Reducing Ethnic Profiling in the European Union - Open Society ...

people were stopped and valuable police resources wasted. However, using the moreelaborated suspect description that included the suspects’ heights and clothing showedproper use of good intelligence.Investigations of transnational organized crime and terrorism are usually largerand more complex than ordinary criminal investigations, but the basic elements ofintelligence are not fundamentally different. The main difference is that fighting transnationalorganized crime and terrorism requires intelligence-sharing and cooperationbetween the law enforcement agencies and intelligence services of different countries,and this cooperation is beset by challenges. It is not uncommon for members of criminalgangs to have the same nationality or ethnic background (although they are alsoknown to recruit from outside their group in order to avoid known ethnic profiles).Border guards and customs officers often develop profiles that include these factors toguide their efforts to combat transnational crime. Such uses of ethnicity, national origin,and other personal factors are entirely legitimate as long as they are based on reliableand up to date intelligence, and are used in a properly targeted fashion.The following case study shows the importance of using intelligence in determiningstops and searches. Specifically, it illustrates how one law enforcement agency’sshift from focusing on superficial characteristics such as national origin to a moreintelligence-driven approach resulted in fewer—but more effective—stops and searches.UNITED KINGDOMEnding Ethnic Profiling Enhances EffectivenessIn 1998, 43 percent of searches that the US Customs Service performed were on blacksand Latinos, although blacks and Latinos made up a much smaller proportion of alltravelers. A particularly large number of searches, including highly invasive x-raysand strip searches, were carried out on Latina and black women suspected of being“drug mules” based on a profile that relied heavily on nationality and ethnicity. The hitrates for these searches was low across all groups: 5.8 percent for whites, 5.9 percentfor blacks, and 1.4 percent for Latinos; and was particularly low for black and Latinawomen, who were in fact the least likely to be carrying drugs on or in their bodies.In 1999, Customs changed its procedures, removing race from factors to considerin making stops and introducing observational techniques focusing on behaviorssuch as nervousness and inconsistencies in passenger narratives, using more intelligenceinformation, and requiring closer supervision of stop-and-search decisions.By 2000, the racial disparities in these searches had nearly disappeared. The numberof searches carried out dropped by 75 percent, and the hit rate improved from lessthan five percent to over 13 percent, and became almost even for all ethnic groups. 188REDUCING ETHNIC PROFILING IN THE EUROPEAN UNION 105