Racial profiling. Does it happen? Is it just?

Frist, I may be to the left of the leftest liberals. I do have a problem with profiling middle easterners. First is that it goes against my ideal view of America as a just and free society. I do not give up these ideals very easily, even in the face of danger.

But more than this, the main purpose of profiling is to make people feel better, not to actually increase security. These are emotional desicions, not rational ones.

Many experts point out that profiling is unlikely to stop terrorism. Look at the effect of profiling on the war on drugs. The authorities and the public alike made their profile (ironically drug trafficers were also young dark-skinned mles), and the drug dealers took full advantage. Old women, children, pregnant women and light skinned people are all used to traffic drugs now. You think that drug trafficers are any more intelligent than terrorists?

If you know, and I know that it is socially acceptable to harbor prejudice toward middle-easterners (and "extra scrutiny" is by definition prejudice) the terrorists will know as well. Like the drug dealers they will simply shift their strategy to use people who don't happen match our prejudice.

You may feel more secure, but this predictable prejudice actually helps the terrorists know where our caution is being placed and avoid tripping any alarm.

Ebrown, I mean no disrespect but maybe your association with someone who has been racially profiled is clouding your thought process. I admit that if i was in you or your sons position I would feel much the same. But seeing that I am not, my mind is clear and I can say that maybe those clerks don't take statistical studies but are doing things based on what they have seen in the past. Your point is well taken but it is flawed. Overlooking race would be naive of law enforcement. The skin color is not a cause btu a corrolation, it is nothing more than acting on past experiences.

the tacit subliminal 'profiling' of members of the third world by the American establishment, could be construed as the initial cause of terrorist activity in the first place.

That is assuming that a teen of dark skin is more likely shop-lift than one of light skin. Poor reasoning in my opinion.

Good point BoGoWo.

Also, you are arguing the part more of whether it is fair for your son to be profiled because of his skin color, it is just too personal for you. There are other groups who are profiled and discriminated against and it has nothing to do with their skin color. I'll give you a perfect example, TEENAGERS. While driving, a teenager will be driving much better than the aged male in the lane next to him, but a policeman may pull the teen over because it's possible that the teen may panic, commit some useless traffic violation, and the cop can reach his quota for the week.

Now there IS a double edged sword here. Do you think minority police officers would maybe look over dark skinned people and their eyes would go to the white man first? The only reason this is an issue to minorities is because there aren't as many minorities in the police force.

Profiling analysis seeks to marshal all of the available information relevant to the crime to be solved/prevented. Seldom does the process narrow down to a single person, what the analyst is trying for is to identify the most probable cohorts. A cohort is a groups of made of similar cases/individuals. Simple Age cohorts are an example. We can divide the population into a series ranging from, say, birth to age 10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, 61-70, 71-80, and so forth. Then by sorting frequency numbers into those categories we arrive at a bell curve for whatever it is we are studying. For violent crimes, the Age/Sex group most common is males 14-25. Analysis also makes us expect higher frequencies when the young men are not in school, or holding a job. In that same group, drug and alcohol abuse is more common, and those characteristics also push up the probability that the young man will be involved in violent criminal behavior. None of this means that every, or even most, young men 14-25 will commit a violent crime, or even drop out of school and abuse drugs and alcohol. What it does mean is that the more a young man fits this profile, the higher the probability that they MIGHT have committed a crime of violence. We know that in most homicides victim and killer know one another, and belong to roughly the same peer group. When the victim is a young man gunned down on a street corner, who is the most likely suspect? If the victim is a minority and the crime occurs in his own neighborhood, who do you think detectives will want to look most carefully at?

"extra-medium, to that I would say: should middle easterners be checked more thoroughly while US forces are in Iraq and the middle east, or should they be held under suspicion indefinitely because, as everyone knows, middle easterners are more prone to high-jacking plains, it's just what they do."

You are loading your statement down with a lot words that tend to color and raise our emotional temperature. "Should middle easterners be checked more closely"? Yes

"... while US forces are in Iraq and the middle east?" I don't see the relevance here. If U.S. forces were not in Iraq and the Middle East do you really believe that the terrorist threat to our country would just go away? Radical Islamic terrorists have been attacking the U.S. since the end of the Cold War, and only after 9/11 was any significant military action taken in our defense. The terrorists hate us and wish our total destruction, they were emboldened to strike New York and Washington because they either felt that we would do nothing, or they hoped to kindle a great religious war. They want to impose their brand of religion on the whole world, we want to be secure in our homes and business places. They are encouraged by any sign of weakness.

"...should they be held under suspicion indefinitely?" No, only until the threat of terrorism inside our borders by radical islamic terrorists is past.

