The Battle Over Racial Profiling

March 22, 2004

Police officers from New Jersey to California face an unrelenting assault from anti-police activists. The battle being waged against the police is a well organized strategy involving multiple fronts. But the strongest weapon in the anti-police arsenal, able to cause the most damage and drive a wedge in police-community relations, is the baseless charge of systematic racial profiling.

Undoubtedly, America has had to come to terms with her own mea culpa regarding inequality and racial bigotry. However, even decades after the civil rights movement, American police officers have been left holding the bag. The fact that police departments around the country have gone to great lengths to hire and promote based on diversity is of no consequence. A charge of racism against the police is all one needs to get the attention of the ACLU, the Justice Department, or the editors of major newspapers.

A few years back, the term racial profiling was devised to describe the practice where race is used as the primary factor in targeting criminal behavior. Racial profiling became the watchword of the day and a national phenomenon. Conspiracy theorists could not have dreamed up a more widespread epidemic as police critics from coast to coast complained of this deplorable plot. The political implications were staggering, and very few leaders in the highest levels of government are willing to question it today. Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, George W. Bush, and John Ashcroft have at least one thing in common: all launched crusades against this enigma. It’s an enigma because empirical research has yet to prove that racial profiling, to the extent that it has been reported, even exists.

Police officers have an indispensable ally in their effort to spread the truth and repudiate the myth of racial profiling: Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute. As the author of ''Are Cops Racist? How the War Against the Police Harms Black Americans,'' she explains how the junk science--first used to declare New Jersey State Troopers guilty of racial profiling--has been debunked. The 1999 study that ignited the controversy had major flaws and failed to establish a violator benchmark; that is, the rate of lawbreaking among a particular group. A subsequent study exonerated the troopers when it found that black drivers were stopped less than their speeding behavior would predict.

However, the demoralizing effect on the troopers continued to linger. Mac Donald cites the following statistics: ''At the height of the drug war in 1988, the [New Jersey] troopers filed 7,400 drug charges from the turnpike, most of those from consent searches; in 2000, they filed 370 drug charges…Murder jumped 65 percent in Newark, a major destination of drug traffickers, between 2000 and 2001.''

Facts can get in the way of a good news story. The firestorm, fueled by media hype and politics, has yet to be doused by the truth. The California Penal Code now defines racial profiling, and officers are required by state law to participate in expanded training. An officer without a racist bone in his body sits in a classroom feeling like a guy who never drank attending an AA meeting. It may be the classic example of a solution looking for a problem. In my opinion, based on actual experience, the overwhelming majority of men and women entering law enforcement intend to harass criminals, not minorities.

Sergeant Carl Fabbri has worked in many of San Francisco’s toughest neighborhoods. Currently working in the Bayview District, Sgt. Fabbri knows the ''players,'' and the ''players'' know him. I asked him to weigh in on the matter, and here’s what he had to say: ''Police officers have a unique instinct, sometimes called a ‘sixth sense,’ that alerts us to danger. We rely on it to keep us alive. This ‘sixth sense’ is developed from years of experience dealing with thieves, drug dealers, parolees, and gang members. We frequently ask questions like ‘Do you have any weapons on you?’ We know the answer will be ‘no’ almost every time but that's not why we ask. We ask because it gives us an opportunity to see how they react to the question...to see their body language...to study their eyes. More often than not, our instincts are right on.

''Our profession is under intense scrutiny from coast to coast. Some cops are ignoring the warning signs, the ‘sixth sense,’ because they fear citizen complaints and lawsuits. Worse yet, some cops have taken the ‘do nothing/do nothing wrong’ attitude. Given the political climate we're working in, can you blame them? Criminals terrorizing the neighborhoods love to see the ‘do nothing wrong’ cops patrolling the neighborhoods. It doesn't take a criminologist to realize how the extreme scrutiny we're currently experiencing will result in increased crime rates and put officer safety in jeopardy.

''Since we hold the power to use deadly force and deprive people of their freedom, the work of police officers has to be scrutinized. There is no valid argument against police accountability. Unfortunately, the pendulum continues to swing too far to the left, and there's no sign of it swinging back anytime soon. The solution is unclear at this point. Restoring the public's confidence in our profession is our best option. This will only be accomplished by educating the public, political leaders, and the media on what's really going on in the trenches of the war on crime.”

The collateral damage associated with the anti-racial profiling campaigns can be found in communities that can least afford it. Inner city, law-abiding citizens suffer when false information and racially charged rhetoric become the order of the day. Conspiracy theorists who came up empty trying to prove the racial profiling hypothesis may want to turn their focus toward those who profit from ''de-policing'' in America. Police officers and honest citizens could use the reprieve.

Michael Nevin, Jr.