Then, I am afraid you did not understand my critique.
Poorer communities, regardless of race have increased needs for security, that is clear. My comments were intended to illustrate the fallacy of composition which so infects comments here. Among those, yours. Again, do middle class blacks need more effective law enforcement? Well, insofar as they are subject to ineffective racial profiling which unfairly targets them for no better reason than shared ethnicity, yet they do. But this seems to escape you.
You don’t? Have you ever lived in a city? Or an “inner city”? I spent much of my formative years and a good part of my adult life in east coast “inner cities” or just plain cities to the non-American.
I would say from personal observation, in addition to my observation of “criminal justice” and police discourse that law enforcement and especially the poorer black communities have, ** at best ** conflicted relationships.
I would suggest that it is relatively easy to observe a huge reservoir of distrust between most working class, and indeed many middle class blacks and the largely white police forces. Having also lived in Chicago, albeit briefly, I can suggest this is not solely an east coast phenomena.
In this context, I fail to see any basis for your comment, other than willful denial.
Yes, indeed. A violent criminal, black uncapitalized. This does not per se addres the subject as I believe that it is easily agreed that most the community is (a) law abiding and (b) wished to live peacefully. Rather the issue is to what degree the self-same community, that is the law abiding members feel targetted and oppressed by being subject to racial profiling, that is being made subject to suspicion solely on the basis of their skin color.
Again, based on personal observation, the red herring of outside agitators and political agitation can be laid aside with ease. I believe it is trivially easy to demonstrate via surveys and polls and other data that the black community, and above all poorer blacks (a) experience discriminatory behaviour (b) especially experience differential and discriminatory treatment by police and as such their sense of alienation does not depend on the concept of political agitators or other such bankrupt concepts.
You either failed to understand my point or missed it entirely. I was in no way suggesting crime was caused by bad police habits – when I want to say causation I will explicetely do so for I do try for clarity – but rather than effective policing and addressing of crime is hindered rather than helped by profiling by setting up an adversarial relationship between the larger community and the state security forces, the police. Mutual alienation will in this light both ease the place of criminals, excacerbating crime, and impede police investigations. I don’t think it is hard to see this dynamic in many minority populated urban districts.
Let me just start off by saying that I appreciate your recent posts. As you may guess ;), I don’t agree with many of your points, but I do appreciate the obvious good intentions behind them.
A few points:
By constitutional standards, a 28% hit rate isn’t good enough. Although there are definitely arguments against this, I posit that a constitutionally sound showing of “probable cause” would, by definition, require that your hit rate be at least 50.1%. At the very least, a 28% hit rate shows that the police didn’t have a valid “particularized suspicion”.
What may save this is if the police achieved a 28% hit rate while the number of drivers on the road with contraband was (statistically) significantly lower than 28%. 'Course, that’s impossible to determine.
As to your question of whether non-racial types of profiling would be allowed, the answer is no. While race has certainly inflamed this issue, the legal issue really isn’t race related - it’s the mandate that police must have a “particularized suspicion” to stop and search.
Your points about the end to profiling would lead to a rise in crime is well-taken and, quite frankly, accurate. If racial profiling results in the arrest of one hardened criminal, that reduces crime.
This, of course, is part of the trade-off the founding fathers accepted. It is well-expressed in the quotation (I’ve forgotten the author, but IIRC, he was old, dead, and important :D) “better a thousand guilty men go free than one innocent man be punished.”
A minor explicatory note - INS and Customs can profile; the bill of rights doesn’t apply at the borders.
Well, I don’t know what anybody should feel. You believe that Blacks would be better off with criminals in their neighborhoods; I think they’d be better off with the criminals somewhere else. I suggest we agree to disagree.
I don’t know whether more scrutiny would produce the same results for whites. I do believe that a policy focusing disproportionately on Black criminals is biased against WHITES, because it gives less protection to honest White citizens than to honest Black citizens. (since the victim is generally the same race as the perp.) I disagree with the idea that treating Black criminals more forgivingly and leniently will help Blacks in general.
Sua – thanks for your kind words. If you say that all profiling is un-Constitutional, you ought to know.
You wrote:
“What may save this is if the police achieved a 28% hit rate while the number of drivers on the road with contraband was (statistically) significantly lower than 28%. 'Course, that’s impossible to determine.”
Maybe one could test both pieces statistically. Supppose the police stopped 1000 cars using their algorithm and found 280 with contraband. Then they stopped 1000 cars at random and found, say, 10 with contraband. Would that be sufficient evidence to be able to continue stopping cars using their algorithm?
I have noticed that this thread has gone from a condescending put-down of those who believe that racial profiling has some validity to an in depth discussion of the issues involved.
One point - whatever algorithm is used to determine suspects, to the extent that it is correlated with race or gender or ethnicity, it will look like racial profiling.
One other point, the discussion has mostly focused on crime and African Americans. What about immigration status and hispanics near the Mexican border? What about crime and gender? How many women are stopped for suspicion of violent crime or drug smuggling or possession? How often have two females been stopped on the Jersey turnpike? Isn’t gender profiling occuring, and why do we not hear complaints about that? Isn’t there a double standard here?
All people are at least partially responsible for every single thing that happens to them (except those things that happen before you can reason, such as one’s own birth). Thus, women (or even men for that matter) that enter dangerous situations (such as going outside at night in certain places) are putting themselves at risk and are partially responsible for what may happen to them. In an ideal society you could do anything you wanted without taking precautions, but in our society you must be prepared for what may happen. If you do not take precautions, you do so at your own risk. Very, very, very few (if any) rape victims are chosen completely at random. There are well know characteristics of rape victims (such as walking with your arms crossed and your head down which makes you appear weak and vulnerable). Women have the right to wear whatever they want and to act however they want (within the law) without being raped for it, BUT certain things WILL increase their odds of being raped and they do these things at their own risk.
Very true, but those that choose to fight injustice do so at their own risk. If someone chooses to be one of those people then I expect to see that person filing legal briefings not rioting or whining.
