>The original decision is often rooted in racial profiling. //
How can you tell?
Surely the point you're making is that the real reason for pulling the person over is not the one given, how then can you establish it's "racial profiling".
I've been pulled over (UK) by police for having a stop light out, reasonable as it's a traffic violation. They asked the usual sort of questions and I got a "producer" (notice to produce various documents at a police station in the near future). How could you establish that this was because the officer was acting racist towards me?
Telling the race of a person from behind when following their car seems quite hard.
Statistics could show that more of a particular race were pulled over but that race could constitute a greater proportion of the local poor who being less able to keep their vehicles in good order are more likely to be stopped. That would create an apparent bias were there was none.
I think you can control for socioeconomic class of the areas. Though I would argue that an area where black people are more likely to be unable to afford proper maintenance for their vehicles, are more likely to be poor in general, may be an area where other disadvantages (like the lower wealth per family and employment rate for African Americans, and were blacks got worse loan terms, or weren't allowed to rent or buy in better sections of town) may contribute to a systemic bias.
How can you tell?
Surely the point you're making is that the real reason for pulling the person over is not the one given, how then can you establish it's "racial profiling".
I've been pulled over (UK) by police for having a stop light out, reasonable as it's a traffic violation. They asked the usual sort of questions and I got a "producer" (notice to produce various documents at a police station in the near future). How could you establish that this was because the officer was acting racist towards me?
Telling the race of a person from behind when following their car seems quite hard.
Statistics could show that more of a particular race were pulled over but that race could constitute a greater proportion of the local poor who being less able to keep their vehicles in good order are more likely to be stopped. That would create an apparent bias were there was none.