Good post.

Overall, if profiling in particular and the criminal justice system in general were conducted in a non-racist manner, it could easily be a net benefit.

There may be other problems with it--for instance it could theoretically create racial prejudice where there was none before. Also a lot depends on the inconvenience and frequency of profiling in terms of keeping people "happy."

I've been thinking this over too. A lot depends on what you mean by "profiled group" because profiling and its effects are not going to be evenly distributed among a group as large and varied as, say "people of Arab descent." So a policy of profiling Arab males 20-45 years old may receive overall support among "people of Arab descent" but not the actual group being targeted (i. e. the ones who feel the effects of the profiling).

There are some other problems too (accuracy of the profiled group;s risk assessment, difference in intensity of preference, etc.). I agree there is a point where acceptance of profiling by a sizable majority of the profiled group implies that the profiling is correct. I'd put it higher than simply "most", however.

which tends to confirm my prejudice that the main reason there is so much concern about the shooting isn't because of any racial profiling but because of a belief that the cops and other institutions are just straightforwardly racist.

being from the UK I don't know much about the actual case or situation. I making no claim about whether the racism is real or not but it seems risible to believe the belief its real isn't real which is enough to make racial profiling a highly dubious activity.

Then I did my job.

This sums it up:

My opinion of you has been bettered due to your behavior in this thread.

New data to add to your musings: women in big shoes become permanently more hateful if you check their shoes. Think of it as checking a woman's email in a relationship because you have profiled her as having nice breasts and therefore likely to have other suitors.

No sensible profiling would involve never checking unlikely items/people. Game theory suggests you check them just enough to make terrorists indifferent to each method. If 70 year old women get a little less attention than anyone else, terrorists aren't going to switch en masse to using 70 year women, because they're almost certainly going to be much harder to recruit than young males.

I think broad-based age and sex profiling may be politically and socially viable in a way that racial profiling would not. If young Arabic males feel like they're being singled out, that has the potential to create social unrest as well as potentially help terrorists with their recruiting. If it can be sold as "we're going to ease down on the groping of toddlers and grandmas", most people would probably be okay with it, like how people don't mind child or senior discounts.

Now that's a good post.

OUTSIDE AGITATORS!?!?

ahahahahah

right, you didn't explicitly mention it. Things like voter ID requirements don't mention skin color, they can't be racist, right? Poll taxes, grandfather clauses, etc etc. None of them mentioned skin color explicitly. Do they get a pass IYO?

Right. "If magic existed, we could theoretically something something without something therefore it's cool if we implement a racially biased regime now in the real world without magic." OK dude, sure thing.

Is this word salad supposed to be something along the lines of "only those who are up to no good would object"?

I'm fairly sure this is already done to an extent and I don't think anyone has a problem with it.

Or actually the problem comes from people who think ONLY Arabs should be singled out.

No they would be objecting however one way or another( if it didnt draw attention to them i mean) 100% of the time and the others that are innocent not necessarily 100% of the time.

For example if i wear a 49ers cap and t-shirt and the police wants to question all 49ers fans for an incident and i didnt do it why would i object to it (unless their methods is so inept for this to increase the chance to catch and prosecute an innocent guy) ? If their description was that a guy with 49er gear was involved in some event and they can block an area and prevent people from changing clothes and they decide to collect all the men who have 49 gear and all the men that appear to be missing clothes why would i object to that. Shouldnt it be also my desire to find a guilty person that caused harm to someone? Should the fact that he is also a 49er fan make me less angry with his presumed crime?

So yes if the process of checking is necessary and prevents crime and is not some idiot stereotypical abusive practice that leads to more problems than it solves, i have to cooperate and not at all be angry about it. If i am not cooperating i am guilty or a moron that doesnt get the necessity of the process.


I you go to an airport with a ton of clothes and all kinds of bags etc you better believe it you will be tested more often or always.


If 90% of the time the terrorists so far are male 18-50 and from Muslim countries and have no family traveling with them and you have 100 people in a group and you can only test 20 in order to save time you can select the 20 that satisfy the above criteria. It is not perfect but its better than not checking anyone. I want of course eventually to be able to test all and down the road to live in a society that there are no terrorists anyway.