I am glad to see you are so adamant about your cause. You are the type of person that seems to be suited for fighting prejudice. My problem is with those that choose not to follow the social norms (many of which I do not like myself) and become enraged because they are too weak to handle the inevitable discrimination. Educating the ignorant should not come in the form of annoyance, and that is what loud protests are. If people chose to quietly hold signs stating their grievances that would be fine, but most protests cause unnecessary noise that people should not be forced to listen to (especially if they are not exercising the prejudice themselves).
Sadly, you will never end prejudice until those that are adamant about keeping their prejudice are no longer able to teach it to others. As long as we have free speech I see little hope for eliminating prejudice. How do you prevent a person from teaching his/her hate to his/her children? You can try to get to the child first, but that is unlikely. How do we prevent new prejudices from forming? I have a theory on this. Those that are discriminated against are those that differ more than a certain amount from what is considered normal. The best way to avoid discrimination is to get others to consider you as normal. In other words, do not do things that classify you as different. I believe that one of the reasons that racism is so common in our society is because of racial pride. When you say, “I am proud to be an _______-American” rather than saying, “I am proud to be an American” you are making yourself out to be different from everyone else. Ignore race. If someone asks what race you are, say you do not know (since this is less offensive than saying that you do not wish to tell them). If someone else asks what race someone was, say you don’t know. Stop classify certain language, clothing, and behaviors as being characteristic of certain races. The use of the word “Whigger” actually promotes racism against African-Americans because it makes it unacceptable for European-Americans to behave in certain ways that are characterized as African-American behaviors, which prevents those behaviors from becoming the norm, which results in the discrimination of those people that use the behaviors (which in this case is predominately African-American people because other races are discriminated for using the behaviors). Even thought African-American people can get away with using these behaviors without immediately being discriminated for their actions, they will be discriminated against for being different because they are the only ones that can use those behaviors without being immediately made fun of.
On another note, most African-American people are less than 50% African (and, in most cases, more than 50% European) so they should not be called African-Americans. The one drop rule invented all those years ago should be abolished (it was the rule that said if you had one drop of African blood in you then you were considered of African decent and not good enough to be classified as white). If we must use race at all to classify people (and it would be best if we did not) then let us classify people according to what the majority of their decent is. This would make most Americans the same race which would limit the percentage of the population that would be discriminated against. We could abolish racial discrimination entirely if everyone just refused to tell their children of their heritage. I do not see why ancestry is so important to some people. I am an American. That is it. Which countries my ancestors came from makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.
Yes, but law breakers have no right to complain. I go to great effort to avoid breaking the speed limit (and almost never do it). If someone wants to avoid being pulled over, they can make the same effort I make. If they are pulled over without speeding then that is wrong. But if they ignored the law just because everyone else was doing it then they have no right to complain that they were pulled over. Just because most people are not caught does not mean that you have the right not to be caught.
I am assuming that if no African-American people are speeding (because they are following the law like all good drivers should) then the peace officer, no matter how racist he or she is, will begin to pull over people of other races. As long as the African-American people are speeding (i.e. breaking the law) then they have no right to complain. No one has the right to not be pulled over for committing a crime just because the European-American in the car next to them was not pulled over for the same crime. The peace officer can only pull over one criminal at a time. It does not matter which one it is.
It is not right, but it is acceptable (as long as that is what the law states—the law can always be changed if the people feel that it is being practiced unfairly). If an African-American discovers that he is going to be placed in jail for one day for jaywalking then he should be certain to put forth great effort to either not jaywalk or not get caught. I have no sympathy for criminals that are punished to the full extent of the law (no matter how small the crime). If you feel that the law leaves the potential for unfairness then you should write your legislature and have them change it so that there is no potential for unfairness. There are many laws that I follow every day even though I do not wish to. Just because everyone else is breaking a law does not mean that I can too and it does not mean that if I do break the law I have the right not to be prosecuted when I am caught. It does not matter why I was caught. If a peace officer follows me everywhere I go and catches me littering for the first time in 15 years (or however long it has been), I do not have the right to complain that the officer was following me. I broke the law. I will be punished. Just because my neighbor dumps her trash in the street each and every evening does not mean that I should be able to get away with dropping a gum wrapper.
As I said in my first post, I am assuming that the person being pulled over first committed some minor crime (not wearing a seat belt, speeding, etc). If you have 600 pounds of illegal drugs in your trunk then I would expect you to take great efforts to never pass the speed limit, to make sure both of your headlights and taillights work, etc., because you have a lot more to lose if you get pulled over. The bill of rights does protect us. If you have illegal compounds in your trunk then I would advise you to set up small cameras all around your car. If the cop says he pulled you over for speeding and the camera on your dash board shows that you never passed the speed limit then all charges will be dropped even though the officer found 600 pounds of drugs in your trunk. If you are not committing high crimes then the cameras are unnecessary because, even if you are pulled over, they will not find drugs so you do not have to worry about jail time.
Yes, it is being a good person, but it is also a noble ideal. I see so few people treating everyone equally that it is more of an ideal than a reality (though it should be both). I see flaws in everyone (including the man in the mirror) and I see no reason to feel that one combination of flaws is any worse than another, but because some person long ago decided that race was a more important factor than most other factors, I have to put up with the non-stop whining about racial tensions. Racism exists because people acknowledge race. Stop it. Never use race again. I go out of my way to avoid referring to anyone by race but I am the only one I have ever met that does that. I describe people by all the characteristics I see except for skin color and then the person just looks over and says, “Oh, the black guy.” Sheesh. As long as people associate skin color with race, racism will always be a problem. I have never seen a black person. All the people I have seem vary from almost white to very dark brown. Perhaps if we all learned a few dozen names for the colors of people’s skin we could start classifying people more accurately. Enough races have brown hair or black hair that hair color alone is not enough to classify them as a race. If we started classify skin color more exactly, many colors would be characteristic of people of more than one race and we could stop thinking of people as a certain race just because of their skin color.
Seems like a good reason for breaking up the number of colors we classify people as. It would be better to ignore skin color entirely but will never happen since it is always there (it would be like never noticing what clothing a person is wearing).
