Immigration control as a police task. Does the legal framework provide effective measures to prevent
ethnic profiling?
Although, on an international level, considerable attention goes to ethnic profiling practices by police officers, police powers related to immigration control are less frequently discussed in this context. In this article, an attempt is made to broaden the research scope, as the existing Belgian legal framework
on police stops relating to immigration control is analysed. Central to the discussion is the question whether the existing legislation provides effective measures to prevent ethnic profiling. Several potential changes to the legal framework are considered, i.e. mandatory recording by the police of the reason to execute a stop in order to permit effective internal and judicial review, the shortening of the police detention length in case of illegal stay and the decriminalisation of illegal stay. As Belgian empirical research on the topic is lacking, the article focuses on ‘law in books’, while making a case for future empirical investigation of ‘law in action’.