Racial Profiling

[FatCobra]

Is Racial Profiling right? It's obvious that a huge Majority of all the recent terrorists attacks on the west have been from people of Middle East descent. But is it right to look for terrorist solely on what they look like or where they came from? If it is used, will it help our chances of stopping an attack before it is too late?

[ednos]

It doesn't really matter if it's right or not; political correctness is all that the loud people care about.

[Dirtboy]

Ok...here are my views on racial profiling.

Yes, I believe that it is necessary to use it when it comes to Homeland Security.
Yes, I believe that 95% of the "terrorists" are from the Middle-East and/or East Africa.
Yes, I do believe that the majority of them are trying to live day by day. They are trying to live a good life, be successful, and raise a family.

Lets look at the actual definitions shall we...

Definition: n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Definition: n. the consideration of race when developing a profile of suspected criminals; by extension, a form of racism involving police focus on people of certain racial groups when seeking suspected criminals

Suspected? The color of there skin is supsicious? There national origin? Political views? Personal views?

ANSWER: YES

Whether they would be Arab, Black, White, Asain, Martian, Klingon...YES.

Example 1.

You are are a Law Enforcement officer and you see a known KKK member near a predominately black school or church. What do you think? Suspicous...why?

a. his personal views and his nationality!

Example 2.

You are Airport Security officer, and you see a someone from the Middle East. What do you think? Suspicous...why?

a. his national origin.

Are they the same?: My Opinion, NO. With the KKK member, you know his intentions are not right.
Are they right? My Opinion, YES. Even though they are not the same, they are both needed.

Lets face facts, the majority of the Middle East hates and wish harm to the West. I believe we should take every precaution to stop another 9/11 from happening. Even if it takes a little longer getting through the airport.
With this being said, I have a REALLY good friend that is Arab, and we both feel the same on this matter. We both feel strongly about the whole "racial profiling" thing, and that it is a necessary evil needed to secure the saftey of our great country!

[CingularDuality]

Racial profiling is useless. Skin color just isn't enough information to arouse even the smallest amount of suspicion.

Profiling, however, is absolutely necessary. If someone is sweating, fidgeting, is wearing loose and lumpy clothing, and is carrying no baggage while traveling internationally, then the fact that he's a 23 year old muslim from Jordan should definitely contribute to your suspicion.

We've already seen Caucasian muslims conducting major terror operations, and we've found white Americans fighting for Al Queda. Profiling can NOT effectively be based on race alone. If it is, we'll lose again.

[Dirtboy]

I agreed to everything you said, but this.

Originally Posted by CingularDuality

Racial profiling is useless. Skin color just isn't enough information to arouse even the smallest amount of suspicion.

While there are a small minority of white muslim extremists...the vast majority are not.



Not one white dude.

At the same time, there are different types racial profiling.

[xanathemax]

None of the guys in those pictures look remotely similar, and there's probably more genetic variation within that group than there is between different "races" (as if that's a definable entity to begin with). Racial profiling is unjust and misguided.

[Switch]

Profiling is profiling. If race happens to be a criteria of a profile, then thats all there is to it. Whether its ethical has no bearing on whether its effective.

Now, back to whether or not its ethical.

[CingularDuality]

Originally Posted by Dirtboy

While there are a small minority of white muslim extremists...the vast majority are not.

Agreed. But more importantly:

While a small minority of arabs are muslim extremists...the vast majority are not.

And what's the cost of trying to catch terrorists by racial profiling instead of a solid terrorist profile, when Al Queda does sneak a white guy through?

Originally Posted by Switch

Profiling is profiling. If race happens to be a criteria of a profile, then thats all there is to it. Whether its ethical has no bearing on whether its effective.

Now, back to whether or not its ethical.

Wrong.

Racial profiling exists. It's ineffective and isn't used in the USA to screen for terrorists.

Profiling exists. It's effective and is used in just about every facet of law enforcement. There are plenty of different ways to do it effectively, as well as plenty of ways to do it ineffectively. You can't say "profiling is profiling" like that. Well, you can, but you'd be very wrong.