No need to be a smart-ass. He is forming an argument. He wrote that sentence because it is necessary to form his conclusion.
Actually, this is the only part of his argument that does not need a cite. He listed 6 statements and formed the argument that if you believe those 6 statements then his conclusion follows. There is no incredible leap in logic involved. Perhaps some of his 6 statement are not true, but if they are then his conclusion seems perfectly rational.
This board is littered with sites that show that African-Americans are more likely to be poor than European-Americans, thus, from your statement above, we should expect more crime for African-American individuals. No one ever said that race makes people criminals, only that certain races are more likely to commit certain crimes (poverty may be the root cause of the crime but one’s income is not easily discernable from their appearance).
It is better to grow up with one parent in jail (and thus learn that crime does not pay), then to have a parent that never gets caught and thus learn that crime does pay (thus encouraging the child to learn the family business).
This is a reason why racial profiling could be a good thing. If I knew that I was 200% more likely to be pulled over and searched than a person of a different race, I would be less likely to commit a crime. If your race is being unfairly discriminated against and you still commit crimes then you lack the certain level of intelligence required to be a free citizen.
I thought my old college history book said 10 guilty men, but the phrase has probably been misstated so many times that I don’t know which is correct. The point is the same nonetheless.
Our culture has an annoying obsession with race. It is really too bad. If people must discriminate they should at least discriminate against things that people can prevent. You can choose what you wear, but cannot choose what physical characteristics you were born with.
december the figure of 28% is not an impressively high one. That means in the first place that 72% of the people detained were perfectly innocent, and unreasonably detained. Would you accept that? roughly 3/4 of the folks bothered were bothered unneccearily and you think that’s good?
ok, let’s try and give you an idea of why 28% is a very poor investment of the cops time. For example, according to this for those who were arrested and tested for drugs at the time of arrest, 59% tested positive for any drug. So half of that is ‘good’???
My point about ‘otherwise undetected crime’ : There are x number of reported crimes, much of which goes uninvestigated, and obviously, unsolved. (case in point, I had a secretary who forged some checks on our account, - I had proof of the crime, proof of who was responsible, and the police officer told me that he wouldn’t be able to even get to it for more than a year. amount in question? $6 grand.) At any point in the day, there are, in addition to actual crimes being committed, there will be people who will be in posssion of illegal drugs. Why would we want our police staff to go searching (and in the process bothering 72% of folks who weren’t committing any crime) to find those specific criminal acts, while other more seriously intrusive, invasive, problematical crimes go uninvestigated?
that doesn’t even make good business sense. (why would you target a population where you only got 28% response, to the exclusion of looking at/for something where you have 100% probability - ie, you know a crime has been committed?) - or better yet- set them to the task of enforcing outstanding warrants. It’s not that difficult.
example - years ago, the Dept. of Corrections put a low priority on folks who’d walk away from the correction center. They’d place a warrant on the system, but do nothing else. And I do mean nothing. IN most of the cases, I could have (and did) tell them where the person would be (she’d be over at her mom’s, at such and such’s house etc.). they wouldn’t do anything until and unless the person was arrested for another crime. years later, they were called out on that policy, and have an ‘offender recovery’ program now. Simple process, one guy does a whole area of the state. Same sort of thing holds true for other outstanding warrents. If they’d spend the short amount of time investigating these, they’d be able to easily track down most of them. AND without stopping a whole lotta innocent citizens in the meantime.
when you posit that the black community would be better off w/o criminals etc., you unfairly characterize my point. To single out police attention at ‘sweeping up criminals’ to the black consituancy does harm to that group. Of course we’d love to have all persons who would victimize others kept out of our way. But to select over enforcement on one segment of the population is wrong in every sense.
(by the way, puddleglum’ insisitence on using violent crime as the indicator for all crime, according to this property crime makes up about 75% of all crime in the US. And, for violent crimes,
, so again reliance on the stats for violent crimes will lead to skewing of the results.
Procacious You need to reflect again on your position about the rape case. According to the data I’ve posted above, most women are raped by family, friends, acquaintences, intimates. So, unless you think we should refrain from all contact with others as part of our ‘not engaging in risky behavior’, you’ll need to readdress your position. (and in the spirit of profiling, the better law enforcement approach would of course be to detain and have all men subjected to DNA testing 'cause they’re much more likely than women to be rapists, eh?)
Another thing : to selectively enforce any law against one group is unconstitutional, since it denies equal protection under the law. While it’s true that any individual cop can only do one thing at a time, when you collectively look at the data and find that one cop only arrests blacks, that one station only investigates blacks etc. that’s a denial of equal protection - just like in my judge/jaywalking example, while any specific individual may not have a case, if it’s shown that all/most of one group is treated in a materially different manner, that’s evidence of denial of equal protection.
Re; how can you prevent a parent from teaching their hate to their children? well, no you can’t however, if the rest of the society demonstrates differences, there’s hope for change.
The issue of the Bill of Rights that you seem to be missing is the 74% of the folks that were pulled over due to the profile and weren’t arrested. They were profiled in an attempt to discover the criminals amongst them. This is wrong. It isn’t only lawbreakers who are complaining - the cases that get to court are from the lawbreakers, but the others were victims of this as well.
the point Biggirl makes re race vs. socio economic factors being the better predicator of criminal activity, is for example:
(numbers are based on but not promised to be accurate of, generalizations of relative proportions of the demographics):
Of 100 whites, say 60 are well off, 5 of whom are doing criminal activity, and 40 will be poor, 10 of whom are doing criminal activity. Of 20 blacks, 5 were well off, 1 of whom is criminally active, and 15 are poor, 4 of whom are criminally active. Then racial profiling will target the 20 blacks, 15 of whom are innocent, while ignoring all of the whites which means that 15 of the criminals won’t even be targeted. Now do you see the problem? You’ll unfairly target roughly as many innocents as you will ignore potential criminals.
