Drugs, Police & the Law: Racial Profiling

[sandra]

Racial profiling is the practice of stopping, searching or targeting for investigation an individual on the basis of race, national origin or ethnicity. Rates of drug use or drug selling are no greater for members of minorities than for non-minorities, yet minorities are stopped, searched, arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated at far greater rates than whites. In addition, persons of color are typically sentenced to longer jail and prison terms than white counterparts convicted of identical offenses.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures..." The expansion of police powers as part of the war on drugs has been one of the most significant challenges to the integrity of the Fourth Amendment.