Race (human categorization)

=== Law enforcement ===
{{Main|Racial profiling}}
{{See also|Race and crime in the United Kingdom|Race and crime in the United States}}
In an attempt to provide general descriptions that may facilitate the job of [[law enforcement officer]]s seeking to apprehend suspects, the United States [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] employs the term "race" to summarize the general appearance (skin color, hair texture, eye shape, and other such easily noticed characteristics) of individuals whom they are attempting to apprehend. From the perspective of [[Law enforcement agency|law enforcement]] officers, it is generally more important to arrive at a description that will readily suggest the general appearance of an individual than to make a scientifically valid categorization by DNA or other such means. Thus, in addition to assigning a wanted individual to a racial category, such a description will include: height, weight, eye color, scars and other distinguishing characteristics.

Criminal justice agencies in [[England]] and [[Wales]] use at least two separate racial/ethnic classification systems when reporting crime, as of 2010. One is the system used in the [[United Kingdom Census 2001#Ethnicity|2001 Census]] when individuals identify themselves as belonging to a particular ethnic group: W1 (White-British), W2 (White-Irish), W9 (Any other white background); M1 (White and black Caribbean), M2 (White and black African), M3 (White and Asian), M9 (Any other mixed background); A1 (Asian-Indian), A2 (Asian-Pakistani), A3 (Asian-Bangladeshi), A9 (Any other Asian background); B1 (Black Caribbean), B2 (Black African), B3 (Any other black background); O1 (Chinese), O9 (Any other). The other is categories used by the police when they visually identify someone as belonging to an ethnic group, e.g. at the time of a stop and search or an arrest: White – North European (IC1), White – South European (IC2), Black (IC3), Asian (IC4), Chinese, Japanese, or South East Asian (IC5), Middle Eastern (IC6), and Unknown (IC0). "IC" stands for "Identification Code;" these items are also referred to as Phoenix classifications.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/mojstats/stats-race-cjs-2010.pdf |title=Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2010, Appendix C: Classifications of ethnicity |date=October 2011 |access-date=24 September 2014 |publisher=Ministry of Justice}}</ref> Officers are instructed to "record the response that has been given" even if the person gives an answer which may be incorrect; their own perception of the person's ethnic background is recorded separately.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.suffolk.police.uk/aboutus/equalityanddiversity/stopandsearch2/rightsandresponsibilities/idoc.ashx?docid=fa7ddb99-1a10-453f-893e-05018337fa59&version=-1 |title=Stop and Search Manual |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826120444/http://www.suffolk.police.uk/aboutus/equalityanddiversity/stopandsearch2/rightsandresponsibilities/idoc.ashx?docid=fa7ddb99-1a10-453f-893e-05018337fa59&version=-1 |archive-date=26 August 2014 |work=Suffolk Constabulary Policies & Procedures |access-date=24 September 2014}}</ref> Comparability of the information being recorded by officers was brought into question by the [[Office for National Statistics]] (ONS) in September 2007, as part of its Equality Data Review; one problem cited was the number of reports that contained an ethnicity of "Not Stated".<ref>[http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/measuring-equality/equality/equality-data-review/review-of-equality-data--audit-report.pdf "Office of National Statistics: Review of equality data: audit report"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826114623/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/measuring-equality/equality/equality-data-review/review-of-equality-data--audit-report.pdf |date=26 August 2014}} Retrieved 24 September 2014.</ref>

In many countries, such as [[France]], the state is legally banned from maintaining data based on race.<ref>{{cite web |last=Bleich |first=Erik |date=1 May 2001 |title=Race Policy in France |url=https://www.brookings.edu/articles/race-policy-in-france/ |website=The Brookings Institution}}</ref>

In the United States, the practice of [[racial profiling]] has been ruled to be both [[unconstitutional]] and a violation of [[civil rights]]. There is active debate regarding the cause of a marked correlation between the recorded crimes, punishments meted out, and the country's populations. Many consider ''de facto'' [[racial profiling]] an example of [[institutional racism]] in law enforcement.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/race/ |title=Race {{!}} Boundless Sociology |website=courses.lumenlearning.com |access-date=6 July 2019}}</ref>

Mass incarceration in the United States disproportionately impacts African American and Latino communities. Michelle Alexander, author of ''[[The New Jim Crow]]: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness'' (2010), argues that mass incarceration is best understood as not only a system of overcrowded prisons. Mass incarceration is also, "the larger web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and out of prison".{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=13}} She defines it further as "a system that locks people not only behind actual bars in actual prisons, but also behind virtual bars and virtual walls", illustrating the second-class citizenship that is imposed on a disproportionate number of people of color, specifically African-Americans. She compares mass incarceration to [[Jim Crow laws]], stating that both work as racial caste systems.{{sfn|Alexander|2010|p=12}}

Many research findings appear to agree that the impact of victim race in the [[interpersonal violence]] (IPV) arrest decision might include a racial bias in favor of white victims. A 2011 study in a national sample of IPV arrests found that female arrest was more likely if the male victim was white and the female offender was black, while male arrest was more likely if the female victim was white. For both female and male arrest in IPV cases, situations involving married couples were more likely to lead to arrest compared to dating or divorced couples. More research is needed to understand agency and community factors that influence police behavior and how discrepancies in IPV interventions/ tools of justice can be addressed.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dichter |first1=M. E. |last2=Marcus |first2=S. M. |last3=Morabito |first3=M. S. |last4=Rhodes |first4=K. V. |date=2011 |title=Explaining the IPV arrest decision: Incident, agency, and community factors |journal=Criminal Justice Review |volume=36 |pages=22–39 |doi=10.1177/0734016810383333 |s2cid=146748135}}</ref>

Recent work using DNA [[cluster analysis]] to determine race background has been used by some criminal investigators to narrow their search for the identity of both suspects and victims.<ref name="abraham" /> Proponents of DNA profiling in criminal investigations cite cases where leads based on DNA analysis proved useful, but the practice remains controversial among medical ethicists, defense lawyers and some in law enforcement.<ref name="willing" />

The [[Constitution of Australia]] contains a line about 'people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws', despite there being no agreed definition of race described in the document.

