CPE board member, Dr. Jack Glaser, and Dr. Amy Hackney of Georgia Southern University recently published an article in Law and Human Behavior on the possibility that racial profiling—the disproportionate scrutiny of a minority racial groups by authorities—may have a “reverse deterrent” effect on the illicit behavior of members of a nonprofiled majority group. That is, although racial profiling, when performed by law enforcement, is meant to reduce crime by concentrating resources on members of groups thought to be more likely to commit criminal acts, it may embolden individuals outside of targeted groups to commit crimes because they believe they will not be caught. Dr. Hackney and Dr. Glaser tested this idea in a controlled experiment and found that white participants were more likely to cheat on difficult anagrams when Black confederates were profiled, than when White participants were profiled or no profiling occured. Black participants cheated at comparable levels in all three conditions of the study. The effect of the profiling of Blacks was consequently a net increase in cheating. Although more research is necessary to further study this idea, the results of this study indicate that racial profiling of minority groups may be counterproductive and have the unindended consequence of reverse deterrence. To read the full article, go here.
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