Dear Karen: You've asked a good question. Is racial profiling necessary to control drug trafficking into the United States? Are Hispanics and African Americans more likely than Caucasian’s to transport drugs over US borders?

When I was in High School, I was driving with a friend around town, in his car, coming from a party, early in the morning. I came to a stop light and was waiting for it to change. Not a soul, not a car seemed to be anywhere in sight, so I decided to run the red light. Then, out of no where appeared a police officer who pulled us over for running the light. I didn't want to be the one caught driving since I think I just had my permit at that point, I was 17. My friend if I remember correctly, was drinking a beer, so he wasn't driving and didn't want to be found drinking a beer in the car. I think open containers of alcohol weren't allowed in cars or some law of the sort. I think my friend was given a ticket, and I was taken to the police station. My friend was african american looking. When the officer got me to the station he started to talk with me about the high crime statistics of african americans. He seemed very biased to me. I thought he assumed I might be in trouble and the friend I was with might be dangerous to me especially since I was an all american looking 17 yr. old with long blondish hair and metal braces and my friend was african american looking. I felt like this officer was targeting this friend of mine with racial profiling. I think if I had been with an all- american white boy who could have been just as much trouble the officer might not have even assumed this. Also, if I was also an african american looking woman the officer might not have given me as much preferential treatment or had been so concerned about my being out early in the morning with this black looking man. He could have just been concerned about my well-being because I was a young 17 yr. old out driving around early in the morning with a boy who I ought to add was older. I felt like the race of the guy made a difference because, the police officer, when he was bringing me to the station and when we arrived at the police station, was telling me about the high crime rate statistics among african americans. I started to respond back to the officer about this dynamic but the officer answered initially with something to the extent of don't give me lip service. I was able to get throughto this officer later though and have a conversation with him about the subject because I stayed calm, respectful, mature, friendly, and understanding towards the officer. I acknowledged the officer's viewpoint and his feelings on the issue and I think I thanked him for looking out for me and keeping me safe and giving information about crime statistics in my best interests, for my well-being. Because I related to this officer in this good way, I think he allowed me to speak asking him questions and sharing some of my views in an innocuous way about racial profiling.
I will never forget this experience to this day. This was one of the prominent ways I've experienced racial profiling as a young adult.
More recently, here in Eugene, I've heard from friends who are considered "minorities" who say they have to be so careful when they are out because they can be stopped walking down the street because of their race esp. if they are black. And, if a black man is walking down the street with his sweatshirt hood up he is even more suspect. Also, people of minorities don't want to be anywhere near a crime scene, say for instance, a bank robbery or drug sales at the park because the black person in the area or "minority" in the area will immediately become suspect much more quickly than white people in the area. I've seen this scenario happen recently at a local park.
I think in response to your question about: Is racial profiling necessary to control drug trafficking into the United States? Are Hispanics and African Americans more likely than Caucasian’s to transport drugs over US borders?

I would say another good way to do research on this subject would be to view border records of illegal drug trafficking to get an idea what the technical border records say about drug trafficking in regards to your question. I would classify this as unobstructive observation. This would be a way to get some of the unobstructive observation data you were referring to you in your posting.
I think you might also gather some unobstructive observation data gathering by accessing and investigating to the extent you are able to, the records of the white collar federal criminals. There are many white people with lots of money who commit drug trafficking crimes too. You may benefit from this data in tracking the drug trafficking crimes and start to make connections about how this drug trafficking is happening and who's doing this drug trafficking. Racial Profiling does happen especially towards black people, it seems. I think that as a researcher it would definitely be to your advantage to be able to stay unbiased so you would be able to neutrally gather the results of your research. I think you may want to be a strong personality especially to stay unbiased when doing Sociological research on Racial Profiling because it can be such a heated, emotionally charged issue. I think we could find other ways to detect drug traffickers than racial profiling. After all, more emphasis needs to be on the crime rather than the race of the criminal. I guess crime statistics can be helpful but rampant racial profiling causes bad news I don't want part of. It makes me think of black people in some white Southern town where some KKK person wants to ruin some innocent black mans life because he's black and uses racial profiling to justify this. This world society of ours needs to heal! Anyways, thanks for your posting. I think you've got great questions about racial profiling. This is a good topic to do sociological research on. Keep me posted on your findings if you do do sociological research about this sociological issue.