Racial Profiling - Definition

Definition

The concept of racial profiling has been defined in many ways, including:

• "Any police-initiated action that relies on the race, ethnicity, or national origin rather than the behavior of an individual or information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been identified as being, or having been, engaged in criminal activity." _{-Deborah Ramirez, Jack McDevitt, Amy Farrell for US DoJ}

• "Racially-biased policing occurs when law enforcement inappropriately considers race or ethnicity in deciding with whom and how to intervene in an enforcement capacity."_{-Lorie Fridell, Robert Lunney, Drew Diamond and Bruce Kubu}

• "Using race as a key factor in deciding whether to make a traffic stop." _{-General Accounting Office}

• "In the literature to date, there appear to be at least two clearly distinguishable definitions of the term 'racial profiling': a narrow definition and a broad definition... Under the narrow definition, racial profiling occurs when a police officer stops, questions, arrests, and/or searches someone solely on the basis of the person's race or ethnicity... Under the broader definition, racial profiling occurs whenever police routinely use race as a factor that, along with an accumulation of other factors, causes an officer to react with suspicion and take action."_{-Jim Cleary}

• "Use by law enforcement personnel of an individual’s race or ethnicity as a factor in articulating reasonable suspicion to stop, question or arrest an individual, unless race or ethnicity is part of an identifying description of a specific suspect for a specific crime." _{-Office of the Arizona Attorney General}