Racial Profiling

As racial profiling (also called " ethnic profiling " or " Racist profiling" called ) refers to the conduct of the police, security, immigration and customs officials, if this is based on general criteria such as race, ethnicity, religion and national origin of a person. Critics demand that suspicion should be based only on the persons behavior and on objective evidence. The Racial profiling is associated with the institutional racism. The term comes from the U.S. criminology.

Published by law enforcement profiles of suspects, which are equipped with racial or ethnic characteristics, as well as the activities of the case analyst ( engl: profiler ) refers to not as racial profiling.

Racial profiling occurs:

• In the fight against illegal immigration, identity checks at train stations, airports, trains and in the border area with people who outwardly have a "foreign appearance ".
• In the fight against Islamist terrorism, identity checks of mosque visitors or "Muslim -looking " people and in accordance motivated dragnet.
• In cases where law enforcement action against ethnically defined " usual suspects " such as in the USA increased controls of black vehicle owners ( Driving While Black).

Legal position

Racial profiling violates the constitutional principle of equality and is a form of prohibited discrimination under international law. In many countries, racial profiling is outlawed. So it is forbidden, for example, in the UK and the USA.

In Germany Racial profiling is legally not explicitly regulated. In February 2012, the Administrative Court of Koblenz Racial Profiling classified in a judgment on the case of a security check in a train as legal. The verdict was declared in a higher instance of the Higher Administrative Court of Rhineland -Palatinate for ineffective because it is contrary to the prohibition of discrimination of the Basic Law. The security check was unlawful from the outset. The applicant, a German student who was " fallen into the grid because of his skin color." On behalf of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Federal Police apologized to the plaintiff. In June 2013, the German Institute for Human Rights published a study showing that " racial identity checks " by Federal Police Act § 22 paragraph 1 are met. Because this was a violation of the Basic Law and international treaties, its abolition is required.

Criticism

Racial profiling is criticized as inefficient and ineffective. European Network Against Racism ( ENAR), according to which it acts in the field of crime and counterterrorism counterproductive because it excludes precisely the communities on whose cooperation is reliant. It can cause certain groups of offenders did not even come to the attention of law enforcement agencies - shows how, not least the failure of the investigating authorities in the case of the serial murders of the National Socialist subsoil ( NSU ).

Racial profiling is made the accusation that it would strengthen the everyday racism in the interaction. Once commonly found violations during inspections ( Illegal stay, residence obligation, prohibition of work, ...), the German and EU citizens can not commit. The number of cases the police would then often nonspecific published under the heading " foreign criminals ". Also would arise if the police checks in public places for outsiders the impression that the restriction of the controls on the different looking people determined was not groundless.