"...as everyone knows, middle easterners are more prone to high-jacking plains, it's just what they do." Actually that isn't something that "everyone knows". People with ethnic origins within Southwest Asia are no more prone to airline highjacking per se, than any other ethnic group. Radical Islamic terrorists, on the other hand have shown a fondness for airline highjacking, kidnaping, and bombing that does indeed rightly concern those targeted by them. The apparent support given them by people living in the so-called Islamic Republics should also be a concern. Most Muslims (especially within the U.S.) probably do not support terrorist activities, but are embarrassed by them. No one doing respectable profiling analysis would ever start, or even factor in, something so prejudicial as you seem to suggest.

Carbon,

I don't think my thought process is clouded at all. I am making three very cogent rational arguments that are backed up with logic. Here they are for you spelled out with impeccible logic. I invite you to answer these points with reason.

1) Racial profiling is immoral and goes against American values.

By definition if you are singling out someone for something as arbritary as the color of their skin, you are forsaking the ideals of equality and fairness.

Even if it is possible that profiling does mean that we will have more efficient law enforcement (and I am not conceding that it does), this does not make it moral.

There are a lot of things we could do to make law enforcement more efficient, including getting rid of the constitutional protections like due process and the need for search warrants as well use the use of torture. We reject these things because they are immoral.

I argue that we should reject profiling on the same grounds. I don't think you will argue with the fact that profiling hurts innocent people (this represent this as a fact, not an emotional cloudying). But it causes harm to innocent people. Even if it gave us a more secure society, I would oppose it.

2) Racial profiling is subject to human irrational prejudice.

People form judgements based on fear, social norms and beliefs. They are seldom based on any objective reason.

A belief that blacks are likely to steal is at best simplistic and offensive as well.The need to shadow a black person because of this belief is ludicrous.

Let's consider two hypothetical shop keepers. One believes that black people are prone to steal, the other doesn't. The first shop keeper has an employee tail each black person who enters his store. The second is normally alert and treats all of his customers the same (but keeps his eyes open).

Do you really believe that the first shopkeeper will lose less merchandise to theft than the second? (We won't talk about the loss of time and goodwill suffered by the first keeper). I would argue not.

[This is a logical argument, and I would ask you to answer it with reason]

3. Racial profiling can hurt law enforcement.

You discounted my argue=ment as emotional without out answering my sound logic. Please answer this if your views are based on any kind of reason.l.

I gave the example of the war on drugs. It is clear that the racial stereotypes built up by both law enforcement and the public have hurt efforts to stop drug trafficking. The traffickers know our prejudices and take full advantage of them (please read my previous post on this).

The terrorists are not stupid either. They know where our prejudices lie. Any reasonably smart person, be it a terrorist or drug dealer or whatever, can easily see this and use it to their advantage. Terrorists are not now going to use a dark skinned 20 something with a menacing beard. They are going to use someone we are not expecting- a woman, a white person would be easy to sneak by. Drug dealers use kids and old woman for exactly this reason. We are letting the terrorists know exactly what they have to do to beat us.

This racial profiling makes you feel better, but hurts real security.

[read Setanta's interesting post here for a somewhat related historical example where racism hurt security http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=823270#823270]

Finally, if I every choose a life of crime I know just what to do. I am going to send my son into a store, have him look at CD's and maybe even buy one. But while shopkeeper and all the cameras point toward him his respectable white father will be over at the jewelry counter, free unwatched, not deserving of any concern ..... hwaaa ha ha...

There a very non-emotional, logical post on the subject. Let's see if Carbon can do the same.

ebrown_p, fortune, (et al.),

I respect your point of view.

However, imagine this:

You are a cop in Central Park. One day, you happen to be surrounded by 100 older women, and one young middle-eastern man.

Suddenly, you see the top of one building next to the park explode in flames. You notice a shoulder-held missile launcher lying in the grass next to the crowd. All of them are equal distances from the missle launcher, and none are looking at it, etc. All 101 people immediately scatter. You scan the scene and see no other evidence to move on. You only have the chance to catch & hold 1 of the 101 fleeing people. They all are equal distances from you, and all appear to be equally catchable. But you can only catch one.

Can you honestly tell us you wouldn't tend to apprehend the one male?

Or would you simply let them all run away, since to choose one would be profiling?

extra medium: Put this in context of my earlier question.

If the country I was in happened to be at war with, say, Italy, I would grab the nearest old Italian woman.

Very well. I agree with you. By grabbing the Italian woman, you have engaged in profiling. I respectfully conclude that you agree profiling is indeed okay, as long at it is appropriate to the current situation, is in line with current international conflicts, current events, current statistics, etc.

ebrown_p,
I understand your hatred of profiling. To experience what you have experienced with your son must be terrible, to put it lightly.

