Measuring Racial Profiling
نویسندگان
چکیده
What if racial profiling were useful? Even, perhaps, very useful? Are the costs of racial profiling so significant that racial profiling should be banned? Courts and commentators do not ask these questions; indeed, they rarely, if ever, acknowledge that racial profiling may be useful. This paper explores what costs police would have to justify, and how they might do so in order to use racial profiling legally. Using race as a part of a profile of criminal has some efficiency value; it is not solely (or even at all) about racial animus. Race is a marker of criminal behavior; it would be miraculous if it where not. Height, weight, gender, hair style, ear piercings, all of these characteristics almost surely delineate some difference in the commission rate of at least one crime. This is, essentially, a mathematical truism: race and crime are not independent. Because race is “useful” when “useful” is defined as “information worth more than zero,” it is important to move beyond the initial question — is it useful — to the more important question — how useful is it? What do we give up in allowing or banning racial profiling? What are courts missing when they discuss racial profiling? This paper is an attempt to get at least some of the empirics correct regarding the direct costs and benefits of racial 1This project has been support by NSF Law & Social Science and Measurement, Methodology & Statistics Sections Grant no. 1024389. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of Professor John Hobbins at the McGill Law Library, for kindly providing work space and access to materials in Summer 2010.
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The Efficacy and Effect of Racial Profiling: A Mathematical Modeling Approach
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