Jihad, Rape, And Profiling

All men are pigs. That's stereotyping – a characterization which has, for a variety of reasons, become embedded in the minds of many women. Usually they're referring to the sexual appetites of males, and to their propensity for aggressive and bestial behavior. Sadly, there is much to support that concern. Women and children have something to fear and it is reasonable to be wary. The establishment of registries of sex-offenders is society's way of identifying possible threats. Would you buy a home for your family next door to that of a “rehabilitated” rapist?

That's an easy question, so let me pose another. How do you feel about “stop and frisk” laws? That, too, is an easy question. The idea that people might be considered a threat prior to there being a crime, and lacking evidence that they have criminal intentions, is abhorrent to our principles. It's unconstitutional, isn't it? Profiling – an activity that causes us to suspect a particular individual of being more likely than others to pose a threat – robs that individual of the presumption of innocence. Indeed, to a degree, his mere existence incriminates him.

Perhaps, however, the question is not as straightforward as it seems. We all profile all the time. It may be termed prejudice or justified caution, but it's the same thing. Is there a group of “Hell's Angels” ahead, and a way to reach your destination without walking the gauntlet? You'll probably take it. Has there been a home invasion in your neighborhood? And is there a “suspicious” person on your street looking at the houses? “If you see something, say something.” No one would accuse you of profiling if you notified your Neighborhood Watch, but that's what it is.ⁱ Perhaps it would be profiling if we just dragged in “the usual suspects.”

The act takes on another dimension, however, when it's done by a governmental agency. After all, though societies were formed to protect the individual from harm and our all-knowing government has instituted the Patriot Act,ⁱⁱ that Act, and society's obligations notwithstanding, our officials are the ones bound by the Constitution – even if we're not. So if a man whom no one knows is seen giving out candy bars to small children leaving a kindergarten, there is no justification for police questioning him.ⁱⁱⁱ Authorities would not question a soldier giving out chocolate to children in a town his division had just liberated, so the act itself cannot justify any official suspicion of the man in front of the school. Even if there has been a rash of kidnapings from the school. Absent a specific indication that he is linked to those crimes, questioning his motives isn't justified. Pull out your camera (or camera-phone) and document police oppression, like this profiling, if^iv it occurs.

Yet profiling by all of us is common.^v It always has been. We think of it now in terms of race^vi and religion,^vii but there's always been a reason. Throughout history, including our own,^viii specific groups have been chosen as suspect or to be rejected. But we consider that kind of bias “normal,” and when we focus on private prejudices like this, we avoid the basic question: Is there ever any justification for profiling; for using statistics to govern our own actions? If we act only on the basis of those prejudices, what we do isn't justified, but the decision about the rational use of the information available – even is some see bias in it – cannot be dismissed out of hand. We may not think about it that way, but it's the cause for most of what we do. The things we know, and the things we have learned from others, control what we do. Experience, education, and intuition are our guides to action. Yet we would deny them to those who represent us. We reject the idea that they should have preconcieved notions.

When there is a short circuit or other electrical problem we call in an electrician who, knowing the most common sources of such failings, will look at these first. They may or may not be responsible for our problems, but it is rational to evaluate them before other possibilities are explored. The same is true of plumbing problems. We leave to the expert, the one with experience, the determination of the cause of the problem in our case. Perhaps it will take several different approaches before the answer is found, but we don't forbid the expert from any particular one because there isn't a demonstrable cause. And we don't second-guess. For we know that dispensing with education, expertise, and experience – the sources of preconceived notions – is dispensing with common sense.

Years ago, before some of the currently available medical tools had been perfected, it was a common practice to perform “exploratory” surgery when a specific diagnosis couldn't be made otherwise. The surgeon might have suspected one disease or another, but lacked certainty. In some cases a particular problem – often incurable – was located. In some, a process, sometimes unsuspected, was discovered in an early enough stage that treatment and cure were possible, while in others it was determined that there wasn't anything serious going on; the patient wasn't suffering from some horrible disease, and could be treated conservatively.^ix It was a case of medical profiling. The person with undiagnosed abdominal symptoms was subjected to surgery whose results couldn't be foretold. Perhaps the risks were high, but the payoff would be higher.

And the same is true of other of society's problems. If Jihad is feared, action to prevent it is warranted, even if those being investigated are later found to have no ties to terrorist organizations, and their caution is viewed as intrusive and unwarranted.^x If rape is a possibility, waiting for it to occur before taking necessary steps to prevent it may be ideologically pure, but it is foolish. And waiting for a theft or a murder to take place because, notwithstanding the knowledge and intuition of a police officer, it cannot be proved in advance, is nothing less than malfeasance, cowardice, misconduct, or whatever other description you prefer. A signed threat should not be required before action is taken. The officer may be wrong, but inaction is often worse than a mistake. Proof is one end of a spectrum and infinitesimal possibility is the other. In between are many gradations, and somewhere we have to draw the line. We have to follow up on valid suspicions even if they don't pay off.

