Drug Sniffing Dogs Often Wrong, Harass Latinos

Just when you thought we had entered post-racial America, even dogs begin to show signs of racism. Yes, that’s right, in a recent analysis done by the Chicago Tribune, it turned out that Latinos were disproportionately targeted by the dogs, which aren’t trained in any standardized way to sniff out drugs or drug paraphernalia.

The analysis includes Illinois Department of Transportation information from 2007 to 2009 from suburban police departments, but not the State Police or Chicago Police. Overall, there are some interesting facts:

• A three year data analysis for suburban Illinois police departments found that “only 44 percent of those alerts by the dogs led to the discovery of drugs or paraphernalia.”
• For Latino drivers, “the success rate was just 27 percent.” Gee, I guess that means they’re being racially profiled.
• “The McHenry County‘s sheriff’s department had the most dog alerts, finding drugs or paraphernalia in 32 percent of 103 searches. In the eight searches on Hispanic drivers, officers reported finding drugs just once.”
• “In Naperville, 47 percent of searches turned up drugs or paraphernalia, though searches on Hispanic drivers turned up drugs in only one of 12 traffic stops, for a rate of 8 percent.”

Police and drug dog advocates say that poor training on the part of dog handlers, as well as drug residue are to blame for what appears to be racial profiling with this data. But, I mean, come on! Seriously? How is it possible that drug residue could be responsible for an overall skewed result and several particular instances of Latinos being over-searched to no results?

It’s probably because the dogs are racist.