Good Cop Bad Cop Summary

Book Review Good Cop, Bad Cop written by Milton Heumann and Lance Cassak offers much in depth reading into the history and debate of racial profiling. Each author brings to the table an educated history with Heumann being Chair of the Department of Political
Science at Rutgers University and Cassak is a lawyer with the Office of Thrift
Supervision of the U. S. Department of Treasury. Both Heumann and Cassak reveal key information about racial profiling in three specific chapters. The first chapter contains lots of facts about the present day issue of racial profiling and how it got started. They also try to answer the question of how racial profiling went from being unknown to a huge issue in law enforcement. In its beginnings in the 1960's, 1970's and
1980's racial profiling was used more of a scientific approach in investigations. Experts were trained, like psychologists and psychiatrists to narrow the possibilities of who might commit a crime. It wasn't used as a hunch used by police officers, but it uses past facts to decide what type of person or persons could have committed a certain violent crime.
In the case Terry versus Ohio race was brought up as an issue of an arrest of two young, African-American men who had concealed weapons.
This is the case which has sparked the issue of racial profiling instead of just criminal profiling. The second chapter explains how successful a non-racial profile could be. The profile was named the Airport Drug Courier profile. It had some success because of 96 searches, 77 resulted in which drugs were found. In the 1980's courts came across many cases in which profiling was mentioned. Some cases had to decide if race played a factor or if fourth amendment rights were violated. A majority of the cases were thrown out if the defendant gave consent to a search. Most defendants in that case fit the Airport Drug
Courier perfectly. Even afterwards the Supreme Court wouldn't mention profiling as an accepted practice in law enforcement. The courts don't even include race as the debate outcry would be so great, they simply avoid the issue altogether. The third chapter explains how the Drug Courier profile evolved into
the
Highway Courier profile. This profile is the one used to detect drug traffickers who transport and sell narcotics. This began during the Nixon years and began to fade during the Carter years. Reagan revived the policies and tactics used by Nixon, for example, laws allowing forfeiture of property and phone taps. Beginning in the early 1980's the
Florida Highway Patrol started to stop motorists simply because they fit the checklist.
Stopping a person on the freeway was more of a violation of rights because there isn't any reasonable cause being used. Yet, stopping a citizen for a traffic violation allowed for the trooper to ask for consent to search the vehicle. With a driver's license and vehicle registration the officer could check criminal history. If the officer was to call in a drug-sniffing dog it would be a violation of rights. These three specific chapters only tell a small part of the story of the history of racial profiling. It would really help the students who are studying criminal justice a great deal. It is also a great source for a paper and great reading for those interested in criminology. The insight in this book offers plenty of facts for those studying psychology as well.