“The better police practices of the future will focus on our greater humanity. We must learn again to believe in others, to learn not merely to accept or tolerate our differences, but to respect and revere them. We have to see each other as resources to be used, not abused, for the collective good of our communities. The system should be about constructing and maintaining socially healthy environments. It takes a critical mass of the population working in unity to produce truly safe and serene living conditions.
“In a society predicated on the preservation of rights for the individual, we must constantly reinforce and develop our relationships with others. We all have the right to freedom and tranquility, to work and free expression. But with every right comes an accompanying obligation. Each of us is therefore obligated to the other. Each one of us can make a difference. We must accept, however, that responsibility not only begins with us, but remains with us. It cannot be relinquished or transferred.
“We stand on the precipice of an intellectual revolution. Our police departments must be fully integrated into our communities, with citizens and professional police personnel working side by side to solve the crime and disorder issues facing our society. The English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon once said, ‘It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be except by means which have never yet been tried.’ It’s time to try something new. There are smatterings of police professionals who are willing to champion new and innovative concepts and who are no longer satisfied with the status quo. As these people go about their jobs within the criminal justice system, we can only hope their passion and enthusiasm will infect others. But there must also be passion within the community. There must be a fire for justice, for peace, for what’s right, for everyone.” With that, the chief stepped back, paused a moment and said, “I want to thank each and every one of you for being here tonight. Thank you for listening.”
The room came spontaneously to its feet. Thunderous applause went on and on. Chief Dylan stood there acknowledging the crowd, humbly accepting the ovation. I was beside myself, but I didn’t think I was alone. When the cheering subsided, the Mistress of Ceremonies told the crowd that the chief had agreed to answer a few questions. The audience wasted no time getting to the issues that had been plaguing the community these past years.
A young African-American gentleman stood and posed the first question. “Chief Dylan,” he began, “as you know, the police department has a poor reputation for being fair or objective. Many of us feel—strongly, I might add—that the practice of racial profiling is prominent and that minorities are subjected to unfair treatment. The police have been involved in shootings, beatings, and unreasonable searches and arrests. Also, it seems that since 9/11, profiling has been accepted as necessary and good. Could you give us your thoughts on this?”
The chief walked around to the front of the podium and looked directly at the young man. “Profiling is a real point of contention with me, so forgive me, but this isn’t likely to be a short answer. You see,” he said, “the police may be the most highly scrutinized and criticized members of the criminal justice community, and they may also be the group with the greatest potential for abuse within the system. Unfortunately, there are officers who have engaged in behaviors that don’t serve the people or the profession well. The media is glutted with examples where people have witnessed officers using excessive or unnecessary force. And stories of corruption, malfeasance and cover-ups abound.
“Part of the problem is that, when police executives are confronted with police improprieties, they tend to dismiss them as isolated incidents. But the last time I checked, the word ‘isolated’ meant something that occurs only once or at least very seldom, apart from normal events. The information that’s available regarding police impropriety refutes the notion that these are somehow isolated incidents. I’m not even accounting for all the things you, as citizens, never see or hear about.
“Profiling would be one of those ‘isolated incidents’ you’ve heard about. It’s a reality. It’s practiced in one form or another around the globe. And not just in policing, but in every walk of life. However, it has a more highly visible manifestation of social distrust in the world of policing. Our societies lead us to feel certain ways about particular groups or classes of people. We then attribute certain characteristics or attributes to that group, evoking certain predictable and socially conditioned responses.
“Our perceptions about various groups or classes allow us to use our feelings as criteria for suspicion. I don’t think many of you would deny that people of color, generally speaking, are—by the dominant culture, anyway—thought to be more likely to engage in criminal activity than non-minorities. European-Americans casually accept as fact that African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to engage in behaviors considered inappropriate than their European-American counterparts. Now, you may not personally subscribe to this belief, but it’s difficult to deny that, on the whole, non-minorities tend to be suspicious that people of color, especially in areas where,” he held up his fingers as if making a quotation sign, “‘they don’t belong,’ are up to no good.
“Much minority targeting is circular in nature. The police target groups they believe are likely to have criminal records. There are currently more minorities per capita with criminal records; therefore, more minorities are targeted. Also, poor people are targeted, and more minorities tend to be poor. These circumstances contribute to racial profiling and the assumption that minorities are more likely to be involved in crime.
“I read an article about profiling the other day. In it was a statement that police officers are trained to investigate things that are outside the norm. Officers are trained to look for suspicious circumstances and to take action. For example, an officer passes a building where the lights are normally left on and the windows closed. Then one night he finds the lights off and a ground-level window open. This could be a suspicious circumstance, and a good officer will check it out.
“The difficulty for me is that police officers are doing the same thing with people. If officers see a person of color in a neighborhood where minorities aren’t known to live, they generally believe the circumstance gives them the right to detain, question, and search the person. The rationale is that it’s a suspicious circumstance and they have to find out if something is wrong. You see, they’ve been trained to check it out.
“When I was coming up through the ranks, we were taught that black and Latino males were the biggest potential drug couriers. We were told what age to look for, the types of vehicles they were likely to drive, and what we should look for once we got inside the car. All the profiles focused on people of color. We were instructed to use ‘pretextual stops’ to make contact, that is, to find any little thing to justify the stop, like a broken tail light, failure to use a turn signal, license plate lamp out—anything.
“We can’t allow race to be a motivation for stopping people. Using color as a suspicious circumstance is fundamentally incongruent with the principles of a democratic society. Color should never be considered suspicious and it shouldn’t be accepted as a basis for stopping a vehicle or an individual. It should never be a criterion for investigating a person to determine if criminal activity is afoot. The very term ‘racial profiling’ means that little other than race is considered. There are legitimate methods of profiling, but when you’re talking about racial profiling, you’re talking about profiling ethnicity. That’s racist and it’s discriminatory. Call it what you like, ‘A rose by any other name is just as sweet.’ If it’s ‘racial profiling,’ it’s racism. It has no place in policing, the justice system, or a democratic society.
“Unfortunately,