Police, Race, and Bureaucracy: The Tango of Efficiency and Morality

Racial profiling is almost always analyzed with regard to its moral implications followed by efficiency and effectiveness arguments. Racism is defined by Hernandez-Murillo and Knowles as “the standard police practice of basing search decisions on the fit between the motorist and the descriptions of typical law breakers” (p.960). Risse and Zeckhauser (2004) build this definition further. They add that “(a) the use of race, ethnicity, or national origin with (b) the use of an individual’s behavior or information that helps apprehend someone who has been identified as being or having been engaged in criminal activity” (Risse & Zeckhauser, 2004, p.136). They suggest that (b) is often left off of racial profiling definitions while (a) is focused on to exclusivity.

According to Anwar and Fang (2006), the practice of racial profiling began in an attempt to block the drug flow from Miami to the Northeast. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles distributed a plan for police on “The Common Characteristics of Drug Couriers” which specifically mentioned race/ethnicity as a defining characteristic. Though the program was implemented with good intentions, the door was opened to troopers to act in racist manners against minorities.

Police officers are street-level bureaucrats who administer the law using their discretion. They must use their discretion when making traffic stops. While society idealizes police officers, they are in fact human and can make mistakes in judgment like anyone else. In Cops, Teachers, Counselors, a police officer judged a prostitute to be unfit to be a mother while another officer described how his partner encouraged racist behaviors towards an African American man walking down the street. Police officers do not always make the right decisions because they are bounded in their rationality and can only make the best decision with the most relevant information provided.

This brings us to the relevance of this literature review. Can police administrations justify the use of racial profiling as a tool in their drug regulation tactics? Can racial profiling be justified in the administration of drug trade restriction tactics used by police? Does an administration using racial profiling outweigh the moral costs? Do these tactics apply without racial prejudice? Can racial profiling and racist policing be separated? The literature available both support and reject racial profiling as a viable police tactic. Efficiency and financial arguments typically support profiling while moral arguments recommend elimination of racial profiling tactics or requirements of police to file paperwork recording the race of an individual.

The support for the use of racial profiling is both philosophical and analytical. The philosophical support is found in three different arguments: the utilitarian argument, the nonconsequentialist argument, and the self-interest argument. The analytical support is found through analyzing efficiency as a financial policy.

First the utilitarian argument, as explained by Risse and Zeckhauser (2004), which expresses favor for the suffering of a few for the good of many. Their article “Racial profiling” argues that the damage done to minorities is relatively modest and the benefits of profiling may outweigh the costs imposed on the minorities targeted. “The cost benefit assessment of racial profiling is the incremental increase in harm those acts impose, not the overall level of harm ostensibly associated with them” (Risse & Zeckhauser, 2004, p.149). Thus the authors exclude the historical relevance of profiling and focus only on the immediate gratifications achieved through profiling. However, the authors cite the utilitarian tactic claiming that if a better tactic existed, utilitarians would endorse it (Risse & Zeckhauser, 2004).

The nonconsequentialist argument ascertains that innocent non-threatening persons have a right not to be attacked, and everyone has a duty to refrain from attacking them. “If one distinguishes among police abuse the disproportionate use of race, and the use of race as such and even if the policy maker’s intent was innocuous, profiling negatively affects minorities and is thus discriminatory” (Risse & Zeckhauser, 2004, p. 153). However, in order to count as discrimination, it must seek or actually add to an oppressive relationship. As racial profiling only intends to divert and discourage crime, it does not carry the intent to add to that oppressive relationship, barring exceptions of rogue officers who directly seek to contribute to the oppressive relationship. Should profiling encroach upon moral rights, it is reasonable to think that such violations occur because it is “discriminatory in the pejorative sense” (Risse & Zeckhauser, 2004, p. 154). Pejorative discrimination is the special handling of individuals with the intention or the effect of maintaining or creating an oppressive relationship among that group of individuals.

Risse and Zeckhauser (2004) point to the best interests of minorities as support racial profiling. African Americans most often face black-on-black crime and within their demographic, the crimes are typically committed by the young against the older population. The authors suggest that minority parents should support profiling as a deterrent to keep young people away from illegal activities. The authors claim that the group should endure the short term costs of a life interrupted by frequent checks for the long-term benefit of reduced crime in areas overburdened with crime. However, this places an unequal burden on African Americans. “To justify the unequal burden to people…, the benchmark must be higher. We must require a strong urgency of imposing crime-fighting measures that include racial profiling.”

