There are different forms of such racial profiling: pedestrian stops of minorities; unwarranted searches of Black females by the U.S. Customs Service; and the targeting of Hispanics by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The evidence is clear: minorities have been unfairly singled out for law enforcement attention. For example: A Department of Justice Report on police contacts with the public concluded that in 1999, African Americans were 20 percent more likely than Whites to be stopped and 50 percent more likely to have experienced more than one stop. Police were more than twice as likely to search an African American or Hispanic driver as a White driver. Racial profiling is fueled by the assumption that minorities commit more of the types of crimes that profiling is used to detect, e.g., drug crimes. In fact, statistical data from many jurisdictions shows the opposite: "hit rates" for minorities subjected to pedestrian and traffic stops, are generally lower than hit rates for Whites. Racial profiling is not only humiliating and contrary to core American values, it is also ineffective as a law enforcement tactic. And the consequences of racial profiling are severe: profiling harms innocent people, misrepresent the U.S. prison population, isolate minority communities, and contributes to a crisis of confidence in the criminal justice
There are different forms of such racial profiling: pedestrian stops of minorities; unwarranted searches of Black females by the U.S. Customs Service; and the targeting of Hispanics by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The evidence is clear: minorities have been unfairly singled out for law enforcement attention. For example: A Department of Justice Report on police contacts with the public concluded that in 1999, African Americans were 20 percent more likely than Whites to be stopped and 50 percent more likely to have experienced more than one stop. Police were more than twice as likely to search an African American or Hispanic driver as a White driver. Racial profiling is fueled by the assumption that minorities commit more of the types of crimes that profiling is used to detect, e.g., drug crimes. In fact, statistical data from many jurisdictions shows the opposite: "hit rates" for minorities subjected to pedestrian and traffic stops, are generally lower than hit rates for Whites. Racial profiling is not only humiliating and contrary to core American values, it is also ineffective as a law enforcement tactic. And the consequences of racial profiling are severe: profiling harms innocent people, misrepresent the U.S. prison population, isolate minority communities, and contributes to a crisis of confidence in the criminal justice