Also: My perspective as a police officer on this Arizona law.
I don't want to come down *too* hard on the law simply based upon the fact that I'm a police officer in Canada, and I don't know the environment of policing in southern states with a high hispanic population. I don't know the community, I don't know the dynamics.
But my instinct is simply that I don't see what "reasonable" suspicion might entail to lead an officer to think that someone is an illegal OTHER than that which leads to unacceptable racial profiling.
MAYBE situations through talking with witnesses where they can provide evidence that someone is an illegal, or through talking with an individual in the course of regular duties where they make statements that provide the officer with "reasonable suspicion" but other than that....
It's not even like, for example, a drug investigation, where you can profile someone based upon their actions, gestures, clothing, smell, or behaviour to articulate a reasonable suspicion or belief of criminal activity. As someone who supports and defends the law enforcement community generally, this is a bad law that will almost certainly lead to the potential for unacceptable racial profiling, even by good officers.
Generally, I'm really skeptical of any program that burdens law enforcement officers with making snap determinations of guilt and innocence, of whether someone is a criminal or just going about their daily business. It's why I don't like the idea of the ASBO policy in the UK, and at the extreme end why I don't think COIN is all it's cracked up to be.
A case like this, where the bulk of the cops -- who have been given terribly vague guidelines of what constitutes "reasonable suspicion" -- will be from a different ethnic community from the bulk of the offenders is only going to encourage harassment on a racial basis and exacerbate social division and mistrust. Driving a community away from cooperation with the police (let alone other types of civic involvement) is a Very Bad Thing and should be treated like a serious concern.
On top of all this, racial profiling is always going to get fucked up, especially in countries with diverse populations. When everyone was paranoid after the London bombings, it was a Brazilian who paid for it. I have a half-Thai friend with a Hebrew name who's swarthy enough that when he was arrested for a public noise violation in New Mexico the local authorities figured him for an Arab and were ready to start deportation procedures, even though he's at least third-generation American.
edit: and to drunkenly paraphrase someone else I read on this subject in the past couple days: Any law that might result in the regular demand by law enforcement in the United States of America of "papers, please" is an awful, horrible law.
I wonder
where you might have read that!