If some minority has a problem with the fact they are targeted they better fight to change that by either correcting all excessive unnecessary idiotic targeting and by also changing the fact that they are the statistical leading group in that problem. Yes Muslims for example need to do their best to eliminate radical Islam. Until then they have to endure the bias and they have to protest only when this bias is excessive and stupidly racist. And we must then join them and help them when they are abused. The rest of the time its necessary evil discomfort. Deal with it.

This whole post is based on things you assume to be true but in reality are not.

* questioning all 49ers fans is objectionable for lots of reasons, one being that it's turrible police work from an efficiency standpoint, two being that "being a 49ers fan" is never in the real world sufficient probable cause (I'm sure you can concoct some cartoon world scenario where it makes perfect sense, which you've already started to do with your "imagine a fantasy scenario where we can ensure nobody ever changes clothes..." baloney).

* I love how you assume the conclusion with your "if the checking is necessary" qualification. I mean ****, yeah, you're right. If the checking is necessary then I guess it's necessary. Good show, chap. "preventing crime" is not a sufficient condition to justify a particular tactic. That should be obvious. We have things like the foruth amendment for actual reasons, not just because we want to be dicks to the cops.

* " If i am not cooperating i am guilty or a moron" is just flat out false. There are all sorts of reasons other than these to not acquiece to any and all demands made by those who claim authority.

* " I you go to an airport with a ton of clothes and all kinds of bags etc you better believe it you will be tested more often or always." basically you're saying because X is the policy then the poilicy must be justified? You better believe you're getting a rapeyscan! Therefore, we can conclude ________ about rapeyscans? Please fill in this blank for me.

BTW, how much luggage did the 9/11 hijackers have?

* "If 90% of the time the terrorists so far are male 18-50 and from Muslim countries and have no family traveling with them and you have 100 people in a group and you can only test 20 in order to save time you can select the 20 that satisfy the above criteria. It is not perfect but its better than not checking anyone."

A) you totally ignored the question of "what percentage of 18-50 males from muslim countries are actually terrorists" but of course that doesn't matter to you because you don't give a **** about human rights. You just care about justifying the status quo. You also draw a false dichotomy, "checking 20 muslims" and "checking nobody" are clearly not the only options.

and then my favorite part

"If some minority has a problem with the fact they are targeted they better fight to change that by either correcting all excessive unnecessary idiotic targeting and by also changing the fact that they are the statistical leading group in that problem."

which basicaly sounds like "hey if black teenagers don't like getting shot by cops then maybe they should think about not being black teenagers anymore."

hey if they don't like it they should just stop being arabs.

cliffnotes

OK dude. You're a ****ing joke.

There is a difference between searching for a suspect at large in a crime that's already occurred, based on a specific description (49ers hat), and profiling people with the suspicion that they are more likely to commit future crimes, especially when the group of people being profiled in the latter case have already been the victims of injustice based on the attributes being profiled.

The idea of weighing costs and benefits to profiling is reasonable enough, but you have to consider the costs pretty carefully, and the context.

but that's not even what he said. He didn't describe a scenario where someone with a particular description was a suspect. He described a scenario where he was wearing a 49ers hat and they wanted to question "all 49ers fans." Not "people wearing 49ers caps." Huge difference.

Apparently pvn you are so inept that cannot understand that there can be an incident where police can block exit to 1000 people where 600 are men, 400 of them are 49er fans (fit clothes description with caps and tshirts as i said not just hats you little $#%), 200 of them are not very old or very young and therefore check the hands of 200 men for injuries and have the suspect in record time this way. Yeah sometimes you do not have to check 20000 people. There are cases its easier. But even with 20000 its no big deal to stop them for 1 hour and help find the guilty or improve the chances to do that dramatically. People need to cooperate in order to defeat crime or save lives. If i was told that i will lose every year 100 min because of testing so that 1500 people wont die that year and be with their families i would love to know i helped with my 100min to make that possible. Of course i want to believe i live in a society that wants to try to give me back those 100min somehow (other efficiency elsewhere) and even save me more time and make me safer with technology and better culture and justice for all.

