New York City , the December report of the New York City Police Departments pedestrian "stop and frisk" practices by the state attorney general provided glaring evidence of racial profiling in the nation's largest city.
Blacks comprise Hispanics comprise By contrast, whites are In precincts in which blacks and Hispanics each represented less than 10 percent of the total population, individuals identified as belonging to these racial groups nevertheless accounted for more than half of the total "stops" during the covered period.
Blacks accounted for 30 percent of all persons "stopped" in these precincts; Hispanics accounted for In seven other precincts, blacks and Hispanics constituted the majority of the population. The remaining two precincts were business districts in Manhattan and Brooklyn in which the daytime racial breakdown of persons within the precinct is unknown. In roughly half of the police precincts in New York City, the majority of the population living in the precinct is white.
However, of these 36 majority-white precincts, only 13 were in the top half of precincts showing most "stops" during the period.
In Orange County California , a database containing the names and photographs of reputed gang members appeared to racially profile. The disparity attracted the notice of the California Advisory Committee of the U.
We asked the county district attorney's office to establish a civilian oversight board to monitor what we saw as problems with the list. Youth of color have been victims of racially-motivated bicycling stops, " In April, , the ACLU joined a suit against Eastpointe, Michigan , representing 21 young African-American men who were stopped by the police while riding their bikes there. The ACLU argued that the bicyclists were stopped in this predominantly white suburb of Detroit because of their race and not because they were doing anything wrong.
In a memorandum to the Eastpointe City Manager, the former police chief stated that he instructed his officers to investigate any black youths riding through Eastpointe subdivisions.
Police searched many of young men and, in some cases, seized and later sold their bicycles. Police logs and reports in Eastpointe have identified over incidents between and in which African-American youth were detained. These dogs, lethal weapons capable of biting at pounds pressure per square inch, and their handlers have been implicated in a vicious form of racial profiling that has led to legal action:. California Los Angeles - The ACLU of Southern California compiled reports on the hundreds of mostly blacks and Latinos who were bitten by Los Angeles Police Department dogs from , charging that the dogs trained to "attack and maul," were routinely sent out in non-violent situations.
In , California state highway patrol canine units stopped almost 34, vehicles. Only 2 percent were carrying drugs. Maryland Prince Georges County - The Washington Post reported that in May federal prosecutors charged a county police officer with releasing her police dog on an unarmed Mexican immigrant as part of a pattern of using and threatening the use of the dog on people of color.
Despite being the subject of four lawsuits, twice being guilty of making false statements to a supervisor, and five prior instances of releasing the dog on suspects who weren't resisting, and being flagged by a departmental "early warning" system, the officer remained undisciplined in any substantive way. In the Post reported that thirteen police dog excessive force suits had been filed in Prince Georges circuit and federal courts, in addition to five others that ended in judgement for plaintiffs or settlement.
Of the total, ten alleged repeated bites of suspects once under police control, or while cuffed or on the ground. South Dakota Wagner - While not involving the use of physical canine force, the issue reached a new low when school officials and police led a large German shepherd drug dog through classrooms in suspicionless drug searches of Yankton Sioux K students, some as young as six years old.
Dogs were trained to attack and bite suspects regardless of their actions, even against alleged shoplifters, gasoline siphoners and jaywalkers. They also reported that in that year, 40 percent of police dog attacks were against African Americans, and that 91 people had received police dog bite injuries requiring hospitalization. The following states appear to require independent reasonable suspicion for dog searches: Alaska, 4 Illinois, 5 Minnesota, 6 New Hampshire, New York, 8 Pennsylvania, 9 and Washington.
TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey said she was refused buzz-in entry to a store even after seeing white women admitted and making a second attempt. After calling from a pay phone and being assured the store was in fact open, a third try failed as well New York City.
S, Congresswoman Maxine Waters said she was followed around a store and required to show her key at a hotel, unlike whites who entered before her New York City. Professional basketball player and Olympic medalist Sheryl Swoopes was kept waiting to be seated for almost an hour at a restaurant, while whites who arrived after her were seated before her Houston, Texas.
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