There is some confusion surrounding the Ethical Principles that govern Racial Profiling.  To specifically target members of an ethnic group for suspicion of certain crimes is not ethically acceptable.  The reason is: one individual's conduct (or a group's conduct) is not necessarily indicative of the expected conduct of other members of that same group.  However, while race should not be used as grounds for prediction of a person's conduct, nor for suspicion, it may be used as a description of a specific individual or group of people sought by Law Enforcement for criminal activity.

Imagine standing in line at a security check at one of the nation's busiest airports.  Ahead of you is a group of men who could be from the Middle East.  The group reaches the security officers who subject the men to a search far more intense and harsh than anyone else in the line.  Do you feel sympathy, relief, or both?  If you feel relief, are you supporting racial profiling?

I will argue that you are not.  Even a person who strongly opposes racial profiling (correctly defined), could support certain terrorism-prevention tactics that focus on specific segments of the population.


There is some confusion surrounding the Ethical Principles that govern Racial Profiling.  Part of the reason for this confusion lies in two different meanings given to the term "probable cause:"

i. Technically, "probable cause" applies when officers have valid reasons to suspect that an individual has committed a crime, although they cannot yet prove this.
 
ii. Colloquially, the term "probable cause" is often used to describe a minor violation serving as grounds to stop a person whom the officer suspects of a more serious violation but has no grounds for that suspicion.  For example, an officer uses a broken taillight violation as "probable cause" to stop an individual to investigate a possible DUI or narcotics violation, when nothing about that individual's conduct has given the officer reason to suspect the DUI or narcotics.

Let us examine 3 different scenarios around the second use of the term "probable cause."

1. It is clearly ethical for officers primarily concerned with narcotics or DUI to stop all drivers with broken taillights.

2. It is also ethical to randomly stop drivers with broken taillights and check the possibility of other infringements.
 
3. The ethical problem arises when an officer targets a specific ethnic or socioeconomic group, age, or sex for broken taillights.

On the one hand, the person violated a regulation by driving with a broken taillight.  The officer is thus free to stop the person and, while doing so, to conduct a cursory investigation for other possible violations.  On the other hand, the ethical question arises because by stopping only those taillight violators of a specific ethnic group, the officer is acting on an assumption that a member of this specific group is more likely to violate laws governing DUI and narcotics than members of other groups.  This assumption could be based on personal bias, in which case it is clearly unethical.


But what if the officer's assumption is based not on bias but on "statistics?"  Is that unethical, too?  Assuming there is a credible statistic suggesting that members of a particular ethnic group constituting a very small percentage of the population are responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of a given crime, is it ethically acceptable (leave aside the law) to specifically target members of that group for minor regulatory infringements in the hope of discovering allegations for the larger crime associated with members of that group?

The answer is "no;" it is not ethically acceptable.  The reason is: one individual's conduct (or a group's conduct) is not necessarily indicative of the expected conduct of other members of that same group.  All individuals are free to make their own choices and are, therefore, held accountable for the choices they make.  The history of an individual's conduct can only be used to predict his or her own future choices, not those of other members of his/her group.
 
Statistics are the accumulation of a sample of people's conduct.  But that sample either excludes the individuals concerned or includes them in an extremely diluted form.  Suspicion should only result from a suspect's choices expressed in word, action, or attitude.  Suspicion should never be based on an ethnic group to which the "suspect" belongs.  Individuals can only be responsible for impressions of suspicion they create by their own choices.  They are not responsible for the historic choices of the group to which they belong by reasons of birth, culture, or religion.
 
If statistical information is not an ethically valid basis to profile specific ethnic groups for suspicion of certain crimes, then what is the basis to target people from the Middle East for more thorough security checks at airports than those administered to members of other ethnic groups?


While race should not be used as grounds for prediction of a person's conduct nor for suspicion, it may be used as a description of a specific individual or group of people sought by Law Enforcement for criminal activity.  Security officials at airports and other officers searching for terrorists do not stop people based on suspicion but rather based on intelligence information that there are potential terrorists at large, and that they belong to an identifiable ethnic or religious group.  This in no way implies that all members of that group are terrorists. It merely suggests all the wanted terrorists are from that ethnic group.  It is therefore inefficient and dangerous to dissipate limited resources on groups or individuals who do not fit the description of the wanted terrorists.

This does create the problem of certain loyal and innocent citizens and residents being subjected to a potentially humiliating experience.  It is vital that officers are well trained to ameliorate this effect through sensitive handling of all people with an extra dose of human dignity.  The public, too, should be trained to be tolerant of the necessity to target people who more closely resemble the sought-after terrorists than those who bear no resemblance to them at all.

In the fight against terrorism, law enforcement is seeking members of known groups with declared intent to harm, kill, and commit crimes.  Using any descriptive profile to identify possible members of those groups within the bounds of the law is ethical.  Law Enforcement, however, must be vigilant to prevent a spillover into legitimizing racial profiling as a tactic in conventional crime prevention.