In the book, author Rudolph Alexander, Jr., associate professor of social work at Ohio State University, examined 1996 U.S. crime statistics for the eight most serious crimes, called index crimes. The arguments for targeting African Americans are weak and unsupported.
Many traffic stops based on racial profiling involve suspicions of illegal drugs in the vehicle.
But even then, profiling of blacks is not warranted, Alexander said. Alexander emphaszed that he is not seriously proposing racial profiling of whites. Instead, he is attacking the theory that profiling is appropriate for blacks or any racial or ethnic group. But racial profiling is based on the faulty assumption that all blacks should be considered criminal suspects. The problem is compounded because of disagreements about the state of race relations in the United States.