Racial Profiling Argumentative

Research Methodology of Racial Profiling

The problem of racial discrimination is one of the most difficult and painful issues of humanity. In the U.S. it appeared in the late XV century, when Europeans arrived to the continent. Since that time racial discrimination, as well as racial profiling, remain a burning issue of American Justice System. Racial profiling might be called any action used to suppress an individual. Racial profiling presupposes stops and arrests based on racial and ethnic stereotypes, rather than on the plausible suspicion. It is worth mentioning that it affects not only its direct victims, but the whole society. For that reason, hundred of researchers try their best to create research methodologies that would help finding out whether the notion of racial profiling occurs at police departments.

After making a detailed analysis of Everett Police Department, it was decided that descriptive analysis might turn out to be one of the most successful methods of research. The matter is that there always exist some documents concerning arrests and criminals. For that reason, it might be not difficult to examine whether policemen stopped people of a particular race or ethnicity. In order to perform this method of analysis, person should take the data and analyze the percentage of arrested Afro-Americans, Lationos, comparing to arrests of whites. While discussing the driving population’s stops by police and usage of descriptive method of research, Brian Withrow (2011) points out: “African-Americans, when compared to their overall proportion of the driving population, are often over-represented in stops. This appears to suggest that African-American drivers are more likely to be stopped because they are African-American” (Withrow, 2011, p. 58).

In conclusion, it should be stated that racial profiling becomes a longstanding problem of the U.S. Police Departments. There exist a number of different approaches that might be used to find it out. Descriptive analysis is one of the most suitable methods that might be applied for Everett Police Department. The matter is that it allows finding out the percentage of arrests due to race or ethnicity quickly and accurately.