Posted on 12/16/2014 10:22:20 AM PST by jazusamo
Last week, the Obama administration announced new curbs on racial profiling by federal law enforcement. Before deciding whether this is good or bad policy, we might try to develop a description/definition of racial profiling or any other kind of profiling.
A good definition of profiling in general is the use of an easily observed physical characteristic as a guess for some other, difficult-to-observe characteristic. The reason people profile is that information is costly and they seek methods to economize on information costs. One way to do that is through profiling.
Imagine a chief of police in a city where there has been a rash of automobile hubcap thefts and he's trying to capture the culprits. Should he have his officers stake out and investigate residents of senior citizen homes? What about spending resources investigating men and women 40 or older? I would imagine that he would have greater success in capturing the culprits by focusing most of his resources on younger people — and particularly on young men. Doing so would more likely lead to the capture of the culprits because hubcap theft is a young man's game. My question to you is whether you'd bring charges against the police chief because he used age and sex profiling — and didn't investigate seniors and middle-aged adults.
Some years ago, a Washington, D.C., taxicab commissioner, who is black, issued a safety advisory urging D.C.'s 6,800 predominantly black cabbies to refuse to pick up "dangerous looking" passengers. Cabbies in D.C. and other cities often bypass black males for fear of robbery or of being taken to an unsafe neighborhood. We seriously misunderstand the motives of a taxi driver who racially profiles and passes up a black customer if we use racism as the sole explanation for his behavior.
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Sure, as long as we stop profiling the Mafia as being Sicilian, the Westies for being Irish, and MS-13 for being Mexican.
Yeah, let’s stop profiling.
I have an idea. Why not BAN EVERYTHING? /s
Of course the libs themselves are the worst profilers of all and by far the most racist people in the country.
Walter Williams & Di Fi & Pelosi & Eliz Warren & Keith Ellison, et al need to be on a MONTH LONG ride along program in various places in the USA.
A week with deputies in Maricopa County, Arizona would be very helpful. Pick any other large city & SEE first hand what police officers live every single day.
If you think Walter Williams needs the same type of education needed by the rest of your “group”, you’re sadly ... misguided.
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