Chapter 6: Criminal v. Racial Profiling and Surveillance
Chapter 6: Criminal v. Racial Profiling and Surveillance
Chapter Abstract
This discussion will entail both empirical data and the work experience of a thirty-eight year law enforcement veteran comparing criminal profiling with actual practice in comparison of this authors insinuation that the birth place of criminal profiling is found in Terry v. Ohio. It is the contention of this document that criminal profiling is a day to day practice of street officers and the much romanticized criminal profiling as viewed by the media is a by-product of good street cop methodology, unlike racial profiling. Readers are asked to draw a comparison between criminal profiling, racial profiling, and Homeland Security. The reader may find similarities between Chapters Six and Thirteen, although they reiterate material discussed they provide for differing contextual thinking relative to both topics discussed.
Homeland Security
There cannot be Homeland Security without first Hometown Security. This discussion is premised on a number of criteria that is essential to ethical foundations in the CJ system. First, private security does not have to play by the same rules as government employees. Freedom of privacy, albeit not specific in the U.S. Constitution is defined by court rulings relative to existing language. It is further the contention of this section that profiling is used in the private security sector with impunity. For example in casinos when a private person swipes his her credit card the facility has information that a public agency does not have ready access, such as credit report, where you have lived for previous ten years, whether you own your home or rent, criminal check and if anyone in your family is in the gaming business (police background investigation requires waivers to obtain information). Therefore the bureaucratic arena that the criminal justice system resides is drastically restricted by legal obligations and the private sector has far outpaced their governmental counterparts in the technological advances arena. To coin a phrase, “We’re so far behind we think we’re first.” First of all the private sector is generally financially better prepared to meet its needs; second the private sector does not have to deal with huge bureaucracies to gain a purchase; they are not concerned with individual liberties as the public sector employee; and finally, the private sector planning and development is not encumbered with politics.
When I speak of the private sector, I do not wish for you to envision the security guard at a gated community, although their radio equipment and surveillance equipment is state of the art, more so than most CJ practitioner. Rather I offer my comments toward the corporate security responsible for multi-continent computer security, responsible for guarding high tech industrial secrets, background investigations that make public servant checks pale by comparison, satellite positioning and bank transactions that if breached woul