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Racial Profiling
Definition
Racial profiling refers to the use by the police of generalizations based on race, ethnicity, religion or national origin, rather than individual behaviour, specific suspect descriptions or accumulated intelligence, as the basis for suspicion in directing discretionary law enforcement actions such as stops, identity checks, questioning or searches among other tactics. Racial or ethnic profiling is distinct from ‘criminal profiling’, which relies on forms of statistical categorization of groups of people according to identifiable characteristics believed to correlate with certain behaviours. Profiles of serial killers, hijackers and drug couriers have been developed over time. However, racial or ethnic profiling differs from criminal profiling in its use of race, ethnicity, religion or national origin rather than behaviour as the basis for differential treatment. Racial/ethnic profiling thus ...
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