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Law Enforcement Profiling in Public Policy

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Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance
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Synonyms

Cops; Police; Stereotypes

Definitions

Law enforcement profiling: targeting individuals for suspicions of crime based on race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin.

Introduction

Following a series of high-profile shooting incidents and aggressive police measures, departments throughout the country faced greater public scrutiny of their tactics including profiling measures and increased pressure from the public. This chapter will look at racial profiling, public perceptions of treatment by police, traffic incidents using racial profiles, and a series of case studies on profiling by police departments.

Racial Profiling

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) defines racial profiling as a practice that targets people for suspicion of crime based on their race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin (NIJ 2013a). A 2003 Gallup survey found that 59 % of respondents felt racial profiling was common (Ludwig 2013). A fall 2015 poll from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human...

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Correspondence to Elizabeth Wheat .

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Wheat, E. (2016). Law Enforcement Profiling in Public Policy. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1047-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_1047-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

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