Racial Profiling

Racial profiling has become a prominent issue in America. After the incident with Rodney King, more emphasis has been placed on profiling. According to news reports, Rodney King was driving down the street in his hometown of L.A. when several police officers stopped him solely of the color of his skin. There are many conflicting reports that state he was speeding doing about 100 mph before they stopped him. When he was stopped, he was pulled out of the car, the police proceeded to deliver 56 baton blows and six kicks to him. In a period of two minutes, King had 11 skull fractures, brain damage, and kidney damage. A man named George Holliday, standing near the sight videotaped the incident. Several months later, the police officers were cleared of criminal charges in this case. Racially bias policing exist almost everywhere in this country. America, the land of the free, home of the brave. In this nation people assume that they have equal rights, but do they? The declaration states that all men are created equal, but are they? Following the King incident new awareness had been raised. What predisposed issues were there that caused them to stop King at the particular time? There is not much difference between "racial profiling" and "racially biased policing". Racial profiling refers to and is frequently defined as law enforcement activities (e.g., detentions, arrests, searches) that are initiated solely based on race, and was limited to activities in context only of vehicle stops. That in turn ignored the potential abuse of power in the many other activities in which there could possibly be misconduct. Racially biased policing is when an officer uses more than a single factor when conducting biased law enforcement. For example, an officer might make a decision based on the neighborhood and the race of the person, the age of the car and or type of car and the race of the person, or the gender and the race of the person. Activities based on these sample pairs of