Suspecting someone of having committed or planning to commit an offense based on their race or ethnicity is a broad definition for racial profiling. Often, people are not even profiled because of their race in general, but because members of their race have an unusual high prevalence of committing crimes in a geographic areas (R, Farrell, 2014). In legal terms, racial profiling is the use of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or national origin by law enforcement agents as a factor in deciding who to investigate or search of a specific criminal behavior (Rushing, 2013). According to American Civil Liberties Union, racial profiling is a longstanding and deeply troubling national problem.
State laws vary across the United States and some laws
State laws vary across the United States and some laws