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Richard Ram
Mrs. Stegner
ERWC Period 0
29 October 2015
Racial Profiling Protects Lives
Racial profiling sounds like a horrible thing. It can be described as an instance in which
people accuse minorities of crimes based on their race or looks. Instead, however, it is used as a
security measure to help law enforcement to create better assumptions when other lives could be
at stake. The main reason that law enforcement uses racial profiling is because these races have a
history of violence and doing things in the past, and even in the present, that law enforcement
and the public associates with breaking the law. There is risk in forgetting things, and now the
present generations of these races have to suffer from those past decisions. This might sound like
a cruel and unjust punishment, but it is a necessary decision that those in public safety have to
make. Racial profiling is necessary to ensure national security and allows law enforcement to
save time, and even lives, by making assumptions when finding criminals.
One reason why racial profiling is necessary because it helps secure nation security. An
Israeli airline has a policy of singling out young Arabs for extensive search procedures
(Ethnic), which has allowed the airline to go thirty years without a hijacking, even with the
ongoing war in the Middle East. In this case, because most hijackings that have occurred in the
past had been carried out by Arabs, the extensive searches on only one race that is known to
cause troubles in airlines has allowed this airline to be a lot safer for the passengers. Some may
say that Ethnic profiling is immoral but since other security measures have failed we need to
use whatever tactics we can to prevent terrorism (Ethnic). Security measures like metal

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detectors and random extensive searched are not working because terrorist are still finding ways
to get past our most advanced securities.
Another reason why racial profiling is necessary because it allows law enforcement to
save time by being able to make more assumptions when finding criminals on a day to day basis.
Racial profiling can help law enforcement to find a possible suspect based on racial cues.
statistically certain ethnicities are more likely to commit certain types of crimes than others
(Racial). Also it should be noted that racial profiling is not just focused on minorities. It can also
mean that caucasians are subject to racial profiling because they are more likely to do certain
crimes than other races in certain areas. Again, this kind of tactic of understanding the
demographics of the area that law enforcement are investigating allows them to find criminals
before or during a crime. Jack Dunphy, who is a columnist and police officer in the Los Angeles
Police Department, stated that police officers rely on information that may be coincidental to
skin color, but they do not rely on it (Should). This means that police officers do racial profile
because it helps them do their job of protecting the public and saves them time, but that it is also
not the only means of finding a criminal.
There is no stopping people from racial profiling, it is human nature to do so. The only
thing the public can do is to allow law enforcement to do whatever they can to protect as many
lives as possible. They can save so many more people by stopping criminals before they act. By
stopping or even watching suspicious people more closely, law enforcement is able to save lives.
That is why racial profiling is necessary to ensure national security because it allows law
enforcement to save time and make more assumptions when finding criminals.
Works Cited

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Ethnic Profiling is just a mean of Preventing Terrorism. Idebate. Securing Liberty. Web. 15
October 2015.

Racial Profiling Pros and Cons List. OccupyTheory. OccupyTheory. 3 February 2015. Web. 15
October 2015.

Should Racial Profiling Be Accepted as a Law Enforcement Practice? Jack Dunphy. ProCon. 29
May 2006. Web. 15 October 2015.