Racial profiling as collective definition

Journal article | Zeitschriftenartikel

Economists and other interested academics have committed significant time and effort to developing a set of circumstances under which an intelligent and circumspect form of racial profiling can serve as an effective tool in crime finding-the specific objective of finding criminal activity afoot. In turn, anti-profiling advocates tend to focus on the immediate efficacy of the practice, the morality of the practice, and/or the legality of the practice. However, the tenor of this opposition invites racial profiling proponents to develop more surgical profiling techniques to employ in crime finding. In the article, I review the literature on group distinction to discern its relevance to the practice and study of racial profiling. I argue that the costs of racial profiling extend beyond inefficient policing and the humiliation of law-abiding minority pedestrians and drivers. Racial profiling is simultaneously a process of perception and articulation of relative human characteristics (both positive and negative); it binds and reifies the concepts of race and criminality, fixing them into the subconscious of the profiled, the profiler, and society at large.

Object Details

• ISSN: 2183-2803
• Extent: Seite(n): 52-59
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Status: Veröffentlichungsversion; begutachtet (peer reviewed)

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Social Inclusion, 2(3)

Classification and Topics

• Subject: Soziale Probleme und Sozialdienste ; Soziologie, Anthropologie ; Kriminalsoziologie, Rechtssoziologie, Kriminologie ; soziale Probleme ; Rassismus ; Kriminalität ; Soziologie ; Polizei ; Gruppenbildung ; Ethnizität ; Exklusion ; Inklusion ; soziale Integration ; Praxis ; Rhetorik

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Gardner, Trevor G.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (when): 2014

Further information

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v2i3.126
• Last update: 21.06.2024, 4:26 PM CEST