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Crime And Criminal Justice

Vanessa Luzzi
Professor Borrelli
Writing Assignment
Should racial and gender profiling be utilized by law
enforcement to combat terrorism in
the United States?

Racial profiling is inclusion of race in the profile of a persons considered likely to commit a particular crime or type of crime (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racialprofiling). This is done by the law to certain persons whom are most likely to commit a crime. The Patriot Act is an act where the law is allowed to invade one's privacy if there are suspicions that a certain person will do harm to this country. With this act, the law is allowed to tap into this certain person's phone line and even use surveillance to watch their every move. The three theories that I will use to decide whether racial and gender profiling should be utilized by law are cultural deviance theory, social process theory and conflict theory.
Cultural deviance theory is a branch of social structure theory that sees strain and social disorganization together resulting in a unique lower-class culture that conflicts with conventional social norms. The social structure theory says that deprived economic status position is a major cause for crime. Along with these theories comes subculture and culture transmission. Subculture is the set of traditions that some social classes have. For example, Iraqis have many different traditions and they are brought with them everywhere they go. Now, the United States government is targeting Iraqis in the US because they are believed to be a threat to our society. Although the US was faced with a terrorist attack by the Arab nation, it does not give the government any right to invade in on all people's part of the Arab nation. With the Patriot Act, the government is now allowed to do so. This not only puts many American citizens in fear, but also takes away cultural transmissions which are values and traditions are that passed on from generation to generation. We realize that...