Today almost half the 50 biggest cities and hundreds of smaller towns keep and analyze such records.
Police defend their practices as professional, calculated crime-stopping.
Minority advocates charge bias. Public opinion polls show most Americans believe so-called racial profiling is a widespread wrong. That's because there is no agreement about what racial profiling looks like on paper, or how to measure it. Advocates on all sides had hoped cold, hard facts would settle anecdotal accusations of profiling once and for all. The truth, however, like race itself in the United States, is beyond simple black and white.