Racial Profiling: Legal and Constitutional Issues
Racial profiling is the practice of targeting individuals for police or security detention based on their race or ethnicity in the belief that certain minority groups are more likely to engage in unlawful behavior. Examples of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies suggest that minorities are disproportionately the subject of security-related practices. The issue has periodically attracted congressional interest and several courts have considered the constitutional ramifications of the practice as an "unreasonable search and seizure" under the Fourth Amendment and, more recently, as a denial of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection guarantee. A variety of federal and state statutes provide potential relief to individuals who claim that their rights are violated by race-based law enforcement practices and policies.
Advocacy and Anti-Racism: How Institutions Shape Organizational Responses to Racially Biased Policing in France and the United States
Racially biased policing has captured the attention of citizens across the globe. This preoccupation with racial justice and policing is not unique the United States; these questions are on the rise across the Atlantic as well. This dissertation investigates how national context shapes efforts to address racially biased policing by advocacy organizations. Comparing France and the United States, I focus on the role of institutions, examining how race, the nonprofit sector, political institutions, and legal institutions constrain and enable the strategies and tactics of antiracist advocacy organizations. Chapter Three makes the case that analyzing the vast and varied work of advocacy organizations in terms of organizational fields is uniquely helpful for understanding how organizations are constrained and enabled by their field positions. I argue that organizations vary in their field position according to resources in the form of material and social capital. The comparative model illuminates the significant impact of inter-field and intra-field relations. In France, where the nonprofit sector is comparatively weak—more dependent upon the state, and less able to engage legal institutions—advocacy organizations are required to pool resources. As such, we observe an exchange of resources, particularly economic and social capital, across the organizational field. Additionally, organizations of different forms and in different field clusters iv engage in overlapping strategies and tactics, signaling looser boundaries between organizational forms. In the United States, where there is a relatively strong nonprofit sector, collaboration and resource exchanges are less imperative. Instead, we observe more rigid boundaries in terms of organizational activities (qua strategies and tactics). In addition, the organizations that are best poised to lead the fight against racially biased policing are those that possess significant amounts of both economic and social capital. Chapter Four considers the political context by examining how and when organizational actors perceive political opportunities, or a lack thereof. I argue that organizational actors act strategically, and as such, are keenly attuned to identifying the ripest moments for strategic action. These moments represent periods of perceived political opportunity. I identify three main frames of perceived political opportunity: times of political lull, political salience, and political intensity. During times of political lull, advocacy organizations are relatively inactive. During such moments, organizational actors attempt to identify strategies that will create opportunities. When organizational actors perceive a moment as being characterized by political intensity, their activities are largely reactive, responding to the immediate needs of their community or constituents. During periods of political salience, organizations are most likely to pursue strategic action. I suggest that perceptions of political opportunity depend on a variety of phenomena, including intra-field dynamics, transformative events, and political structures. Moreover, the data show that organizational actors do not always perceive a particular event or chronological moment in an identical fashion. I contend that the institutions that advocacy organizations seek to target as well as the communities they serve powerfully shape the ways in which they perceive a given period as politically opportune.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.