True. My comment was in reference to someone else’s comment about women not being able to go out at night. This suggests that the woman is being attacked as she walks by in the dark. These type of attacks are more characteristic of attacks by strangers. As for attacks by those you know, date rapists are rather easy to identify (in the opinion of myself and many other males I have spoken too). Unreasonable sexual aggression is the first clue. What is unreasonable is a matter of opinion, but if you have to tell the man “no” more than once before he stops, or, when he does stop, he is quite upset that you told him “no”, then you should be wary of the individual. There is no reason to ignore the first “no” or to get upset that the woman is not yet ready, so if the man does exhibit these characteristics then women should stay away from him. There is no reason to put up with such rude behavior, especially since it shows a potential to be dangerous. Marital rape occurs when a woman marries one of the people that exhibit these behaviors. Child rape (of one’s own children) occurs when a woman has a child with a dangerous individual (in this case it is not the carelessness of the child but the carelessness of the mother that allowed the man to father the child that resulted in the situation). Statutory rape also involves people that you know, but most cases a statutory rape involve two consenting individuals and so I do not consider it to be real rape. However, if you consider the younger of the two sexually active persons to be a “victim” then I suppose the “victim” allowed themselves to get into the situation where he/she could be coerced into sexual activity (though the fact that the younger individual wanted the sexual event to occur suggests to me that nothing wrong occurred). Why would the younger individual go out of his/her way to avoid putting himself/herself into a situation that could result in sexual activity with an adult if the this younger person wanted the sex? I do not consider this to be a crime unless a great degree of pressure was put on the young person to have sex (i.e. the person really didn’t want it, but consented just to make the other person happy).
As for DNA testing all men to see if they are rapists, as long as the testing procedure does not involve pain I see no problem with it. If the DNA testing involves drawing blood then you will be physically assaulting many innocent people with a needle which I believe crosses the line. However, if the procedure does not cause pain (and thus does not fall into my definition of physical assault), then I see no problem getting a DNA sample from everyone. Much like a fingerprint, it would make criminals easier to track down.
True. The lack of equal protection is the problem with racial profiling. The fact that an Asian-American community is not getting the criminals purged from its streets because the peace officers are spending all their time policing African-Americans is a problem. However, most people say that racial profiling unfairly targets African-Americans (and other minorities). I feel that the unfairness of racial profiling is felt by those people that are not getting the attention of the police, not the people that are getting the attention of the police. However, since it has been shown that crime is more popular in poor neighborhoods, it is only reasonable to expect more police attention in those neighborhoods. If you live in a wealthy neighborhood you should be willing to settle for less police attention (even though you are not getting equal protection), because the peace officer’s time is better spent in the low-income neighborhood. Racial profiling targets races that are more likely to be poor because the poor are more likely to be criminals.
That is why I feel that profiling should be accompanied by testing for speeders. If there is someone that you really want to pull over, but he/she is not breaking any laws, then you just can’t pull that person over. However, since most people speed every time they get into their cars, checking for speeder would allow you to pull over almost anyone you wanted too. It would still be racial profiling and very little would change, but it would make it acceptable (in my opinion).
Indeed I do see the problem, but police must focus their attention somewhere. The most productive place to focus their attention is in poor communities and poor communities are more likely to be minority communities. In cases where you cannot tell the income level of the passers by (such as a highway between communities) you must use other means. If all poor people have a 10% chance of being criminals and minorities are more likely to be poor, then targeting minorities will increase the number of poor people pulled over and thus the number of criminals pulled over.
Procacious, why must the police “focus their attention somewhere”? If a highway patrolman sees a motorist breaking the law, than he should stop the car.
It seems as if many are arguing that it makes sense to stop minorities because there are less of them. Since it is easier to find the 28% carrying contraband from 20% of the population than 80%, then it is prudent to harrass 20% of the population. Huh?
Then there is this:
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Procacious *
**
Which would make more sense if we were discussing socio-economic profiling (which would still be wrong), but we are not. If this were the case, wouldn’t it be better to “target” speeders in late model cars, since poorer people are less likely to own newer cars?
And wouldn’t it be prudent to try to stop the vast majority of people with contraband in their cars? That 28% who are not minorities?
Stop a random number of cars or persons (like on the NJ Turnpike), who have some type of violation - to make it legal.
Search them for violations or contraband
Not the characteristics of those who are guilty vs. those who are not (including dress, age, sex, gender, race, behavioral characteristics, type of car, driving pattern, etc.)
Use the percentages as a basis for future stops.
Would this method applied in different vicinities solve the problem?
Not IMHO. For example - ‘contraband’ - would mean drugs, weapons, stolen property possibly? most likely drugs. The weapons there may be a standard variable of folks illegally carrying. However, let’s take a look at what would happen with the drug traffic.
You speculate that by stopping a certain percentage of cars at one location on a day (or series of days), that you’ll be able to gain useful information for predicting future results.
There are sooooo many factors possible here. But, let’s even grant you the concept that you’ll discover that for this particular stretch of road, you’re more likely to find say “hispanic females” carrying drugs. So you now use this data to perform searches in the future. Of course you’re assuming that drug dealers never would notice that their female hispanic couriers are getting pulled over frequently, or that they have a hiring preference for a specific type.
Really, racially profiling traffic stops are not particularly effective - look at the data that’s being called “good results”. roughly a quarter. I can’t think of any experiment set up that would accept such a low ‘positive’ rate.
just attempt to stop all speeders, you’ll at least tend to reduce the speed on the highway. Save the investigatory techniques for something other than a random drive. And, hell, use my suggestion that they track down folks who’ve failed to appear in court, probation violators, parole violators, and other outstanding warrants. At least in those circumstances you’re operating from the standpoint of “100%” of those we’re targeting have demonstrated a reason to be targeted.
Procacious this statement of yours “date rapists are rather easy to identify (in the opinion of myself and many other males I have spoken too” , in the experience of this female, is pure nonsense and again places the responsability for the rape upon the female victim “gee, if she’d only noticed this poor behavior…” I’d suggest that instead of talking to your friends who seem to support your sloppy thinking, you should actually look at the data involved.
Re: mandatory DNA testing for all males. It’s flat out unconstitutional. The police, in order to require you to submit to any test, no matter how unintrusive, must have probable cause to suspect not only that a crime has been committed, but that you committed it. I suggested it as an obvious (at least to me) absurdity.
