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

Notes1. Rebekah Delsol, Open Society Justice Initiative presentation, LIBE Round Table on “Liberty andSecurity in Integrated Management of EU Border,” Brussels: June 30, 2008.2. A “criminal profile” is constructed by analyzing the nature of a crime and the manner inwhich it was committed to develop guidance to help identify an unknown perpetrator. The underlyingtheory is that certain types of crime can be studied and common factors analyzed to build anoffender profile of some predictive value to aid police investigations. Some, but not all, criminalprofiles include race or ethnicity. Criminal profiling has not caused public controversy, althoughmany criminologists challenge its efficacy. One impact study found that criminal profiling leadsdirectly to the identification of subjects in less than 10 percent of cases. See R. Hazelwood et al.,“Criminal Investigative Analysis: An Overview,” in R. Hazelwood and A. Burgess (eds.), PracticalAspects of Rape Investigation (2nd Edition), London: CRC Press, 1995, at 115–126; and Malcolm Gladwell,“Dangerous Minds: Criminal Profiling Made Easy,” The New Yorker, November 12, 2007, citinga study by the United Kingdom’s Home Office, which found that profiles only led to the arrest ofthe suspect in 2.7 percent of cases.“Suspect profiles” or “suspect descriptions” use victim or witness reports to describe a particularperson sought in connection with a particular crime. Personal appearance, which almostalways includes ethnic characteristics, is a core aspect of a suspect profile. However, when policereceive an overly general suspect description that features race, ethnicity, or similar characteristics,they should seek additional and more specific information before using the description to stop andsearch people.Police, customs, or immigration officials may also use ethnicity and other personal factorswhen they have specific, concrete intelligence regarding future crimes involving a particular groupof potential suspects at a specific location for a short, specified duration of time. It is not uncommonfor criminal justice officials to create special, temporary task forces to address crime organizationswith national or ethnic links. Immigration officers, customs and border guards also use profilesthat include ethnicity and national origin in efforts to detect contraband and organized crime. Aswith vague suspect descriptions, the operational use of a concept as broad as that of an ethnic gangor nationality-based crime ring must be used with caution. Such profiles risk perpetuating harmful205