University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses 5-8-2004 Experiencing Racial Profiling: Process, Effects and Explanations Foley Santamaria University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Recommended Citation Santamaria, Foley, "Experiencing Racial Profiling: Process, Effects and Explanations" (2004). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 159. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/159 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. EXPERIENCING RACIAL PROFILING: PROCESS, EFFECTS AND EXPLANATIONS A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Sociology by Foley Santamaria B.A., The University of Florida, 2002 August 2004 Acknowledgments I would first like to thank my chair, Dr. Pam Jenkins, for a several reasons. First, were it not for her Qualitative Methods class, who knows what path I would’ve embarked on. She also put up with a lot of foot-dragging and was always upbeat about this study. I also offer thanks to Dr. Vern Baxter, first for the independent study of the summer of 2003 which put me on a path of looking at police citizen interactions. He is an excellent graduate coordinator, and demands a high level of quality from students. I thank Dr. Valerie Gunter for her help, both for the seminar in research applications and her insightful ideas. I also thank my friends and family for always being interested in (or at least appearing so!) this work and willing to discuss my progress. Furthermore, during breaks our socializing helped me escape from a rather depressing world of police officers and discriminatory tactics. I would also like to thank coffee shops all over Uptown for allowing me to reside in their space for lengthy periods of time. I promise I always tipped well and cleaned up after myself! Likewise, I would like to thank my mp3 player for never dying on me and consistently keeping me entertained. ii Table of Contents Abstract................................................................................................................................v Introduction..........................................................................................................................1 Review of the Literature ......................................................................................................5 Discretion..........................................................................................................................5 Police Occupational Subculture........................................................................................8 Procedure of an Investigative Stop .................................................................................11 The Development of Racial Profiling.............................................................................13 Studies of Racial Profiling..............................................................................................17 Racial Profiling Defenders..............................................................................................19 Legislation and the Courts ..............................................................................................20 Quality of Life Policing ..................................................................................................23 Drug Scares.....................................................................................................................26 Opinion of Police Practices by Neighborhood Context..................................................29 Neighborhood Context....................................................................................................30 Problems with Current Literature ...................................................................................33 Theory.............................................................................................................................35 Research Question ..........................................................................................................36 Methodology......................................................................................................................37 Scope...............................................................................................................................39 Research and Sub Questions...........................................................................................40 Description of Respondents ............................................................................................40 Validation of Findings ....................................................................................................41 Researcher Observations.................................................................................................42 Findings..............................................................................................................................42 Patterns that Emerged from the Data..............................................................................42 Process ...............................................................................................................................43 Pulled over for Minor Infractions ...................................................................................43 Respondents pulled over for Minor Reasons, but officers’ reaction intensified.............45 Non-Traffic related incidents..........................................................................................47 Apologies ........................................................................................................................49 Explanations of Police Behavior........................................................................................50 African-American Criminality........................................................................................50 Acceptance......................................................................................................................52 Disrespect........................................................................................................................53 Tint..................................................................................................................................55 Effects ................................................................................................................................56 Views of Law Enforcement ............................................................................................57 Police Attitude ............................................................................................................58 Police Tactics..............................................................................................................59 Law Enforcement Generational Differences ..............................................................60 Ratio of Good to Bad Officers....................................................................................61 Comparison of White and Black Officers...................................................................61 iii Tension between Citizens and Law Enforcement.......................................................62 Quality of Policing......................................................................................................63 Not All Cops Bad........................................................................................................65 Race, Symbols, and Place ..................................................................................................66 Views of Self/Race .........................................................................................................66 Residential Restriction/Sense of Place............................................................................68 Summary of Findings.........................................................................................................70 Conclusion .........................................................................................................................73 References..........................................................................................................................78 Vita.....................................................................................................................................85 iv Abstract What are the effects of profiling a minority group? I propose that being profiled lowers an individual’s opinions of police as well as harms the police-community relationship. I analyze the results of a snowball sample consisting of qualitative interviews of six young African American males who think they have been racially profiled. The interviews