Racial Profiling and Police Subculture

Abstract

Racial is practice of subjecting citizens to increased surveillance or scrutiny based on racial or ethic factors rather than reasonable suspicion. The current debate (Satzewich and Shaffir 2009; Henry and Tator 2011) focuses on whether intention matters in considering racial-profiling practices. Satzewich and Shaffir (2009) argue that intentions of policing agents are an important consideration for understanding racial profiling. In their rejoinder, Henry and Tator (2011) invoke principle that racism/racial is to be judged primarily by its consequences in creating inequality for certain (66); they cite case law that recognizes that motivation or intention of perpetrator is irrelevant to judgement that racial discrimination has occurred. It is clear that, given power and discretion available to police, experience of being subject to racial can lead both to a feeling of being harassed and to a sense of alienation from legal system and wider society (Glover 2008). For victims of racial profiling, intention of policing agent is not an issue; sense of injustice and insecurity is stays with them. Over a long period of time, negative experience such as racial can lead to specific ethnic groups' losing confidence in police (cf., Bradford, Jackson, and Stanko 2009). Nevertheless, there is merit in Satzewich and Shaffir's (2009) argument that, in order to find a solution to problem of racial profiling, it is important to determine whether such discriminatory practices are result of officers' being racially prejudiced or whether they are unintended result of certain organizational practices. In practice, racial is difficult to prove. Empirical studies to distinguish between improper and proper use of race by police have yielded mixed results (see, e.g., Alpert, Dunham, and Smith 2007; Antonovics and Knight 2009). Alpert et al. (2007) describe three mechanisms through which racial disparities in police treatment can happen: through prejudice, through cognitive bias and stereotyping, and through race-based deployment. While prejudice involves conscious intent, cognitive bias and stereotyping can be unconscious biases based on false assumptions about criminality of ethic groups, while race-based deployment is an organizational or local practice that may or may not involve individual intent and consciousness. Satzewich and Shaffir (2009: 200-201) suggest that racial is best understood in context of a police subculture where police regard as part of their work; it occurs even in absence of officers who may be inclined to prejudice or discrimination against members of visible minorities (201). The authors have demonstrated through interviews with police officers that what critics label as racially practices, police view as sound, work-related criminal profiling (201). There is certainly a vast literature that supports finding that street-level police officers often form stereotypical opinions abut criminality of certain ethnic groups and use such visual cues in routine, proactive policing work (see, e.g., Ericson 1982; Bayley and Mendelsohn 1969). These ways of seeing and acting are regarded as features of police (sub)culture that appear to be common across space and time. Satzewich and Shaffir (2009) provide evidence that police officers in their study (even officers from ethnic minorities) saw as integral to police work and admitted that racial appearance of citizen was one factor among others that they took into account when deciding whether to intervene. The authors suggest that the occupational culture enables police to draw upon a vocabulary of explanations that permit[s] them to deny responsibility when faced with allegation that their is racially motivated (Satzewich and Shaffir 2009: 211). …

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