Criminal Profiling

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Through the years there have been many allegations of profiling misuse against police departments. Profiling aids law enforcement in solving crimes by narrowing the field of suspects in the investigation by indicating the type of person that most likely committed the crime. This analysis is based on certain characteristics of behavior and personality deducted from the information gathered at the crime scene. I this essay I will examine racial and criminal profiling by law enforcement. Criminal profiling is a legitimate law enforcement tool used for crime detection. Criminal profiling is used to help identify indicators that suggest criminal activity. It is an effective tool in determining if a crime occurs in a certain way and if the crime is done by a specific type of person. Issues arise because there is always a specific type of ethnic group that is identified as the top offender for a specific type of crime. It is also said to be often confused with racial profiling because the criminal profiles generated by this system often…show more content…
It is a problem that is both immoral and illegal that creates a great divide between law enforcement and members of the community. It is seen as a discriminatory unfair tool because it engenders decision making based on biases and not probable cause or reasonable suspicion. By ascribing certain behaviors to a race ethnicity and/or religion, the officer is simply looking at the crime not from its criminal aspect but for its racial aspect and considering race as the main factor of the crime. This is based on assumptions that race is a main factor in a person’s behavior. This type of profiling is not specific to any one country race or sex and it can happen to anyone at any time no matter where one

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