Racial Profiling and Second-Class Citizenship

Abstract

I argue that racial profiling gives minority groups reason to perceive a threat of violence and wrongful arrest when interacting with the criminal justice system, consequently leading them to engage in self-limiting conduct in order to avoid being profiled. As a result, they may ultimately exercise a de facto second-class citizenship status through a limited exercise of basic rights and access to public services. This would suggest, contra consequentialist defenders of the practice, that a public ban on profiling would serve to contain an important, but often overlooked source of racial injustice and that a thorough cost–benefit analysis should include these costs.