[snooggums]

Racial profiling is unethical because race has nothing to do with criminal threat. Now profiling based on actions or viewpoint groupings is different.

The known KKK member should not be profiled because of his race, he should be profiled because of his being a known KKK member around a church. Of course if he has not yet done anything he should not be detained or punished.

Profiling based on location of the world (white black, middle eastern) a person's physical traits come from is not ethical because there are many different groups in each area so the basis is false. There are Japanese Christians, Middle eastern Christians and African Christians. There are white Muslims (less in the US because of the proliferation of Christianity among US citizens) black Muslims and middle eastern Muslims. Are all Muslims extremist? No. There is no reason to base profiling on race.

Now if they are members of an extremist group then profiling them is more ethical, but does not allow for imprisonment without trial either. The whole problem with how the US perceives middle easterners right now is that in threads like this the people who support racial profiling talk as if it is ok to harass and detain people because of how they look. Dirtboy's picture of terrorists has a bunch of middle eastern men. But they are also all male! Obviously all terrorists are male and we should detain and torture all men because of a few examples of extremists.

Or we could profile them on being extremists instead of color or racial characteristics. OF course it's not as easy to go off of actions instead of visual similarities, and that is why the news almost always shows black and hispanic criminals and white female abductees as victims on the nightly news.

[ednos]

Originally Posted by snooggums

Racial profiling is unethical because race has nothing to do with criminal threat.

No, racial profiling is *ineffective* if it has nothing to do with criminal threat.

[snooggums]

Originally Posted by ednos

No, racial profiling is *ineffective* if it has nothing to do with criminal threat.

Actually it violates laws regarding discrimination and causes harassment as people of a specific race are targeted more than someone of another race without just cause, which are both unethical. It is both ineffective and unethical.

[ednos]

Originally Posted by snooggums

Actually it violates laws regarding discrimination and causes harassment as people of a specific race are targeted more than someone of another race without just cause, which are both unethical. It is both ineffective and unethical.

Yeah, but the fact that it's ineffective doesn't make it unethical, and you didn't provide the grounds for unethical in your original post.

[War.mongeR1]

I am for profiling due to the fact that Muslims have been the only group of people to hijack planes in recent history. But at the same time, we shouldn't publicly say we profile, because our enemies are smarter than that. If we started picking solely on Middle-eastern people, than all they have to do is recruit someone who doesn't fit the stereotype. By saying we don't racially profile, it makes the enemies work a bit harder.

[fighter10101]

Originally Posted by snooggums

Actually it violates laws regarding discrimination and causes harassment as people of a specific race are targeted more than someone of another race without just cause, which are both unethical. It is both ineffective and unethical.

Yes it violates International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)[1] For information on how uneffective racial profiling is see:
http://www.lamberthconsulting.com/ab..._Profiling.pdf

page 23-25


[1] http://www.amnestyusa.org/Racial_Pro...n2=850&n3=1298

[Kerostasis]

Originally Posted by fighter10101

Yes it violates International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)[1] For information on how uneffective racial profiling is see:
http://www.lamberthconsulting.com/ab..._Profiling.pdf

page 23-25


[1] http://www.amnestyusa.org/Racial_Pro...n2=850&n3=1298

Very interesting read. But while the lambert study indicated pretty conclusively that Moscow police were engaging in racial profiling, their case that the profiling was ineffective was much weaker. I thought the strongest argument was the argument that profiling alienates non-criminal members of the targetted community, reducing the likelihood of civilian assistance.

Unfortunately, that argument depends not on actual incidence of racial profiling, but merely on the perception of profiling, which may be very different. For example, the study's numbers established pretty conclusively that women were very rarely stopped compared to men, and yet they still reported comments from women who believed the police were targetting them specifically because they were women. A community can very easily establish the belief that they are being targetted disproportionately, and come to distrust the police, even when profiling is not actually occurring.