Did you read my post? Why are you catching so many people from one group?
No, people have a right to be judged on the basis of their individual attributes and behavior, not as members of a group. At least when it comes to things as serious as bein presumptively considered a criminal.
Or he could, you know, hire more people, so that he can apply proper surveillance on everyone. Or just, I don’t know, install a security camera.
because it borders an African American neighborhood.
Huh.
Consider this scenario.
The actual shoplifting numbers (caught and uncaught) look something like this:
-10 instances of white teenagers.
-10 instances of black teenagers.
-10 instances of adults of various ethnicities.
You tell your clerks to watch out for “suspicious” kids coming in the score, and give them the white man’s wink to let them know what you mean. So whenever black teenagers come in the store, they’re extra suspicious. And of the thirty shoplifters that come in the store, you catch five of them, all black teenagers.
Can you understand why you caught black teenagers? Do you think you handled the situation well?
Hiring more people may make him go out of business. Even hiring more people still means limited resources. Limited resources that will be required to be used cost effectively.
Security camera: does the owner have a right to tell the security clerk watching the camera feeds to concentrate on ethnic minorities/youth/gang member? Unless the owner is employing an army of eyes he’s still having to use his limited resources.
so you’re disputing the claim that minorities commit more crime?
Not going to play questions: you want answers to your questions, answer mine first. Given those numbers, can you understand why you caught black teenagers? Do you think you handled the situation well?
Of course I Understand your question but if your numbers dont match the actual statistics then your question is illogical.
Read this article on the issue. In short, stats on the racial demographics of shoplifting are highly complex, but there’s good evidence that exactly the phenomenon I’m implying occurs–namely, that racist retail managers and workers overidentify black people as potential shoplifters and underidentify white people as potential shoplifters, to the detriment of law-abiding black people and the benefit of white shoplifters. This process skews available statistics on shoplifting, since the racist suspicions allow white shoplifters to remain undetected.
I believe it’s called a confirmation bias.
Yep–that’s exactly what it is.
Here’s another article, written for retailers, warning about the inefficacy and illegality of racial profiling.
ok, I’ll definitely read the article, the basic concept seems reasonable
The basic concept is not reasonable, for at least four reasons:
- It leads to, and is subject to, confirmation bias. Seriously, if you don’t know what confirmation bias is, you need to learn about it before you continue the conversation.
- It’s an ineffective way to stop shoplifters. Skin color is not the best indicator of likelihood of shoplifting, and by focusing on it, you’ll necessarily deprioritize better indicators (e.g., entering teh store carrying an unzipped backpack, two people who enter the store and separate so taht one person can go to the back while the other person asks the clerk questions, a person who goes to a remote area of the store, etc.)
- It’s a pain in the butt for the innocent people who get caught up in your racist profiling scheme, because yours is not the only racist profiling scheme they’ll encounter.
- It’s illegal.
ISTM that there are two issues here. 1) is the stereotype correct? and 2) if it is, what can you do about it?
There’s been a lot of quibbling about whether the perceptions are accurate in any particular case, but it seems obvious to me that the perceptions will be accurate in some cases (I don’t think anyone really believes that all crime and all types of crime are exactly evenly distributed by ethnic group in any given area), so that seems like a moot point. OK, so you need to be careful that you’re not creating your own reality by your own biased preconceptions, but you do the best you can as in anything else.
So the key question is what you can do about it. And here I think it’s a balance between two valid and competing concerns, the shopkeeper not wanting to lose money and the shoppers not wanting to feel suspected. I think everyone would agree that something overt - e.g. requiring all black shoppers to show ID on entry - would be inappropriate (besides being obviously illegal). But suppose you could keep an eye on people who seem suspicious - with ethnic group being one component (along with age, dress, and so on) - in a mostly unobstrusive manner. I’m inclined to think it’s OK (if there are no better alternatives).
The problem with a lot of these things is that it’s very hard to get people to accept harm to themselves based on some ideology which tells them that that which they see with their own eyes is incorrect. So I think it’s inevitable, in one form or another, for almost everybody of any race. Meaning, I would assume a black shopkeeper in that situation would also do the same - he doesn’t want to lose his money either. Brings to mind the famous
[quote from Jesse Jackson]
(Jesse Jackson - Wikiquote) about how “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” Unfortunate, but it is what it is.
I thought about it. Unless I’m missing something, Martha is more likely to be a librarian than to be a sales assistant - as would appear at first glance.
Unless this is some sort of trick question (Are there other choices?)
I think Martha is more likely to be a sales assistant because (I believe) there are lots and lots more sales assistants than librarians.
OK, I was missing something. 
It’s still hard to definitively say she’s more likely to be a sales assistant, because it’s a job that she’s ill-suited for, but you definitely need to keep the relative numbers in perspective (I have no idea what they are).
Besides the confirmation bias, this is somewhat like lottery tickets.
Most are losers. A few win small amounts of money. A very few win lots of money. Continuing to buy them with the expectation they will all at least return some money is silly, even if you know a few of them will.
Ditto racial profiling. Most black youths don’t steal. A few steal small amounts. A very few are violent and dangerous. But selectively treating them all with heightened fears they will steal is highly inefficient, even if you know a few of them will shoplift.
Or perhaps El Al’s policy when screening air passengers. Ostensibly, they don’t profile solely based on religion/ethnic group. So, it’s not like they single out Muslims. They claim it’s inefficient and doesn’t really help. Rather, they claim it’s better to take behavioral cues and other information to create a more accurate profile for potential threats.
In detection theory terms, racial profiling has a a high detection rate, but it also has a high false positive rate, i.e. you’re tagging everybody. You’d rather have that high detection rate but a low false positive rate, i.e. tagging more selectively.
If I take up shoplifting I’m taking a dark skinned young man with me to distract the clerks while I start grabbing stuff.
Number of librarians in US in 2012: 148,000 (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/education-training-and-library/librarians.htm)
Number of retail sales workers in US in 2012: 4,668,300 (http://www.bls.gov/ooh/sales/retail-sales-workers.htm)
31 times more sales workers than librarians; unless gregariousness is really indicative of job suitability, Martha’s likelier to be working in sales.