Acknowledgments -- Executive Summary and Recommendations -- I. Introduction -- II. Ethnic Profiling in France: The Costs to the Public and the Police -- III. Profiling Minorities in Paris: Disproportionate Stops of Blacks and Arabs -- IV. The Law and Practice of Police Stops in France -- V. Conclusion -- Appendix The Methodology behind Profiling Minorities: A Study of Stop-and-Search Practices in Paris -- Notes
Summary
Police officers in Paris consistently stop people on the basis of ethnicity and dress rather than on the basis of suspicious individual behavior, according to a report released by the Open Society Justice Initiative. The report documents over 500 police stops over a one-year period and across five locations in and around the Gare du Nord train station and Châtelet-Les Halles commuter rail station. The data show that Blacks were between 3.3 and 11.5 times more likely than Whites to be stopped; while Arabs were stopped between 1.8 and 14.8 more times than Whites. The study also found a strong relationship between people's ethnicity, particular styles of clothing worn by young people, and the likelihood that they would be stopped. The report recommends a number of reforms to identity check practices in Paris, including reform of law and policies that allow ethnic profiling; an explicit ban on discrimination by police officials; stronger criteria for the "reasonable suspicion" required to stop persons; and enhanced record keeping and review of stops to assess their impact and promote better practice. --Publisher description