So many motorists break the speed limit law that the police usually don’t pull people over unless they are driving significantly above the speed limit. If all they wanted to do was stop speeding, they could write speeding tickets almost non-stop to almost everyone they see go by. The police generally try to focus on crimes that are more dangerous than driving 47 in a 45 zone. To pull over every random person that was going over the speed limit would result in a lot of speeding tickets but little else. Pulling over every person that is speeding and looks “suspicious” (the exact definition of which is extremely debatable) is more likely to be productive. The opinion that they look suspicious is the reason for pulling them over. The fact they were speeding is what gives the officer the legal right to pull them over.
If that results in a higher success rate then of course it should be done. The police should try and find the most accurate criteria they can for catching criminals.
The goal is to catch the greatest number of criminals possible per unit time. If they can discover criteria that catches these non-minority criminals with great efficiency then they should use it. However, if the peace officers are having trouble identifying the poor (or former poor, after all, a drug dealer may have a nice car that he bought with the money he made) then it may be better to look for other traits that may increase success rate.
Let us say that we have 1000 white people (100 of which are poor) and 100 minorities (30 of which are poor). Of the 100 white poor people, 10 are criminals. Of the 30 minority poor people, 3 are criminals. If a cop can process 10 people an hour, he will have caught 3 criminals in 10 hours if he focused on the minorities and, odds are, only 1 criminal in 10 hours if he focused on the white people. Obviously it is not the skin color that leads the people to crime, but the poverty, yet nonetheless, targeting minorities results in greater success because more of them are poor.
The best profiling criteria will involve more than just race, but race may be a factor. Ignoring it may result in a lower success rate. If our criminal justice system actually worked, there would eventually be a lower percentage of criminals in the minority communities than in white communities (because the minority criminals would have already been caught) at which point the white community would be targeted instead (because it would result in a higher success rate). This may never occur because of revolving door justice, but that does not mean that peace officers should willingly be less efficient.
Obviously the rapist is the more at fault of the two (which is why he goes to jail), but I still stand by my belief that all people that have the ability to reason are at least partially responsible for EVERYTHING that happens to them. Rapists drop hints. No one is so good an actor that an observant person can not even get a feel for his true intentions. Women need to be observant. If you know a person then you have had the opportunity to look for violence in their behavior. I question if there has ever been a case where someone said, “I have known him for 2 years and he has always been very quiet and very shy and backed down from every conflict he has ever encountered but one day he just slammed me on the bed and raped me.” Violent behavior does not spawn out of nowhere. For your own safety you are obligated to observe those around you to see if they are safe to be around. If you are not good a reading people then you should consider other ways to protect yourself (such as martial arts training or learning to use a concealed weapon effectively). Such precautions are a lot of work, but a lack of preparation puts you at risk. You do not HAVE to be prepared for the bad things life may bring, but your laziness makes you partially at fault when bad things occur.
More likely? Depends on whether the rationale for looks suspicious is grounded or not. Insofar as we have roundly critiqued this presumption, I am intrigued by this.
Well, the rest of this exchange has already been covered I believe so if one is amenable to reason.
However this is stunningly illogical.
That, frankly, is ludicrous and illogical in the extreme. One can not possibly control, even if one is as rigorously logical as possible and completely informed, for every risk factor in life.
The defensive driver may still be taken unawares and killed by a drunk driver hurtling out of nowhere.
Even in the context of the response to date rape it is offensive and unsupportable, insofar as it strikes me it is based on utterly unfounded and in fact counter to what we know assumptions about our capacity to detect --beyond gross ranges-- others intent as well as the clarity of the intent to begin with.
Assertion. Further, not every hint/sign of trouble may be easily understood as such, even by an outside observer, let alone someone in the situation.
Another unsupported assertion, as well as based on fallacious reasoning:
(a) the assertion rests upon the presumption that a case of date rape is always premeditated. Something to be proved, not assumed, and in any case strikes me as unlikely.
(b) the assertion further rests on a fallacious judgement about our general capacity to devine others motivations with any great degree of accuracy. Taking this in light of research on our ability to detect lies/truth telling(), in which consistently humans do worse than even odds, I would state that this is at best unsupported, at worst counter-factual.
(: holding the ability to detect lies/truth telling as relatively analogous to detecting others intentions.)
Again, false presumptions, perhaps one did, perhaps one did not. I see no rational basis for your assumption nor assertion.
Incredible. The amount of baggage here is truly incredible. Firstly, your standard for a date rapist strikes me as a straw man, i.e. shy-retiring never explode into violence (check your facts bub, check your facts), that there is no continium of behaviour and that women should not be friends/date anyone but the “very quiet and very shy” who “back down from every conflict”. Second, rather than question if there has been such cases, perhaps you would be well-served to first question the legion of unsustainable assumptions which led to this point. Third, after such questioning, one might wish to consider data on rape, rape profiling and the larger question of male-female relations.
This is so absurd as to be offensive.
Frankly, I find your presumption that a woman being less-than-inhumanly clairvoyant or a paranoid freak is “lazy” to be incredibly offensive, unsupported by any rational reading of what is either possible or realistic in life. Truly incredible. This is some of the most tortured reasoning I have come across.
I am assuming that the rationale for “looks suspicious” is grounded. Although a few racist individuals may pull over certain people because of personal bias, I assume that if an entire department is told to target certain individuals, there is a logical reason for it.
It is not possible to come out of nowhere. All cars that approach you must come from somewhere. The observant driver will notice the car coming toward him/her. Even if you cannot see it you can hear it. Whether or not you will get hit depends on how much attention you are paying and how well you have trained your reflexes to react when you do finally notice the car.
To say that some things are unavoidable is a lazy way to look at life. Unless you believe in fate, nothing is inevitable. The cautious and observant can avoid (or at least lessen the impact of) any disaster.
I did not mean to imply that you can identify rapists with 100% accuracy. I meant that you can identify potentially dangerous individuals. You do not necessarily have to avoid these potentially dangerous individuals entirely, just be sure that you can get away if he starts to act dangerously or be sure not to go anywhere alone with him.
