On Sat, Oct 13, 2001 at 10:35:35PM -0400, Robert Haeckl wrote:
>
> > Really, though, this gets into the issue of profiling. I believe in
> > profiling. Police and the FBI can't really do their jobs without
> > profiling. It's difficult to track serial killers without profiling. The
> > only people who bitch about profiling are people who are the "victims"
> > of it. And those people, as a group, are the ones who commit the most
> > crimes. Which is the reason why they are profiled in the first place.
> >
> > By all means, track Arabs coming into this country. Of course, they are
> > not all guilty. But by the same token, you don't detain every person who
> > fits the profile. You simply track them as much as practicable.
>
> Paul, I agree with many things that you advocate on this board, but
> racial profiling is not one of them.
I didn't specifically mention racial profiling by name, but on occasion
it works. Serial killers are overwhelmingly white, male, and of a
certain age bracket. That's the profile. (If I were single, that profile
would probably include me.) Stick to that, generally, and you catch more
serial killers. Most crimes are committed by blacks against blacks.
That's the profile. It may be true that sometimes crimes are committed
by "out-of-profile" individuals, but it's the rarity.
I'm not trying to make a case for racism. But statistics bear out the
fact that certain sexes, races, income levels, etc. are known to commit
certain types of crimes under certain circumstances. As an example,
people with concealed carry licenses almost never commit gun crimes. So
the profile for gun crimes would most likely not include concealed
carriers. To fail to act on known statistical likelihoods it ludicrous
and dangerous.
It's true that _racial_ profiling wouldn't have prevented Oklahoma City.
But I'm not sure that some other type of profile wouldn't have prevented
the perpetrators from getting to the point of committing the act.
Another example. There are a fair number of anthrax cases being reported
currently. They may or may not be terrorist-related. But if they're not,
do you think it's a man or woman committing the crimes? White or black?
Rich or low income? Dollars to donuts, it's a white male, a loner of low
to middle income. This type of crime is unheard of for females, blacks,
or rich people. Profile.
I don't think you can effectively argue that a profile is not a wise
tool in the law enforcement arsenal. Can you honestly say that a
youngish Arab gentleman trying to buy ten cubic yards of fertilizer from
you doesn't raise red flags? If it doesn't, you're a liability to the
rest of us.
Your argument seems to revolve around some injustice or loss of liberty
attached to profiles. I fail to see the injustice or loss of liberty
involved, though. It isn't the profile, but the use of it that can be
problematic. Do we cease to employ a useful tool simply to avoid its
abuse?
But let me make a _really_ inflammatory argument. This is the same one I
made about the Arabs. The black community gets picked on the most about
crime, and rightly so, since blacks statistically commit most crimes.
Are all blacks bad? Absolutely not. Do the statistics mean that your
black neighbor is a criminal? No way. But crime exists in the black
community because the black community does not police itself (the same
is true of the white community). Black families and friends look the
other way when their family members or friends become gang members and
commit crimes. In doing so, they give their whole community a bad name,
and bring profiling and such upon themselves. It is up to us to police
ourselves, whatever community we live in. Because allowing criminals to
run loose only costs us in the long run, and will eventually bring crime
down upon our heads. In a sense, that's why Sept 11 was allowed to
happen. We as a society didn't put 2 and 2 together individually, when
faced with circumstances that should have been very fishy.
Let me make one last point. At various times in my life, particularly
when I was young, I spent a lot of time among blacks. I found them to be
very friendly, spiritual, affectionate, and intelligent. I grew up in
the South, but my mother was very careful to avoid racism in our house.
And my experience with blacks since I was a child (the 60's) has been
pretty much the same as anyone else's: some good, some bad. So I don't
have a particular bias either way. Likewise with women: I've known some
saints and some bitches. Same with men: some heroes and some assholes.
But I'm not foolish enough to think that statistics don't matter. The
next time a serial killer is running around my neighborhood, I'll be on
the lookout for a white, 25 - 35, middle-to-low income male who's a
loner.
Paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 19:38:39 EDT