(Note to the Reader: Based on the language presented in the Racial Profiling section of the Eighth Edition of Urban Issues: Selections from CQ Researcher,  crime in this article refers to blue collar crime such as burglary or other property crimes, theft crimes, sex crimes, assault, and drug crimes.)

It is without any doubt that racial profiling exists throughout the American law enforcement agencies. I’ve seen it myself around my neighborhood. But one’s view on the quantity in which racial profiling exists can change based on the lens one uses. There are different statistics one can use to define the un-balanced ratio  between whites stopped by law enforcement and minorities stopped by law enforcement. By changing the data lens, one will still see that racial profiling is prevalent, but may be more in tune to why that is and what are better ways to manage it.

In the Racial Profiling section of the Eighth Edition of Urban Issues: Selections from CQ Researcher, Heather McDonald is quoted saying, “Police actions continue to be measure against population ratios instead of crime ratios. The relevant measure is not overall population ratios but where crime is happening and where officers are more likely to be encountering criminal forces.” One cannot compare arrests to population for a simple, logical, and mathematical reason: there is no basis to say that crime occurs at an equal rate, or at an equal magnitude, among demographics. With that in mind, a ratio made from arrest and crime data, one could argue, will more accurately represent the levels of racial profiling within law enforcement.

When one changes the data used to determine these ratios, racial profiling is still evidently prevalent, however, there is a little more logic to it. It makes more sense to stop a Mexican near the border than a white man in suspicion of smuggling. But what could be a more efficient way to determine who to stop?

Something I would suggest is training officers in body language to help better spot suspicious individuals. In Israel, police and soldiers are taught how to spot dangerous individuals based on how those individuals carry themselves, walk, look around, etc. While American law enforcement isn’t necessarily dealing with terror threats, or even violence at all in some cases, these skills still transfer over. Most people who commit a crime, especially anyone in middle of committing a crime, will stand out from the crowd to a trained eye. And perhaps, with training the eyes of the law enforcement, we can help lower the number of instances where cops stop an individual solely because of race.