In Ward’s article “Race, Ethnicity, and Law Enforcement Profiling: Implications for Public Policy” (2002), he states that African Americas are more likely to be stopped than any other ethnic group. He references a Gallop survey in which 59% of adults agreed that police officers are more likely to stop minority motorists because membership in that race predisposes them to commit certain crimes. Of that group surveyed, 77% of blacks agreed as compared to 56% of whites, but 80% agreed in disapproval of the tactic (Ward, 2002). Attorney General Janet Reno recommended that local police use some method of collecting data on races of motorists stopped to identify officers that may need retraining.

Police organizations oppose this tactic against racial profiling. They cite the growing industry of tort lawyers who would make a living off lawsuits against police officers. The added costs of keeping a more extensive database were also cited. The city of Huston required officers to file paperwork containing data on race. As a result, officers stopped fewer motorists and consequently Huston lost significant revenue because the officers feared litigation for perceived racial profiling, whether it existed or not.

Policy analysis focuses on the “tension between efficiency and equity in public decision-making” (Myers, 2002, p. 287). The authors analyze the implications of Minnesota's pending bill that would require officers to collect racial data. The catch is "the need to respect the balance between the rights of all persons to be free from unreasonable governmental intrusions and law enforcement's need to enforce the law" (Myers, 2002, p. 289).

Myers analyzed the Minneapolis policy CODEFOR modeled after New York's COMPSTAT aimed to allocate police resources by mapping crime. The policy was substantially successful, even though it faced considerable controversy concerning possible racial profiling. Myers also analyzed St. Paul's policy to ask for consent before searches. The African American stops by police comprise 26 percent of stops but less than 11 percent of the African American population were over the age of 18 (Myers, 2002). He also fund that African Americans were composed 43 percent of all frisks and searches, citing rear view mirror and tail light malfunctions and cracked windshield. These expose the real problem of optimization – faults in rational choices in problems concerning race. The problem often pits transparent efficiency against fairness and equity, leaving them unclear. In fact, Myers argues that the disregard of race might actually lead to increased efficiency in drug trafficking.

The argument against racial profiling as a moral problem delves much deeper than the frequent traffic stops endured by minorities. It is an inherent part of minority histories and cultures. The fact of the matter is that minorities have experienced greater proportions of traffic stops than their white majority counterparts. African Americans have the greatest propensity to being searched, followed by the Hispanic population. Relatively little mention is made of other minority groups such as American Indians and those of Asian descent.

Bureaucracy has also contributed to the mistrust of the public toward the police. Bureaucracy diminishes the value of individualism and leaves those who are searched with a sense of a loss of value in their identities. While they are being devalued on a part of their individual identities, they are being devalued also as being included as a member of a group which they have no control over.

Demographics are hugely relevant to the study of racial profiling. The theory of representative bureaucracy is concerned with “how the demographic makeup of bureaucrats affects the distribution of outputs to clients who share these demographic characteristics” (Wilkins & Williams, 2008, p.655). The police bureaucracy should mirror the population it serves. Passive representation through demographic makeup of the police should serve to represent all interests. The demographics considered are race, sex, religion, income, and class. The police serving should share many of these demographics.

However, there are instances in which passive representation does not suffice. “Active representation… influences policy making and implementation” (Wilkins & Williams, 2008, 656). As the authors of “Black or blue: Racial profiling in a representative bureaucracy” state, early scholars of representative bureaucracy thought that passive representation would naturally lead to active representation. In bureaucracies with extensive rules like a police department, bureaucrats have little chance to shape outputs to reward a group within the population they serve. In order to combat profiling, the police department representing a population with a large minority group must be aware of the problem and desire to fix it.

Hernandez-Murillo and Knowles conducted a survey to test racist policing strategies as opposed to racial profiling. They state that there is a trade-off between fairness and effective policing. They examined ways to apply a test for racial profiling which has an unequal effect by race. Their objective is "to allow public monitoring of racial or ethnic inequalities in the burden of police activities" Hernandez-Murillo & Knowles, 2004, p.959). However, they are unsure about how this information could be used to measure that possible discrimination. In order to discern unbiased policing, the success rate for discretionary searches will be equal across all groups searched with higher likelihood of illegal activity. Lower success rates show an unequal targeting of minorities. The question for research asks "how can the aggregate profiling statistics published at the state level are used to distinguish racial profiling from racial bias?"

