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Racial Profiling

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Racial Profiling
Argument Analysis of Gold Essay “Media Hype, Racial Profiling, and good Science.”

Paul PENNER September 25, 2011

Summary:

Gold begins his essay right away, without any sort of formality. The essay begins with Gold laying a foundation for the requirements of “good science.” After which Gold spells out the requirements of articles to sell large volumes of newspapers. This latter generates the term anecdotes. The term anecdote is analyzed, scrutinized and concluded as unacceptable due to the evidence relying more on beliefs than facts. Thus creating a vicious circle.

Gold than highlights the fact that there exists large numbers or web pages, lawsuits, publications and presentations specifically directed at the issue. Varying levels …show more content…
Sometimes the term is used when a handful of officers are bigots. Sometimes it is applied when it seems that the police service promotes racism through its training materials. There is no evidence that American policing material is connected to Toronto Police. Profiling is the activity and racial a subspecies of profiling. Criminal law literature hosts a variety of profiles. As well, police profilers generate ad hoc profiles. Profiling is a “junk science” involving vague and non-specific characteristics that can be manipulated. There is no scientific merit to profiling. Racial profiling is one-dimensional profiling where the race replaces all other …show more content…
Gold quickly defines terms that he continually uses throughout the rest of his essay to assist the reader in following his train of thought. At the beginning of the essay Gold lays the groundwork for what he will discuss throughout the essay. He, quickly lays down his assumption of what racial profiling is and how unlikely that it is used by police. Gold lies out his essay with sections with subtle conclusions being drawn by the end of each. This helps to keep the reader on track as he attempts to dispel the phenomenon known as racial profiling. Hold spends most of his time attacking the foundation of each group or agencies bases for profiling. He uses references and his knowledge of statistical analysis to debunk each idea. Also, Gold uses various examples of how ineffective the outcome would be given each scenario. Gold illustrates how some groups confuse proactive and reactive policing as the same thing, when in fact they are not. He does his best bring that idea several time throughout the essay. Gold is forthcoming with the fact that he was retained by Toronto Police to make submissions on this same very topic. That mention shows that Gold is trying to be honest with the reader. Also, I believe that it aids the read into recognizing that Gold would have had to do a far amount of research to make such submissions. The fact that Gold is privately
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