Racial profiling comes into play when federal grant programs reward police for rounding up as many people as possible. This same tactic was demonstrated by New York City's CompStat system and further exposed by Victor M. Rios' analysis of the issues of over- and under-policing. These themes focus on how officers police certain types of deviance and crime such as loitering or public nuisance, while neglecting other cases where their help is needed. Rios also highlights how the accumulation of minor citations like those mentioned above plays a crucial role in bringing young Black and Latino males deeper into the criminal justice system. Rios implies that to decrease your chances of interacting with the police you don't have to physically appear in a way that attracts the attention of the police or do any wise behavior that might lead someone to label you as deviant. Unfortunately, excessive policing has made it difficult even for those who actually respect social norms because even then they have been victims of criminalization. However, because structural incentives like those that CompStat mimics are in place, the police simply ignore the constitutional rules and can get away with racial profiling, and then question and frisk anyone they want. As these targeted minorities recognize that the police are not always there to enforce the law, they in turn learn strategies to protect themselves from the violence that surrounds them. African American and Latino youth are thus socialized into the “code of the street,” as the criminal justice system has no value in their lives.
tags