Journal article
Rethinking Profiling: A Cognitive Model of Bias and Its Legal Implications
Oregon Law Review, Vol.86, pp.657-1201
01 Jan 2007
Abstract
Sometimes referred to as "Driving While Black," but actually encompassing any time that law enforcement uses a person's race as the basis for acting, racial profiling has become a matter of serious public concern. 1 Academic debate of profiling has taken a variety of forms but often returns to a basic question regarding the rationality of police officers' behavior. Critics argue that profiling is an irrational behavior motivated by racial stereotypes, which results in disproportionate harm to minority communities. 2 Supporters respond that profiling is an efficient use of limited enforcement resources, and that profiling rests on a sound statistical foundation demonstrating that certain minorities are likely to engage in illegal activity at levels higher than other groups. 3 Responding to this debate, regulators have spent substantial resources in an attempt to determine the soundness of the statistical support for profiling. Interestingly, the debate over the behavior of profiling has not been accompanied by a discussion of the way in which race actually is used to determine whether or not individuals are likely to engage in illegal activity. Rather, most commentators proceed from a basic model of profiling that sees law enforcement officers as rational individuals applying statistical information to the goals of enforcing the law. 4 According to this view, the problem lies either in the invalidity of officers' information or officers' learned distaste for certain minorities. 5 The purpose of this Article is to suggest a different vision of profiling and to discuss the implications ...
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Details
- Title
- Rethinking Profiling: A Cognitive Model of Bias and Its Legal Implications
- Creators
- ALEX Geisinger
- Publication Details
- Oregon Law Review, Vol.86, pp.657-1201
- Publisher
- University of Oregon Oregon Law ReviewOregon Law Review
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Thomas R. Kline School of Law
- Identifiers
- 991020542611604721