Maryland had success rates that did not vary greatly by race. However, Missouri was found to have much lower success rates for blacks and Hispanics than whites who were stopped. The authors found that police forces in Missouri under their nonparametric bounds were biased for two percent or less of all discretionary searches. Under a restricted test, they found that police forces, including police departments, sheriff departments, and state troopers, were biased against minorities for at least 30 percent of the searches. Search success is measured in searches resulting in drug finds, searches where general contraband was found, and searches resulting in arrests (Hernandes-Murillo & Knowles, 2004, p.969). They found that the greatest amount of bias is aimed at the Hispanic population and African Americans were more likely to be stopped in predominately white neighborhoods. They confirmed that the "searches by police biased against minorities account for a much larger share of all discretionary searches than of searches of minorities" (Hernandez-Murillo & Knowles, 2004, 982).

Fixing the situation is easier said than done. The high levels of organizational socialization do not directly allow active representation to occur. “Scholars argue that administrators are socialized by the organizations they work in and adopt behaviors and preferences that are consistent with organizational goals, thereby minimizing the influence of the own personal values on bureaucratic behavior” (Wilkins & Williams, 2008, p.656).

Group behavior often dictates the actions that a police officer may take. Officers are given a large range of discretion as street-level bureaucrats. However, police departments must organize and manage the activities and behaviors of the officers (Smith et al., 1994). Police officers often face pressures from within the organization to act as the rest of the group. This can result in the misuse of racial profiling to cause harm to a minority; exactly the opposite reason that Risse and Zeckhauser use to support practices involving racial profiling.

“Some … rely on strong informal cultures and systems of values to socialize and control member behavior while others use more formal mechanism such as rules and regulations” (Smith et al., 1994, p. 415). Wilkins and Williams state that organizational socialization teaches members of the group certain behaviors required of them and supportive attitudes needed to become a recognized member of that group (2008, p.657). African American officers’ behaviors may be influenced by a perceived need to fit in with the department’s organization.

Police officers have unusually strong solidarity within their department as well as in the profession. It is often noted as one of the most noticeable parts of police culture. Police officers are often referred to as men in blue, referring to the color of their uniforms. The uniform becomes their identities. This is sometimes problematic for minority officers, characterized in the title of Wilkins and Williams (2008) article “Black or blue: Racial profiling and representative bureaucracy.” This identity supersedes any other identities held, “strip[ping] away the racial identity of black police officers and replac[ing] it with an organizational identity” (Wilkins & Williams, 2008, p.656). A black officer may act on behalf of his or her uniform instead of on behalf of the minority he or she represents. Wilkins and Williams studied a large urban police department in San Diego comprised of eight distinct precincts and found that the racial disparity between rate of stops for African Americans and white Americans was higher in areas of greater minority occupancy than in primarily white neighborhoods with a greater presence of white police officers.

Risse and Zeckhauser also make a very valid point in the argument for racial profiling. If police stopped the practice, society would still be racist and attitudes that lead to police abuse would remain unaltered and racism would persist in other forms in other areas of life (Risse & Zeckhauser, 2004, p. 146). The hurt felt from racial profiling exists with underlying reasons rather than racial profiling as the sole reason for their search. However, there is statistical data that exists for targeting young black men, especially during the summer. The statistics describe the occurrence of crime and the targets of these crimes are often members of the same minority.

Minneapolis' CODEFOR system seemed to target communities of color disproportionately and received mixed reactions. Many of the areas targeted had asked for a higher level of crime control. This complements Risse and Zeckhauser's argument for profiling in the self-interest of minority populations.

The utilitarian perspective “turns on factual and counterfactual claims that are hard to verify and justifications… illustrate that investigations…will have to proceed community by community and context by context” (Risse and Zeckhauser, 2004, p.145). Risse and Zeckhauser contend also that police abuse must be corrected outside of their article. The authors suggest that if ALL possibilities were considered, utilitarians would reject profiling because it creates a great harm is a result of underlying racism and profiling on a component of one’s identity, leading one to question their identity.

According to Gormley and Balla (2004), police officers cannot take all possibilities into consideration when making a decision. Police must use bounded rationality in making decisions in the field. Bounded rationality states that individuals are rational, but limited in their comprehension of all possible options and solutions. Therefore, they satisfice by coming to a decision that is satisfactory, given the readily available data. When police officers make discretionary stops, they must use the information they can take in on the scene and make the best decision with their available options. These options are standardized in certain protocols, but are made available to exercise abuse when intentionally singling out a group. This may substantiate the fear that many authors share in that profiling could mask racist policing efforts.

