Growing up a Suspect: An Examination of Racial Profiling of Black Children and Effective Strategies to Reduce Racial Disparities in Arrests
![handle is hein.journals/nkenlr45 and id is 153 raw text is: GROWING UP A SUSPECT:
AN EXAMINATION OF RACIAL PROFILING OF BLACK CHILDREN AND
EFFECTIVE STRATEGIES TO REDUCE RACIAL DISPARITIES IN ARRESTS
Janaya Trotter Bratton * and Rickell Howard Smith**
1. INTRODUCTION
Racial profiling is the practice of police and other law enforcement officers
relying, to any degree, on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin as the
bases for subjecting persons to investigatory activities or for determining
whether an individual is engaged in criminal activity.' Discriminatory treatment
and profiling of racial and ethnic groups can also lead to excessive force usage
and unfair criminal charges and sentences.2 People of color continue to be
victimized by racial profiling when law enforcement officers investigate, stop,
search, and arrest based on race rather than evidence of criminal activity.3 The
police-shooting deaths of 12-year old Tamir Rice,4 13-year old Tyre King,5 15-year
old Jordan Edwards,6 and 17-year old Laquan McDonald7 are reminders of the
* Janaya Trotter Bratton is a civil rights attorney at Gerhardstein & Branch Co. LPA.
** Rickell Howard Smith is the Ohio Litigation and Policy Director at Children's Law Center, Inc.
1. World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related
Intolerance, Aug. 31- Sept. 8, 2001, Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, § Ill(A)(1)
72, U.N. Doc A/CONF.189/12 (Sept. 2001), http://www.un.org/durbanreview2009/
pdf/DDPAfulItext. pdf.
2. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Born Suspect, Stop-and-
Frisk Abuses & the Continued Fight to End Racial Profiling in America, 13-16 (Sept. 2014)
[hereinafter Born Suspect], https://action.naacp.org/page/-/Criminal%20Justice/
BornSuspectReportfi na lweb.pdf.
3. American Civil Liberties Union, The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United
States: A Follow-up Report to the U.N. Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination, at 12
(2009). See also Born Suspect, supra note 2, at 9.
4. Tamir Rice was fatally shot by police officer Timothy Loehmann on November 22, 2014 in
Cleveland, Ohio.
5. Tyre King was fatally shot by Columbus, Ohio police officer Bryan Mason on September 14,
2016.
6. Jordan Edwards was fatally shot by police officer Roy Oliver in Balch Springs, Texas on April
29, 2017.
7. Laquan McDonald was fatally shot by Chicago, Illinois Police Officer Jason Van Dyke on
October 20, 2014.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nkenlr45&div=13&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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