The Influence Of Racial Profiling

Now more than ever, we are constantly hearing stories about police brutality and unjustified shootings that occur across America. Some police departments are now required to complete racial profiling paperwork every time they have contact with a member of society. They record facts such as race, gender, reason for stop, and the outcome of the police encounter, i.e. citation, verbal warning. This is just one small step in making sure police officers do not abuse their authority and treat minorities unfairly. In a sense, it is a way of “policing the police.”
Racial profiling involves subjecting citizens to increased surveillance based on their racial factors rather than because of being reasonably suspicious. Racial profiling is something that occurs in many different careers. But when police are given power and discretion, if a person is racially profiled by them it can lead to a feeling of being harassed and can also cause a person to alienate themselves from the legal system and society. If a certain group experiences racial profiling for a long time it may cause these ethnic groups to lose their confidence in the police (Chan 2011).
When an officer unconsciously and automatically is influenced by the person’s race it can affect how the officer responds to the individual and treats the situation they are dealing with (Najdowski, Bottoms, & Goff, 2015). In regard to this, stereotypes are normally also automatically activated when a person does not know a lot of information about another individual, this could be the case for police officers because they do not have much time to process information (White,