Risse and Zeckhauser argue that profiling is beneficial because it is efficient. By targeting a group with a greater risk rather than the general population, there will be an increase in the number of criminals caught during those searches. That risk ratio is the probability that a random group member committed a crime as compared to a random person in another group (Risse and Zeckhauser, 2004, p. 141). The group may be identified by race, but if that is the exclusive measure used in screenings, those screenings should be eliminated. The benefits of racial profiling include a reduction in crime which may consequently bring economic growth. Myers agrees that profiling is efficient in the sense that it generates higher expected profits than random stops and searches. Another benefit in profiling may be in regard to traffic stops, which “often identify fugitives with outstanding warrants or criminal charges, or those carrying illegal guns or drugs. Fewer stops mean fewer opportunities to get these people off the street” (Ward, 2002, p.30).

There is a problem with this statistical information. “Unless truly random searches are conducted, researchers typically will not observe the true proportion of drivers who carry contraband” (Anwar & Fang, 2006, p.128). Most information gathered has the possibility of being tainted by rogue officers who have taken deliberate action against minorities based solely on their ethnicity. That is the piece of information that makes statistics for profiling nearly invalid.

“There is a tradeoff between… efficiency… and equity” in the use of racial profiling (Myers, 2002, p. 295). Racial profiling is financially efficient by only targeting populations with greater propensity to commit certain crimes. (Myers, 2002, p. 295).

Under a federal law proposed in 2001 to combat profiling, police may write fewer tickets (as observed in Huston, TX) resulting in lower revenues for the state. Officers may alter ticketing behavior unnecessarily in the fear that recording racial data might implicate them in lawsuits.

The overall findings have both supported and argued against the use of racial profiling in police departments across several states. However, the data shows that racial profiling does exist. The dilemma faced by police is that they must choose to act with the history of preconceived notions of racial groups, making them appear racist. There is data and statistics that prove African American and Hispanic minorities are more likely to be stopped and searched than other ethnic groups.

Racial profiling adds an unnecessary level of inconvenience to the innocent population. Increased paperwork for the police is inefficient use of tax dollars which could also decrease revenue for the state as a result of fear to file that paperwork. The results of elimination of racial profiling could cost states a portion of their revenue. This loss might come as a result of refusal to ticket for fear of potential litigation or as retraining costs for officers who are identified as using racist policing tactics.

Racial profiling costs do not outweigh the benefits of efficiency. They cause emotional damage to minorities. The continued acceptance of racial profiling also extorts a historically oppressed group as well as groups that are socioeconomically deprived. In order to correct racist police officers' behaviors; the cost to the state would be great. Human beings strive for perfection and government is one tool that helps humans toward reaching that goal. In letting the state continue on a path that includes an injustice toward a specific group, humans are being done a disservice on their path to perfection.

Further research might be done to find commonalities among the rest of the United States as compared to researching one or two cities. No research has been done to compare East Coast to West Coast to Middle America policing strategies. Studies focused on one area, completing studies in only one area and trying to make it fit to the rest of the United States. Studies using purely objective data might be a place to research as well. Then America can take further steps toward reducing feelings of racial injustice and a more objective perspective on American citizens.

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References
Hernandez-Murillo, R., & Knowles, J. (2004). Racial profiling or racist policing? Bounds tests in aggregate data. International Economic Review. 45(3). 959-989.
Anwar, S., & Fang, H. (2006, March). An alternative test of racial prejudice in motor vehicle searches: Theory and evidence American Economic Review. 96(1). 127-151.
Ward, J. D. (2002, November/December). Race, ethnicity, and law enforcement profiling: Implications for public policy. Public Administration Review, 62(6), 726-733. doi:10.1111/1540-6210.00254
Smith, K. G., Smith, K. A., Olian, J. D., Sims, H. P., Jr., O'Bannon, D. P., & Scully, J. A. (1994, September). Top management team demography and process: The role of social integration and communication. Administrative Science Quarterly, 39(3), 412-438.
Williams, B. N., & Wilkins, V. M. (2008, July/August). Black or blue: Racial profiling and representative bureaucracy. Public Administration Review, 68(4), 654-664. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6210.2008.00905.x
Maynard-Moody, S., & Musheno, M. (2003). Cops, teachers, counselors: Stories from the front lines of public service. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Gormley, W. T., & Balla, S. J. (2004). Bureacracy and democracy: Accountability and performance. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Risse, M., & Zeckhauser, R. (2004, Spring). Racial profiling. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 32(2), 131-170.
Myers, Samuel L., Jr. (2002, Spring). Analysis of racial profiling as policy analysis. Policy Analysis and Management. 21(2), 287-300.