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

VII. TrainingTraining is an obvious way to reduce ethnic profiling. This chapter looks at four differenttypes of training (general diversity training, cultural sensitivity training, practicaltraining specific to ethnic profiling, and counter-radicalization training) and their effecton ethnic profiling. However, it is important to note that ethnic profiling is difficult toeradicate and that training alone is unlikely to eliminate the practice. It is also importantto recognize that not all training is effective and that where training does succeed, it iscombined with other complementary measures to reduce ethnic profiling.Training alone, without additional measures to address supervisory practices andoperational procedures, does not offer an adequate response to ethnic profiling. This isparticularly true where training fails to directly address the issue and provide officerswith practical skills that can reduce the influence of stereotypes. A range of non-discriminationtraining approaches have been developed, many of which do not discuss ethnicprofiling, and some of which do not touch on law enforcement discrimination at all.It is hard to assess the effectiveness of training programs in reducing negativestereotyping and ethnic profiling in law enforcement. This is due to inherent difficultiesin conducting such assessments, 208 and the expense of adding an assessmentprocess to already costly training programs. However, this is a serious considerationgiven that recent research finds that general diversity training or sensitivity training notonly has little beneficial effect on attitudes and practices, but may in fact be counterproductive.209This chapter does not go into depth on the range of human rights training thatis increasingly commonly provided to police officers. In part, this reflects the fact thatlarge numbers of training programs have been developed and very few have been subjectedto any serious assessment of their impact on officer conduct.125