We're all gamblers. We play the odds. “Slick” Willie Sutton is credited with robbing banks because “that's where the money is.”^xi Our practices, of course, are more mundane: We look for books in the library and meat at the butcher rather than go to the automobile dealership for both. There's an excellent chance of success, though no guarantee that we'll find the book we're after nor the cut of meat needed for the recipe we've chosen, at the “right” distributors, and the odds that are certainly better than they would be at a car salesroom. A suspicious individual is more likely to be a bomber in Kabul than Keokuk. And if the line in front of the movie theater is long, we'll probably avoid it, rather than stand on it only to find out that we're still waiting when the film we want to see has started. Our prior experience and our intuition are likely to pay off.

So when it comes to profiling, the keys to success with the least disruption of public order and personal rights, are the goodwill and credibility of the investigator and the minimization of any prejudices. If the authority that invests him with a badge or other similar credential, determines, after extensive testing and psychological probing (and that authority is pledged to investigate when any suspicion of overreaching arises) that he is worthy of trust, then we should be cautious about second guessing.^xii Thresholds of suspicion will certainly vary from one individual to another, but a society that would remain free will have to tolerate them. The system won't be perfect, but we're not perfect. We're inclined to tell the police to stop profiling and do “police work.” But we never define that work, and we never acknowledge that it includes experience and intuition in assessing threats. And profiling is part of that.^xiii

It's not an easy question.

Next episode: “Forget It” – As if you remembered in the first place.

i        Just as it would be profiling if you became suspicious if you reported a known jewel thief looking furtive in front of Harry Winston, or an apparent Middle-Easterner wearing a bulky coat on a hot summer day and walking toward a crowd. As a matter of fact, it's not unreasonable to view the refusal to buy a house next door to a rehabilitated rapist as profiling. You're doing so if he's served his term, isn't suspected of anything, and hasn't broken any laws since release.

ii       And the Alien and Sedition Acts in the past, as well as Supreme Court decisions restricting Freedom of Speech.

iii      Although we might attack him.

iv      Actually, when it occurs. The police are known to trample on the rights of individuals who are not violating any laws, so you know it's going to happen.

v       Perhaps the “rapist” who might be next door really is rehabilitated and wants to forget the past and move on. Perhaps he just wants to be left alone and actually represents no risk. Perhaps he was wrongly convicted and doesn't belong in the registry. Is it worth the risk?

vi      We always think first of blacks when a crime has been committed and when we want to prevent crime. There may be no specific reason to suspect someone apart from his race, but that statistic is sometimes used for selective stopping and questioning when a crime is being investigated and when authorities seek to keep the streets safe.

vii     Muslims, and those that police and the public believe to be Muslims, are often the targets when people are getting nervous about the possibility of terrorism. It's based on the reality that most of terrorist attacks around the globe, whether or not associated with a known terrorist group, are perpetrated by Muslims. Even if the vast majority of Muslims oppose violence (at least in this country), the stain of Jihad has covered everyone, and the determination not to risk a future disaster colors the thinking of those who protect us.

viii    Blacks, Catholics, Irish, Jews, and Italians are among many groups that have, in the past, been singled out for special exclusion and condemnation.

ix      It was interesting to see how often patients, no longer suspected of a fatal disease like cancer, weren't relieved, but (after signing a consent which acknowledged this as a possibility – a possibility for which they probably prayed) questioned why they had had surgery if there was nothing wrong. There was no recognition that such a procedure, however painful, could also be beneficial and could provide useful information or guidance for further therapy. But once bitten, twice shy. The surgeon might then choose to do nothing for future patients until signs of a specific disease were obvious. But by that time it might be too late. Avoiding “red flags,” and waiting for proof might make the search academic, but the patient couldn't accuse him of action with insufficient evidence. A balance between intuition and provable fact has to be accepted.

x       The increased number of attacks by individuals not associated with known organizations makes proof of institutional membership a questionable criterion for consideration of a suspect.

xi      In his biography he denied ever having said it. “Quote Investigator” suggests its origin is an Alfred Tennyson poem “The Northern Farmer, New Style” published by 1870, which includes the following: Doänt thou marry for munny, but goä wheer munny is! (See http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/02/10/where-money-is/)

xii     If, in one or more particular cases, a properly designed tool is abused, more attention should be paid to training people in the correct way to use it rather than tossing it out. In this instance the tool is profiling, which is used to great advantage in many other countries.

xiii    The tools are likely to be better in the future but we can only work with what we have. And if someone who would abuse a current tool slips through the system, and we take away what we're now using, he'll find some other outlet for his bias. It's the screening and training of those we entrust with our safety that deserve a greater part of our attention than efforts to limit their authority and their tools.