Karen S. Glover investigates the social science practices of racial profiling inquiry, examining their key influence in shaping public understandings of race, law, and law enforcement. Commonly manifesting in the traffic stop, the association with racial minority status and criminality challenges the fundamental principle of equal justice under the law as described in the U.S. Constitution. Communities of color have long voiced resistance to racialized law and law enforcement, yet the body of knowledge about racial profiling rarely engages these voices. Applying a critical race framework, Glover provides in-depth interview data and analysis that demonstrate the broad social and legal realms of citizenship that are inherent to the racial profiling phenomenon. To demonstrate the often subtle workings of race and the law in the post-Civil Rights era, the book includes examination of the 1996 U.S. Supreme Court's Whren decision-a judicial pronouncement that allows pretextual action by law enforcement and thus widens law enforcement powers in decisions concerning when and against whom law is applied.

"Glover's research illustrates the deep foundations of racial oppression in the post-civil-rights era.... She encourages the discipline to turn a lens on itself and acknowledge its own function in the reproduction of inequality. Highly recommended." - CHOICE, May 2010

"Glover provides an "alternative portrait" of the phenomenon that both challenges existing researching on the topic and encourages the adoption of new perspectives on the issue....The primary goal of the book goes beyond traditional perspectives and mainstream police scholarship and there is no doubt that Glover's work would appeal to those familiar with critical theoretical orientations and critical race methodology....The actual experiences of those who have been profiled should provide a breath of fresh air to scholars tired of debates on appropriate base rates and quantitative outcome tests of search and seizure practices. Glover largely succeeds in her goal to "privilege the voices of historically silenced" victims of profiling." - Criminal Justice Review

"Karen Glover's work represents an impassioned invitation to readers in mainstream sociology and criminology to become more critically reflective about the very structures of power, especially with respect to racial hierarchies and race relations that have informed the formulation of mainstream research in these areas.... She contributes to a well-established tradition of research on racial profiling.... Glover's work may be seen as a foundation for an instructive tradition in any field.... Glover was privileging the voices of historically silenced people of color indeed. This book should find wide readership amongst scholars in a variety of social science disciplines, while it should also be important to policy makers." - Sociological Inquiry