I assume that most date rape is not premeditated. The evaluating of individuals is to see if they have a personality that would allow them to commit date rape not to see if they currently intend to commit date rape.
I do agree that some people are quite unskilled when it comes to reading others but those people should be all the more cautious. Precautions such as both not inviting the man into your apartment and not entering his apartment unless you intend to have sexual relations is not an unreasonable precaution in my opinion.
Entering a private place with someone that is more powerful than you is always potentially dangerous. If you have not had the chance to see that person act in a variety of situations then entering the private place where only the two of you will be present may not be in your best interests. You can always wait to be alone with him until the first time you do intend to have sexual relations and then the issue of rape is even less likely to come up.
I introduced the straw man to show that there is such thing as a highly unlikely candidate for a date rapist. I am not suggesting that women only date those that are very shy, but that their willingness to be alone with the person should be based on his likelihood to erupt into violence and the woman’s ability to control him should he erupt into violence (learning to defend yourself is a good investment of time).
I am not entirely sure which assumptions you are referring too. If you mean the ones listed above then I have commented on them, if not, please feel free to list them.
I have never observed surprising behavior. Once you get a feel for human nature, behavior becomes largely predictable. Unpredictable behavior only occurs when you do not know the person in question enough well enough to predict their behavior. There are stories of quiet people that erupt into violence after 15 years of complete peacefulness, but the observant person will notice the gradual rise in anger in these people. Even the insane are predictable once you learn how the individual’s mind operates.
All of life is a trade off. The most paranoid freak will never encounter the unexpected (because he/she expects everything), but will also live an unpleasant life. Preparation for many things is tedious and unpleasant. I spent years learning how to fight and was bored for most of the time I was training, but now I can walk into any situation because I simply don’t fear people. The vast majority of them do not have the ability to take me in a fight and those that remain are rare and likely peaceful. If I prepared myself further I could even beat some of them but that is where the trade off comes from. I have decided not to train any further and I do so at my own risk. If I end up having to defend myself against someone that is a better fighter than me then my laziness will have caught up with me and I will suffer the consequences. I can hope that that will never happen, but I will be no less responsible if it does.
A strong and unsupported assumption insofar as we appear to have good reason to believe that “looks suspicious” – which mind you is not even a constitutional standard if I have understood the lawyerly interventions so far-- is based on racist assumptions equating skin color with criminality per se.
In short, your standard here is devoid both of rational basis and even moral foundation.
We have an expression in Egypt for this kind of nonesense, Kalaam Fadi – empty words.
There is nothing lazy or fatalistic, rather it is a rational analysis of the possible.
On Date Rape:
Well, in fact that is directly implicit in your premise. But no matter, let us look at the backpeddling.
Sure, one can avoid the obvious dangers, but not all dangers are indeed obvious nor is human judgement such that we can accurately arrive at objective understanding of any given individual.
As such your standard and your advice fail.
Further while you state :
You conveniently forget the issue of what sort of “personality” commits date rape, and further as I raised the issue, the problematic of attempting to identify objectively based on nothing but casual interaction, such a personality. Your standard here makes no logical sense whatsoever.
Further,
Some people? As far as I saw almost everyone is, despite our self-delusions to the contrary are poor at determining truth and lies, by extension intention.
As for not entering men’s apartments or viceversa, well if you wish to return to Victorian standards of behaviour blaming the victim, feel free.
Further on the Shy Man straw man
Is there? Do you have some profiles upon which this is based? You appear to be based your argument on your own, apparently unfounded, assumptions.
And now this gem:
Ah yes, and perhaps you also pride yourself in being able to detect most lies etc.
Procacious, I would love to hear you describe what sorts of training and observations would have helped the following groups of people avoid the situations they found themselves in:
1: The people working at the federal building in Oklahoma City when it was bombed on April 19, 1995.
2: The people on board Pan Am flight 103 in December of 1988.
Procacious - you are really getting nowhere.
Your viewpoint on the world, fortunately, does not comport with that of the Founding Fathers or the Supreme Court.
Let’s go through the factors (omitting citations to the Constitution and Supreme Court case law).
The police have the authority to pull over anyone who has violated the traffic laws, etc.;
So long as the police have an objective reason to pull (see #1, above), the police officer’s subjective reason for pulling over a particular person is irrelevant;
However, a police officer may not selectively enforce the laws. If a police officer is going to engage in the activity of pulling over speeders, the police officer may not focus his/her attention on a particular group of people. This is where racial profiling fails.
And all of the “solutions” proposed fail here as well. If we do surveys to determine which drivers are more likely to be carrying contraband, etc., such surveys, however accurate, will do nothing to get past the equal protection problem noted in #3. Why not? Because the objective reason a police officer pulls over a person is not contraband. It is for speeding, or some other traffic violation. So, the odds that a person has drugs or what have you makes no difference, as the law being enforced is the traffic law.
So, argue all you want about responsibility, “asking for it”, etc. Who cares? The constitutionally appropriate question is, “who speeds?” The answer is everybody, so you cannot select out a particular group to enforce the speeding law against, regardless of whether the cop thinks a particular group of speeders may be breaking another law.
Sua
(a white male who spent the weekend driving 85 on the Jersey Turnpike - and who didn’t get pulled over.)
A good profile would include many factors (skin color may or may not be one of them). I doubt that the department heads say to pull over “Every African-American person you can find.” In many parts of the country the police wouldn’t even have to look for people to pull over since people that fit the profile would be everywhere. Some individuals may pull over every African-American person they can find because of personal bias, but I assume that most officers care more about productivity than just harassing people and follow a profile that includes more than just skin color.
To be quite honest, none of my points ever are based on moral foundations (as you probably had guessed). Although it is theoretically possible for a situation to occur in which the driver has absolutely no chance of escaping the inevitable perils, I have no reason to believe that it will ever occur or has ever occurred. Just like there are an infinite number of ways to get into a collision, there are an infinite number of ways to get out of one. You only have to find one way to avoid the collision.
