Racial Profiling? No, It's WORSE Than That

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sat Jan 31, 2009 at 13:30

Half a million times last year, New York City police stopped and frisked individuals on the street. Eighty percent of the time, those individuals were Black or Latino - groups that make up just over half the city's population. Whites comprise 44 percent of New Yorkers, but made up only ten percent of the people stopped and frisked by police. The Center for Constitutional Rights says that's hard evidence of racial profiling and stopping people without reasonable grounds for suspicion, violations of the 4th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The data on stop-and-frisks was compiled by the NYPD, itself, but it took ten years to force the cops to make the numbers public - proving, in a real sense, that lots of cops would prefer to be in the "secret police."

Over a period of three-and-a-half years New York City police made 1.6 million stops on the streets - many of which involved stopping the same people in the same neighborhoods over and over again, even after finding they were engaged in nothing illegal. In fact, one of the most disturbing patterns of police behavior was the "remarkably low rates of stops-and-frisks" that resulted in arrests or the seizure of weapons or other contraband. In other words, in most of the cases cops were bothering Black and Latino pedestrians who were just going about their business.

According to Amnesty International:

Racial profiling occurs when race is used by law enforcement or private security officials, to any degree, as a basis for criminal suspicion in non-suspect specific investigations.

But this is not what Ford is describing.  Stopping the same person over and over again is not investigation.  It's harassment on its very face, which almost inevitably becomes intimidation.  Looked at collectively, what Ford is describing--quite accurately, I must hasten to add--is racial harassment, racial intimidation, and racial aggression.  To continue to call it "racial profiling" in light of the evidence Ford is pointing to greatly minimizes and sanitizes what is actually going on.  In fact, the CCR report Ford refers to resulted from a lawsuit alleging a pervasive pattern of suspicionless stops.

Consider how Wikipedia describes "racial profiling":

Racial profiling is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a "predictable" manner. A similar concept to the former is Offender Profiling. Toward the end of the 20th century in the United States, the practice became controversial among the general public as the potential for abuse by law enforcement came to light.

Civil rights advocates are against the use of racial profiling tactics by the police. Some argue that the disproportionate number of convicted minorities is due to "racial profiling".

Conversely, it is argued that including race as one of the several factors in suspect profiling is generally supported by the law enforcement community within the Western world. It is claimed that profiling based on any characteristic is a time-tested and universal police tool, and that excluding race as a factor is illogical.

Note how the more modest, more passive, bureaucratic claim of "racial profiling"--not harrasment, intimidation, or aggression--is readily converted into a debatable proposition.  This happens precisely because the problem is misidentified and misnamed.

In contrast to this, here is what the CCR report said, regarding the case which resulted in the court order that made the data available to CCR [emphasis added]:

The order was the result of a discovery request, served on the City of New York in April 2008, seeking production of the data as part of an ongoing civil rights lawsuit filed on January 31, 2008. CCR filed the lawsuit on behalf of plaintiffs who allege they were illegally stopped and frisked on one or more occasions by NYPD officers without reasonable suspicion and because of their race. The lawsuit, Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al., filed, alleges that the NYPD engages in racial profiling and suspicionless stop-and-frisks of law-abiding New York City residents. The named plaintiffs in the litigation - David Floyd, Lalit Clarkson, David Ourlicht and Deon Dennis - represent hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who over the past several years have been stopped on the way to work, in front of their homes or just walking down the street without any cause, primarily because of their race or ethnicity.

Here is CCR's summary of what it found:

The NYPD's use of stop-and-frisk is on the rise.
In 2005, the NYPD made less than 400,000 stops in comparison to a projected 543,982 stops by the end of 2008. Over a period of 3.5 years, the NYPD has initiated nearly 1,600,000 stops of New Yorkers.

The NYPD continues to disproportionately stop-and-frisk Black and Latino individuals.
From 2005 to 2008, approximately 80 percent of total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who comprise 25 percent and 28 percent of New York City's total population, respectively. During this same time period, only approximately 10 percent of stops were of Whites, who comprise 44 percent of the city's population.