Additionally i want to believe i live in a world where if we introduce processes to protect against terrorism that eventually cost so much or create more terrorism, we will modify them and target the problem the right way not with stupid narrow minded focus. For example if a society can spend 100 bil to save 1 mil people per year because of less crime, less disease, less accidents etc or it can spend 100 bil to avoid another terrorist attack in planes, it will have the decency to choose the first because it does a better overall good to its people. You cannot for example make terrorism war a 10 tril $ hole in your economy per decade in order to save a few thousands every year when with that money you could save millions without the wars.


So all fronts require improvement. Lets see how many fronts rejectionist thinkers like pvn improve though.


Also pvn doesnt understand that after 911 things became more complex so yes clothes and other tool hiding ideas may need to be tested better with higher technology when possible or even real people. He doesnt understand that if an algorithm existed before 911 to check people with 1 way tickets and alarm all kinds of bells when a flight has more than 2 such people in it that are not US citizens and do not travel with family, that the system would have prevented 911 very easily. Profiling that was inept failed US on 9/11/2001. Damn right it did. Profiling works when done properly. Its all you have in an uncertain world with limited resources. I do not expect uneducated people with low self esteem to get that though. Its a lot easier to jump the rejectionist revolutionary without a cause wagon.

I maintain that only idiots do not cooperate at checkpoints that are forced to examine only a fraction of the population and they target the most likely subjects. The project here is to reduce risk when other methods are more costly or not available.


I understand that a random plane has <1 in 1 mil chance to be targeted today because of these methods in place. Without them its 1 in 100k. And yes 1 in 100k is still tiny but over the year overall flights its equal to saving 1500 people say and 1 bil $ (the cost of losing say 5 airlines a year and local damage to buildings, insurances etc).


If people are so moronic as to not get the necessity for cooperation then i suppose a stupid money obsessed self centered f*cked up society may get pleasure if it was introduced that each time some person is selected for further testing/checking due to some profiling in place they get a discount in their ticket or some other benefit that emerges from the fact we have say saved that 1 bil per year. The person tested would have the option to accept the gift or forward it to a charity (what they did remains a secret they only know). And then we would have another way to know who are the a$$holes in this world, even better without them getting it, because they would be happy now that the checking and profiling somehow assisted them financially!

If there are 1000 unreasonable scenarios that he was charging, and 1 reasonable scenario that he was charging, this creates reasonable doubt and he should get off.

You just need to find 1 reasonable scenario, and it doesn't matter how many unreasonable scenarios you find.

Also as chezlaw posted in post #3, it should be based on if you reasonably believe the cop thought he was charging, not on if you believe he was charging or not.

This argument is laughably terrible. You seriously think that one individual can change the behavior of every other individual in their ethnic group?

And it assumes that your statistics are accurate. But we KNOW that the statistics are inaccurate--blacks and whites use marijuana at the same rates, but black people are three times more likely to be arrested for it.

Racial bias in law enforcement is an empirical observation, but you guys keep forgetting it exists.

pvn: when he said "the police want to question all 49ers fans for an incident" I took that to mean they were searching for a suspect to a specific prior crime. The example is possibly too loosely defined in that you wouldn't be wanting to question all 49ers fans, but from the context it seems reasonable to infer he really means all the ones in some limited area, and by 49ers fans he means people attired a certain way.

It seems clear he's searching for an analogy to airport or stop-and-frisk profiling that is unobjectionable, in order to support the idea that profiling is not inherently wrong. From that perspective, it doesn't matter very much whether the analogy represents a situation where it would be effective or ineffective as policework, but it does matter that the analogy doesn't really capture the elements of (for example) stop and frisk profiling that are actually problematic

bump for bruce

Yeah, I get that. And like I said, he can probably come up with some cartoon universe example (in theory, it's possible, his posts are pathetically hamfisted, though), but in the real world racial profiling is both ineffective and immoral.

This is wrong. The standard is: would a reasonable person in Wilson's position think Brown was charging?

It doesn't matter what Wilson thought if his thoughts weren't reasonable.

I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Not sure its even different. We have to put ourselves in the cops shoes and decide if we think it would have been reasonable for us to to believe we were being charged. This sounds much the same as deciding if a reasonable person would believe he was being charged although we could pick it apart a bit further.

and it can matter if the cop thoughts weren't reasonable. We can imagine situations where we believe the cop was dazed or under such extreme duress that reasonableness isn't the standard. Again we could say its much the same because its us putting ourselves in the cops shows and imagining ourselves in that situation in the same mental state.