Every situation has a best possible solution. Although I cannot prove that this best possible solution involves avoiding the catastrophe altogether there is no reason to believe that it doesn’t. Of the infinite possible outcomes of any given situation, it is narrow-minded to think that not even one of them offers a pleasant solution to the problem. I happen to believe that there are many solutions to every problem that result in a positive outcome and I do not consider it unreasonable for the person in question to find one of them (this is clearly the point we disagree on).
Nowhere in the statement “Rapists drop hints” do I state that I expect people to be able to identify these hints with 100% accuracy. What I was implying (although not clearly enough) is that these hints allow you to place this person in the “potentially dangerous” category not the “definite rapist” category.
I never stated that I expected people to never make mistakes. I only said that when mistakes are made, all parties involved are partially responsible. After a bad situation occurs the person frequently reflects on the event and comes up with ways that they could have prevented it or at least seen it coming. If looking at these occurrences in retrospect allows the person to conclude that there were ways to predict the situation, then it was that person’s fault for not using those occurrences to begin with to predict the behavior in question. The person may not have even thought that the behavior suggested something worse may be on the rise, or they may have just shrugged it off. To do so is not unreasonable because, in most cases, the behavior will not be indicative of worse things to come. However, if the person had been cautious, had treated the behavior as though it were indicative of worse things to come, then the person would have been ready for the situation when it came up. Laziness (i.e. a lack of preparation for potential hazards) is risky.
What sort of “personality” am I forgetting? I apologize if I am not addressing one of your points but I apparently do not understand your true meaning. Do you have a specific rapist personality in mind? I always thought that many different personality types included rapist potential (although you may be classifying personalities into fewer categories than I am).
I am not talking about lies versus truth telling. Everyone knows how to lie and some are quite good at it. Most people have never learned to control their body language when they lie and that is how you learn to evaluate the truth of their statements. Besides, I was not referring to direct communication between the two individuals so much as the behavior the man exhibits in group situations (such as how he reacts when someone accidentally bumps into him and other minor behavioral observations that allow you to put together a personality profile). I am assuming that most date rape is not premeditated. I specifically use the term date rape for non-premeditated rape. If someone plans on raping someone from the beginning, I classify that in the same category as pulling her into an ally and raping her there. Whether or not they had dinner first doesn’t change anything. So, back to the point, given that I am talking about non-premeditated rape (which is the most common type), the man will not be trying to cover up his behavior in order to fool the woman because he is not trying to duck the rapist profile. Even if he is acting for the woman, once he realizes that she is not willing to even be alone with him (because she is not ready for sex yet), he is likely to stop acting (because it is not accomplishing anything) or just dump her because all he wanted was the sex (in which case she is better off without him).
I am arguing against the current day standards which say that the victim is not at all responsible for the event that occurred. I do believe that the rapist is the most responsible (since he can decide whether or not the event ever comes up), but I do believe the victim is responsible as well.
For example, let us say that someone starts a fire near your home and this fire spreads to your home and burns it down. You are not responsible for starting the fire. You are not the most responsible for letting your house burn down. But you are responsible for whether or not you had fire insurance. The situation will be a lot worse if your house is not insured. It is true that you would not need insurance if no one started fires (just like a women would not need to be cautious about rape if there were no rapists), but since you know that fire is out there and it may one day reach your home, you make the decision not to get fire insurance at your own risk and you are responsible for the absence of that insurance which made a bad thing even worse. Perhaps if you had cleaned up the dry brush and leaves around your home the fire never would have reached your house and the catastrophe could have been avoided altogether. Once again, you are not responsible for starting the fire, but you are responsible for your lack of preparation.
If everyone took some responsibility for everything that happened to them, life would go so much more smoothly. Rather than yelling at each other when two cars collide, both parties would apologize to the other and go on their ways. I am not saying that in cases where one party is significantly more responsible that that party should not be prosecuted to the full extent of the law (rapists, arsonists, drunk drivers, etc.), but I am saying that even victims should take some responsibility for being foolish enough to allow themselves to get into such a bad situation (And most victims do learn from there mistakes. After one bad situation people have a tendency to be more cautious, as they should have been to begin with if they wanted to avoid the situation in the first place).
It is not possible to prove this assumption, only disprove it. If I had a profile of a straw man rapist then my assumption would be wrong. If is makes you feel any better, all the straw men that are not rapists fit my profile. (Yes, I realize that that statement cannot be used as evidence). Besides, I said “highly unlikely” not “completely impossible.” Anyone can be a rapist, but some people are more likely to be rapists than others (the police do have profiles for rapists, it is not a completely random process).
Lies are not surprising. I may not be able to identify many of the lies that people tell me, but I am not surprised that some people often lie and everyone lies on occasion. This is predictable, thus, not surprising.
Terrorism is a reality. By living in America (or in most societies) you take a very small risk that you will be a victim of terrorism. If you feel that this risk is acceptable, you continue on with a normal life (as the people in the federal building were doing). If you feel that it is unacceptable you move somewhere where terrorism is unlikely (there are a few places on earth so sparsely populated that terrorism would be pointless). I do not expect people to move to an uninhabited island, but living in this country involves some risks and you are responsible for allowing yourself to live in a place with those risks (this is one of those situations where the responsibility of the individual is very very small since we as a society do take precautions against terrorism, but there is still some responsibility the individual must take for living in America).
Now on to the easier two…
Flying is a calculated risk. It is safer to not travel at all than it is to travel. If you wish to incorporate travel into your life then you must take some responsibility for what may happen.
The countries were at war. Living in a country that is at war is a serious risk. If you wish to stay in the country in question during the time of war you must take some responsibility for that decision. You could always travel to a non-warring country until the war in your country ends.
Just to let you know, I sometimes support points of view I do not agree with when I see the argument is very one-sided. I imagined why people would possibly support racial profiling and brought up those points. I don’t mind being shown I am wrong since I frequently don’t agree with what I am saying (but someone out there does and I debate on their behalf).
Every time a speeder is pulled over there is a chance that that person will be arrested for some violation (other than speeding). If pulling over speeders that fit certain profiles results in a higher than random arrest percentage then there is some advantage to pulling over those people until the arrest percentage falls below or starts to equal the average (at which point the profile should be changed or dropped). As long as the person was speeding, the peace officer has the right to pull that person over.
