Even taking into account the demographics of each police precinct and the crime rate by race, the report found black New Yorkers were still twice as likely to be stopped and frisked as whites. The disparity by race in arrests, convictions, and jail sentences will be exacerbated - and perhaps feed stereotypes that created the disparity in the first place. Deteriorating police and community relations, of course, are the destructive byproduct of this depressing formula. The need for law-enforcement agencies to collect and make public data about their work is most important in repairing damage done by racial profiling. Strong public interest in evaluating the work of police and duplicating the recent research can help root out irrational or pernicious police practices.
Society gets the type of policing it demands.
It is our civic responsibility to make certain political leaders react constructively to these new findings, support further research, and demand law enforcement that focuses on individual suspicion - not group stereotypes. Jeffrey Prescott is a staff attorney with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.