Blacks and Latinos are more likely to be frisked after a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites.
Between 2005 and June 2008, only 8 percent of Whites stopped were also frisked, while 85 percent of Blacks and Latinos who were stopped were also frisked.

Blacks and Latinos are more likely to have physical force used against them during a NYPD-initiated stop than Whites.
In addition to rising rates of NYPD use of physical force, the data reveals that a disproportionate number of Blacks and Latinos who are stopped have physical force used against them. In 2005, 19 percent of Whites stopped had physical force used against them , compared to 26 percent of Latinos and Blacks; by the first half of 2008, 18 percent of Whites, compared to 24 percent of Latinos and Blacks, had physical force used against them during NYPD-initiated encounters.

Stops-and-frisks result in a minimal weapons yield and/or contraband yield.
The data demonstrates a paucity of stops resulting in weapons and/or contraband yield across racial lines. Of the cumulative number of stops made since 2005, only 2.6 percent resulted in the discovery of a weapon or contraband. Though rates of contraband yielded were minute across racial groups, stops made of Whites were slightly more likely to yield contraband.

The proportion of stops-and-frisks by race does not correspond with rates of arrest.
Arrest rates during the period of 2005 through the first half of 2008 were low for all racial groups at between 4 and 6 percent of all NYPD-initiated stops during that period.

More specifically, regarding the use of force, CCR reported [emphasis added]:

5. Use of Physical Force

The UF-250 form describes the use of physical force, as the use of the following weapons and tactics:

   * Hands
   * Suspect on ground
   * Suspect against wall
   * Weapon drawn
   * Weapon pointed
   * Baton
   * Handcuffs
   * Pepper Spray
   * Other

Physical force was self-reported by NYPD officers in 23 percent, or 373,233, of the 1,600,000 stops conducted by the NYPD between 2005 and June 2008. The use of physical force by police officers has a greater likelihood of occurring than arrest or the issuance of a summons combined. The percentage of stops resulting in the use of physical force by an officer was 25 percent in 2005; 20 percent in 2006; 23 percent in 2007; and, 24 percent in the first half of 2008....

6. Physical Force Resulting in Arrest

Between 2005 and June 2008, the mean percentage of stops involving the use of physical force by the officer leading to an arrest was 12 percent. In other words, 88 percent, or 328,589 of the 373,233 encounters in which physical force was used, did not result in arrest....

There is an evident racial disparity in the use of physical force used by NYPD officers during stops. In 2005, 19 percent of Whites stopped had physical force used against them, compared to 26 percent of Latinos and Blacks; in 2006, 15 percent of Whites, compared to 21 percent of Latinos and Blacks, endured physical force; in 2007, 18 percent of Whites, compared to 24 percent of Latinos and Blacks, had physical force used against them; and, in the first half of 2008, 18 percent of Whites, compared to 24 percent of Latinos and Blacks, had physical force used against them by the NYPD

This is, quite frankly a picture of a police state--millions of people stopped for no reason, and routinely manhandled, physically threatened or worse.  But for the most part, it's only experienced as such by blacks and Latinos.  That is the reality--a reality starkly reminiscent of apartheid South Africa.  Calling it "racial profiling" doesn't just under-state the problem, it seriously mis-states it.

The problem is not Glen Ford's.  The problem belongs to all of us who want to put an end to such practices, once and for all.  It's just that Glen is so forceful, passionate and relentless in laying out the reality, and that makes the contrast with the understatement of the problem as "racial profiling" all the more glaring.

So what is the real name we should use?  I don't know. "Racial intimidation" is good, but it's not police-specific, and, too, understates the problem, given the actual use of force that's often involved.  So this is something we need to discuss, and debate amongst ourselves.  One thing is for certain: we need to challenge the way in which such repressive practices have become completely normalized at the same time that America has elected its first black President.  There is a huge disconnect here.