Please go to the site to read the remainder of the paper, if you wish. In the case of ordinary crimes, where for example profiling might take the form of disproportionately frequent searches of vehicles driven by Hispanics because Hispanics are disproportionately represented in illegal drug trafficking, I would expect profiling to have little effect on the crime rate. The reason is the positive elasticity of supply of persons who commit victimless crimes, which is to say crimes resulting from the outlawing of products or services for which there is a demand. If one class of suppliers is driven out of business, this makes room for others. Given the fixed budget for law enforcement assumed by Becker, the increased apprehension of Hispanic drug couriers would be offset by a reduced risk to non-Hispanics of being apprehended for transporting drugs, and so the non-Hispanics would flock to replace the Hispanics as couriers. The ethnic composition of the illegal work force would be altered by profiling, but the crime rate would be affected only to the extent that Hispanics are more efficient drug couriers because of language and other ties to major drug supply countries; the net effect on the crime rate would probably be small.