==== Forensic anthropology ====
{{Main|Forensic anthropology}}
Similarly, [[forensic anthropology|forensic anthropologists]] draw on highly heritable morphological features of human remains (e.g. cranial measurements) to aid in the identification of the body, including in terms of race. In a 1992 article, anthropologist [[Norman Sauer]] noted that anthropologists had generally abandoned the concept of race as a valid representation of human biological diversity, except for forensic anthropologists. He asked, "If races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them?"<ref name="Sauer 1992" /> He concluded:

{{blockquote|1=[T]he successful assignment of race to a skeletal specimen is not a vindication of the race concept, but rather a prediction that an individual, while alive was assigned to a particular socially constructed "racial" category. A specimen may display features that point to African ancestry. In this country that person is likely to have been labeled Black regardless of whether or not such a race actually exists in nature.<ref name="Sauer 1992" />}}

Identification of the ancestry of an individual is dependent upon knowledge of the frequency and distribution of phenotypic traits in a population. This does not necessitate the use of a racial classification scheme based on unrelated traits, although the race concept is widely used in medical and legal contexts in the United States.<ref name="Kennedy"/> Some studies have reported that races can be identified with a high degree of accuracy using certain methods, such as that developed by Giles and Elliot. However, this method sometimes fails to be replicated in other times and places; for instance, when the method was re-tested to identify Native Americans, the average rate of accuracy dropped from 85% to 33%.<ref name=goodman/> Prior information about the individual (e.g. Census data) is also important in allowing the accurate identification of the individual's "race".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Konigsberg |first1=Lyle W. |last2=Algee-Hewitt |first2=Bridget F. B. |last3=Steadman |first3=Dawnie Wolfe |date=1 May 2009 |title=Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology: Sex and race |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_american-journal-of-physical-anthropology_2009-05_139_1/page/77 |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |volume=139 |issue=1 |pages=77–90 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.20934 |pmid=19226642 |issn=1096-8644}}</ref>

In a different approach, anthropologist [[C. Loring Brace]] said:

{{blockquote|1=The simple answer is that, as members of the society that poses the question, they are inculcated into the social conventions that determine the expected answer. They should also be aware of the biological inaccuracies contained in that "politically correct" answer. Skeletal analysis provides no direct assessment of skin color, but it does allow an accurate estimate of original geographical origins. African, eastern Asian, and European ancestry can be specified with a high degree of accuracy. Africa of course entails "black", but "black" does not entail African.<ref name="anthropology12" />}}

In association with a NOVA program in 2000 about race, he wrote an essay opposing use of the term.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/does-race-exist.html|title=Does Race Exist?|date=15 February 2000 |website=www.pbs.org |access-date=9 November 2017}}</ref>

A 2002 study found that about 13% of human craniometric variation existed between regions, while 6% existed between local populations within regions and 81% within local populations. In contrast, the opposite pattern of genetic variation was observed for skin color (which is often used to define race), with 88% of variation between regions. The study concluded: "The apportionment of genetic diversity in skin color is atypical, and cannot be used for purposes of classification."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Relethford |first=John H. |title=Apportionment of global human genetic diversity based on craniometrics and skin color |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=11 July 2002 |volume=118 |issue=4 |pages=393–398 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.10079 |pmid=12124919 |s2cid=8717358 |url=http://references.260mb.com/Biometria/Relethford2002.pdf |access-date=25 October 2017 |archive-date=26 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171026053656/http://references.260mb.com/Biometria/Relethford2002.pdf }}</ref>
Similarly, a 2009 study found that craniometrics could be used accurately to determine what part of the world someone was from based on their cranium; however, this study also found that there were no abrupt boundaries that separated craniometric variation into distinct racial groups.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Relethford |first1=John H. |title=Race and global patterns of phenotypic variation |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |date=18 February 2009 |volume=139 |issue=1 |pages=16–22 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.20900 |quote=Craniometric variation is geographically structured, allowing high levels of classification accuracy when comparing crania from different parts of the world. Nonetheless, the boundaries in global variation are not abrupt and do not fit a strict view of the race concept; the number of races and the cutoffs used to define them are arbitrary. |pmid=19226639}}</ref> Another 2009 study showed that American blacks and whites had different skeletal morphologies, and that significant patterning in variation in these traits exists within continents. This suggests that classifying humans into races based on skeletal characteristics would necessitate many different "races" being defined.<ref name=ousley2009/>

In 2010, philosopher [[Neven Sesardić]] argued that when several traits are analyzed at the same time, forensic anthropologists can classify a person's race with an accuracy of close to 100% based on only skeletal remains.<ref name="Sesardic 2010" /> Sesardić's claim has been disputed by philosopher [[Massimo Pigliucci]], who accused Sesardić of "cherry pick[ing] the scientific evidence and reach[ing] conclusions that are contradicted by it". Specifically, Pigliucci argued that Sesardić misrepresented a paper by Ousley et al. (2009), and neglected to mention that they identified differentiation not just between individuals from different races, but also between individuals from different tribes, local environments, and time periods.<ref name="Pigliucci 2013" />