Well now that Procacious has more or less stated that he is arguing for the sake of argument there seems little point in this discourse, but I still feel it necessary to correct some of the more glaring inanities.
Profiling:
Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with what may be the best documented case of sustained racial profiling: New Jersey State Troopers. You may then form realistic ideas about how these things actually work.
Your assumptions should be checked against facts. See the case of NJ state troopers.
Collisions and God Like Powers:
No, your points indeed do contain moral foundations. You take an implicit moral stance in regards to an extreme version of personal responsibility as a good in and of itself. The particular vision lurking behind this, as I have stated above is both morally and logically deficient.
(CL: emphasis added)
That is such a ludicrous statement that I burst out laughing.
It’s not even worth refuting, any ordinary examination of the world rather clearly indicates your standard of omniscience is … well, ludicrous.
And here we dance away from reality into a fairytale land of omniscience…
I think I shall skip over the Kalaam Fadi except for the last few gems of illogic.
Procacious, in his continued flights of fancy of course conveniently abstracts away from all manner of problems. Oh, one can simply leave, he says airly. Obviously having never lived in either states of war or in dictatorial regimes, he simply abstracts away from the reality of uunfreedom and the obstacles to successfully fleeing danger (and since one can not avoid risks at all in fact, the problem of exchanging one risk for another.
Apparently in the world of Proccy, we are always at fault for we are not omnipotent and thus unable to control for risk. As such everything which occurs to us is our own fault. Frankly, with such an expansive definition of “responsibility” the word loses any real meaning.
I am glad to hear it. I would have been most disappointed if you gave up just because my words express an opinion other than my own (inaccuracies should always be disputed).
Indeed you are right. The original racial profiles were based solely on race, but, if those first profiles were effective, I do see how people could support them (by effective I mean an arrest rate that is higher than what would be achieved by randomly pulling people over). Expanding on these profiles could result in an even greater arrest rate. If race is always ignored when developing a profile, arrest rate may decline (based on the assumptions that the poor are more likely to be criminals and minorities are more likely to be poor).
Fair enough. However I wonder, when NJ state troopers see two people of the same minority group, do they pull over one of the drivers at random or are there more things that they look for to help them decide which one to pull over? Perhaps race is the top item on the profile list (and consequently pulls the most weight), but when there are too many minorities to pull over, are there other factors that the peace officers look for?
Morality, as I understand it, is based largely on the concept of right and wrong. I do not believe that getting raped is “wrong.” As far as I am concerned, you can do absolutely anything you want to yourself, including putting yourself into dangerous situations (which is what the case in question relates too). I try not to use right and wrong when designating behavior. I find that lawful versus unlawful, courteous versus discourteous, and polite versus impolite are enough to regulate my behavior without having to bring in the concepts of right and wrong (which seem to carry with them a lot of emotional response, which I believe will cloud a person’s judgement).
Why is it so ludicrous? While situations may arise in which an individual person (due to a lack of preparation in my opinion) is not able to think of a solution to the problem in question before it is too late, there is nothing ludicrous about assuming that a solution exists (within reason). While a person cannot stop a bomb that is falling toward the earth from detonating when it hits the ground using only the powers of his/her mind, he/she can attempt to take shelter somewhere nearby which may result in his/her survival. Times will come when death is inevitable (e.g. if you look up and see a bomb about 10 feet above you that is falling toward you at 200 miles per hour), but in those situations, the responsibility comes from not noticing the bomb before it got so close (or allowing yourself to live in a place where bombs may be dropped) not because you were not able to stop it once it got so close. Car accidents are much more manageable situations. At a given moment, you can swerve to the right, swerve to the left, speed up, or stop/slow your vehicle. In most cases one of these will work. If you are in a situation where you are completely boxed in (cars block all 4 courses of action), then you should notice it immediately and take steps to get out of the situation so that you will have an escape route if something bad does occur.
There is nothing omniscient about finding one solution to a problem. In many cases, 3 of the 4 listed courses of action (i.e. stopping/slowing, swerving left, swerving right, or speeding up) will prevent the collision. You do not have to come up with all 3 solutions (or the many other solutions that are combinations of the above 4), you only have to come up with one.
I use responsibility to say that the only reason something surprising occurs is due to a lack of foresight on the part of the individual. I am always open to the idea that I may be killed in a bombing. If it were to happen I would not be truly surprised (don’t get me wrong, I am not expecting it to happen, but if I see the bomb coming I will understand how I came to be in this situation).
The completely paranoid freak is one extreme. This person considers and prepares for every possible bad situation that they can think of (and if they are dedicated enough they conduct research to help them learn of new troubles they can prepare for). Such a level of dedication comes with tremendous cost. There is no time for fun (since fun can be dangerous) and all your time is spent preparing for the worst (which is not a fun activity in the minds of most people). All of us (including myself) willingly put ourselves at risk by not preparing for the worst. My part of the world has not ever experienced a flood as long as humans have lived here (as far as I know), thus I have taken few, if any, precautions to protect myself from floods. However, I know that there is nothing that makes it impossible for my part of the world to experience flooding and my lack of preparation is a calculated risk (one which I take responsibility for). If I prepare for a flood and no flood occurs, I wasted my time and money in preparation. If I do not prepare for a flood and a flood does occur, then I will suffer more than if I had prepared. My choice to not prepare for a flood is mine and mine alone and my lack of preparation is my responsibility. It is not the weather-person’s fault for not warning me in time so that I could prepare, it is my fault for not preparing now. All decisions are gambles. There is a potential cost and a potential benefit to every choice we make, yet we do make the choices. The choices do not make themselves. I do not blame anyone in Hiroshima for choosing to live in the country during the time of war instead of moving like I mentioned that they could have done. However, I do expect them to take responsibility for their decision to stay. I would have made the same choice. It was the most logical decision. The odds were in their favor. But life has its dangers and it your responsibility and yours alone to see them coming and decide whether the likelihood of their occurring is worth preparing for.