However. What would you do if you're the cop in Central Park?

Yes, this is a bit ugly and I don't particularly like it.
You only have 1 second to think about it.
Everyone is disappearing into the city...what do you do?
let them all go?

Sometimes moral isn't always what is best for the American public. Yes they're based on fear, fear of being mugged. I don't believe that the person who runs the jewelery counter will leave it unattended along with the rest of the staff to watch your dark skinned son. From what you tell me, it is usually some stockboy who is told to go watch the person, if your son is doing nothing wrong then he shouldn't feel too uncomfortable with this, understanding that it is based on what they've seen before. There are your answers. oh and EXTRA MEDIUM-awesome point.

extra medium, I think profiling is an extremely effective tool. I think racial profiling is a piece of unadulterated hooey. At least that is the opinion I have formed on Asherman's explanation of it.

Some people have different views of the definitions of profiling and racial profiling. One person may consider profiling what another considers racial profiling.

True CarbonSystem. The way I understand it, profiling is the act of compiling the likely characteristics of a criminal (height, gender, hair colour) in order to cut down the list of suspects. Racial profiling is ascibing a propensity for a certain crime to a single race, regardless of the facts at hand.

That is in fact what I think profiling is, racial profiling on the other hand is just using race as a way to help profile possible criminals.

Carbon,

Your contrived example is not that contrived. Racial profiling has been around quite a bit before 9/11.

Remember the Oklahoma City bombing? Initial reports had "Middle Eastern Men" speeding away from the scene of the bombing.

We in Boston have a another example where a murderer used this prejudice to his advantage. Charles Stuart reported a black man carjacked him, killing his pregnant wife. For several days police stopped and searched black men who remotely matched the bereaved husband's vague description at least a couple men were jailed as a result of this search.

This furor happened because this grisly murder matched the irrational fear of the black male monster.

The culprit turned out to be the respectable white husband. People were so focussed on the image he painted that so reflected their fears, that they never realized how ridiculous his story was. There were a few brave journalists who question his story early and turned out to be right.

If there is the rocket attack as you describe, your impulse to grab the nearest middle eastern man is completely natural, but irrational nonetheless. You may have just let Tim McVeigh or Charles Stuart get away based on your impulse reaction.

The logical response is to make no assumptions until you have the facts. You should seal the scene, including the women who you are so ready to assume are innocent. Focussing so early on the "obvious suspect" has so often been shown to be a mistake.

[Incidently, this makes me wonder why after Oklahoma city I was never once made to take off my shoes, or remove plastic forks from my pocket when I visited Federal Buildings.]

ebrown_p,

I figured you'd come back with "seal the scene."
Lets say you are a cop with no radio, etc. Thats what I meant when I wrote: you can only apprehend one person, you only have 1 second to decide, etc.

Yes, in an ideal world we'd immediately seal the enitre scene, we'd seal the entire city, interrogate and investigate all 101 individuals. And we couldn't stop there. Who's to say it was one of those 101 people? We'd investigate where all 10+ million New Yorkers were at the time of the attack, equally. In fact, we would do this for every crime in NYC. And the nation.

But this is not an ideal world.

Let's say sealing the scene is not an option. You yell out for help, but there is no help in sight. You can choose to chase one person, or let everyone go.

Should I assume you'd probably let them all go, since to chase any one person would be profiling?

***
(Note: I don't mean to sound mean-spirited here. I am just trying to get at this: In absolutely no circumstances do you advocate any hint of any kind of profiling?)

Ah, but I also understand that there is a tendency to find what you are looking for.

Aside - it all gets complicated, in that to some extent, people also fulfill expectations, in that low opportunity is sometimes given to those whom not much is expected of. And some who are expected to be criminally oriented may become alienated, in time.

And some profiling makes some sense, in the common sense way that one becomes wary or at least walks in an unvictimlike manner if a batch of inebriated folk approach you full bore late in the day. Although of course, they could just want to throw frisbees. Re race, I might have my antennae up if I was walking as a middle aged woman in gang territory, gangs of any racial description. Heh, I did that for years without difficulty, but then I didn't walk much by myself at two in the morning, primarily because of my nightblind eyes.

I guess that I would use what I think of as smart generally... performance criteria, re the, uh, cohort walking down the street. Some fairly threatening looking people to some are comfortable looking to others. Behavior, actions, count more to me, certainly than race or age or gender.

'course I am one of those here who is associated with someone who gets profiled routinely in another way, my niece who has truckers pull up and ask her lewd questions when she is out walking my dog in my new town of whiteville.