RACIAL PROFILING IS LESS ABOUT RACE THAN MOST THINK

DWB -- driving while black -- is the latest manifestation of our
intractable racial divide. Cops allegedly stop black motorists more than
whites, looking for illegal drugs and other mischief. The easy explanation?
Bigoted cops just like to do this stuff.

It's not that simple, of course. Directing the attorney general to study
the problem and come up with solutions, President Bush has put profiling
high on his agenda, saying that "it's wrong and we will not do it in
America. We will not hinder the work of our nation's brave police officers.
But by stopping the abuses of a few, we will add to the public confidence
our police officers earn and deserve."

Now that's a balanced statement, playing to all sides. No trade-offs to
worry about here. We'll repair the black perception that they are being
singled out, yet maintain police morale and vigorous law enforcement. In
cities like Los Angeles, however, active policing has fallen to zip because
every officer is worried about whether his history of arrests is racially
correct. Crime has taken a predictable jump up, largely at the expense of
black victims.

While there's real content to the black perception of harassment and
injustice, the handy explanation of racism is faulty. The root of the
problem traces back to the government's disastrous war on drugs: Cops
aren't out to get blacks so much as to get drug dealers, creating
collateral damage for black motorists.

Allow me to explain. First, study after study supports the proposition that
the criminal justice system, overall, is not systematically racist. With
occasional exceptions, virtually everyone gets a fair shake in the U.S.
justice system. So it's a myth that our modern legal system is rotten with
discrimination. Greater numbers of black police officers and black judges,
for example, have failed to reduce the racial disparities in our prisons
and elsewhere in the justice system. Studies also find that if anything, a
black felony defendant is more likely to be acquitted in a jury trial than
his white counterpart.

Second, there is a real problem of disproportionate stops of black
motorists. A new study by three economists at the University of
Pennsylvania, John Knowles and two colleagues, demonstrates that cops stop
black motorists at a higher rate than white motorists because it's the best
way to get a lot of drug arrests and convictions, not because of racism.
How do the authors know this?

They studied the 1990s data on highway stops by the Maryland State Police.
Indeed, black motorists were stopped at a rate 3.5 times that for white
motorists. Traffic studies and police testimony show that blacks and whites
are not distinguishable by their driving behavior. Despite the relatively
high search rate for black motorists, the police found contraband in the
same percentage for both races, about one in three searches. So there is
"statistical discrimination," we might say, rather than race prejudice at work.

It's a fact, unpleasant as it may be to admit, that blacks are
disproportionately involved in the drug trade and good police work takes
this into account. So at one level, it's fine-'n-dandy: The evidence clears
the Maryland cops of racism. After exhaustive analysis, the authors even
conclude that there is evidence for bias against white and Hispanic
motorists rather than black.

But even if the study is representative and correct, all is not well
because two of three stops are criminally unproductive for both races. More
importantly, innocent black motorists are stopped 3.5 times more often than
their white counterparts. That's the real problem and a justified beef by
the black community.

There are lawsuits against state governments for harassment of innocent
black motorists, including the state of Maryland. While the law is
currently unsettled, it does not prohibit the use of race in police work,
provided that there is a reasonable linkage between race and likely
criminal involvement. Yet such "statistical discrimination," innocent of
prejudice though it may be, is under attack. The American Civil Liberties
Union, for one, demands an end to racial profiling in police work. The cost
would be reduced police efficiency and higher crime.

The president and the rest of us want to improve "the just and equal
administration of our nation's laws." The real place to start would be the
war on drugs. We've been grinding away at the dope trade for decades and to
what end? Futility and disaster. The disproportionate harassment of black
motorists is just one of its evil consequences.

If government backed off, the DWB problem would diminish and race relations
would improve, much to the surprise of many.

Reynolds is a professor of economics at Texas A&M University and a senior
fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas.