Matus

Matus writes:

>Brenno, I believe you had mentioned that you were a law enforcement
>agent of some kind. Something that strikes me in all these >discussion
which you alluded to somewhat was that this is always >considered to be a
'racial' profiling. As you mentioned, minorities >are vastly over represented
among the poor in this nation, and as we >all know, poor people tend to
committ more crimes

<snip>

I saw some interesting numbers on profiling in airports on a television
program (I can't remember which, alas). The prime suspects in drug
smuggling were considered young African-American women, and for awhile,
they were being profiled and searched more often than other groups.
Surprisingly, young African-American women turned out to have a
surprisingly low number of actual 'hits'--lower in fact, than for whites.

While I understand the basis for your argument, I have to question whether
or not the current criteria for profiling are actually justified.

Cheers,

KC

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From:
BRENN0
Nov-27 6:01 pm
To:
MATUS1976 unread
25 of 28

417.25 in reply to 417.23
“Brenno, I believe you had mentioned that you were a law enforcement
agent of some kind.”

Yes, I was a police officer for about 8 ½ years before becoming an attorney
and I come from a law enforcement background (Father, brother and cousin
are state troopers, late uncle was ATF agent, cousins are Secret Service,
military police, etc.)

“Something that strikes me in all these discussion which you alluded to
somewhat was that this is always considered to be a 'racial' profiling. As you
mentioned, minorities are vastly over represented among the poor in this
nation, and as we all know, poor people tend to commit more crimes.”

Certainly true, and the fact of the matter is that this also supports racism as
a reason, but not in the simple and direct way (racist cops!!) that tends to
stir up a crowd and bring one the benefits of being a stirring civil rights
champion. The more complex answer, I believe is that past racism has
caused some minorities to be over-represented among the poor and,
therefore, inevitably over-represented among criminal defendants. In
addition, since the dawn of time those who have power (the rich in most
societies) have always made the laws and so they tend to legislate strongly
against things that are more accepted in the minority culture and less
prevalent in their own. Where there is a significant difference between the
cultural background of the powerful and the powerless, such as in a country
where most everyone’s culture has arrived from elsewhere in just a few
hundred years, it seems reasonable to think that the cultures would be more
varied and his effect exaggerated. In short, crimes, other than a few
universals, are largely directed at controlling the poor and some minorities,
as a result of long term racism, are over-represented among those poor;
that doesn’t mean that they are not really committing crimes or that those
making the arrests are racists.

“The simple fact of the matter is this is cultural profiling, not racial profiling.”

“Racial profiling” is to civil rights as “assault rifle” is to gun ownership - a
term so misused for “sound bite” effect as to loose any real meaning,
especially its original meaning. Profiling, in the sense of prospective profiling
of potential criminals (not profiling of a probable offender in a past crime)
refers to gathering a set of characteristics that are shared by a large number
of persons who commit a particular crime. We talk inoffensively about the
profile characteristics of child molesters and serial killers, which include race
(white) as a factor among many other characteristics that predominate.
Nobody has a fit when we say that the profile of a methamphetamine
manufacturer/dealer includes being a white male. The fact is that, while drug
use is wide spread, we are all aware that the drugs used vary with
background, class, race or urban/rural setting. It may be racist to argue that
“crack” should be a very high priority drug, but to say that crack dealers and
transporters tend to be in the majority black is to face plain facts. If we
placed a high priority on methamphetamine dealers we would be stopping
white rural redneck types (as we are starting to do here in Kentucky and
across the country in the rural areas, although crack still predominates in the
city). The point is that race is only one minor element of a profile, alongside
clothing, car, driving style, etc. If you are talking about police stopping
people because of their race, that is not “profiling” since one characteristic
hardly adds up to a profile.

“Police appear to me to treet people identically regardless of color, they
instead base it on economic status, or apparent economic status.”

I would go further to say that in my direct experience police, even in rural
southern counties in the mountains of Kentucky, tend to be more careful in
dealing with minorities for exactly the reason we are discussing this issue. If
the police hit a white guy when they shouldn’t nobody gets very stirred up
and if he sues, even wins, it isn’t going to be a very big case in the papers
and such and he can expect some support from his department and a level
of punishment, if he is wrong, that matches the offense. If the same
situation involves a minority, every white officer, and in many cases minority
officers, expects race to be made an issue and that their outcome will be
significantly more likely to be negative and the result will be significantly
worse. Because of that, even racist officers usually try to avoid conflicts with
minorities for their own good.

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From:
BRENN0
Nov-27 6:05 pm
To:
KC (KCDGW)
26 of 28

417.26 in reply to 417.24
"I saw some interesting numbers on profiling in airports on a television
program (I can't remember which, alas). The prime suspects in drug
smuggling were considered young African-American women, and for awhile,
they were being profiled and searched more often than other groups.
Surprisingly, young African-American women turned out to have a
surprisingly low number of actual 'hits'--lower in fact, than for whites. While
I understand the basis for your argument, I have to question whether or not
the current criteria for profiling are actually justified."

Now that's a valid argument. If race is a statistically valid indicator of
involvement in the particular crime being targeted then the rational position
would be that it should be considered along with any other valid indicators
(sex, age, clothing, etc.) On the other hand, if race is not a valid indicator (if
our statistics show, for instance, that whites are not overrepresented in the
methamphetamine market when we believe they are) then pursuing that as a
profile element would seem to indicate racism.

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From:
ALCARROLL1
Nov-27 7:37 pm
To:
BRENN0
27 of 28

417.27 in reply to 417.22
Keep in mind I we were talking about who gets STOPPED, not who the
criminals are. The FBI statistics give a very distorted picture, and actually
prove the widespread existence of racism among the police.

Yet both police and press constantly MISuse them in the most
MISrepresentative way to try and defend that racism by promoting a
blatantly racist image of nonwhite males as "superpredators" and so on.

The FBI statistics represent who is ARRESTED for crimes NOT WHO
ACTUALLY COMMITS MOST CRIMES.

Sorry for seeming like I'm shouting, but there's no way to do italics on my
computer.

The FAR more accurate picture of who actually commits crimes comes from
the Justice Dept and their surveys of crime victims. They show those
statistics I mentioned before.

One of the rare people in the media to point this out is John Stossel, in a
program called "Scaring Ourselves to Death".

Now, those arrested are overwhelmingly nonwhite, we both agree. But the
fact that authorities target nonwhites (most of whom did commit the crimes)
and choose either to NOT go after whites who commit crimes, or to deal with
them far more harshly when they do, that shows an unmistakable and very
widespread pattern of racism.

It hardly takes much effort to find evidence of racism in the "justice" system.
The most obvious is the different sentencing for crack and powdered
cocaine.
Another would be the different treatment given to street crime in general
and white collar and corporate crime.
The latter cost up to ten times more in both property losses and lives, but
you sure don't see that reflected in sentencing.

Another question is whether law enforcement as a group is as racist as the
general public, and so what they do reflects that, or is more so.
The KKK, for example, brags that 1/4 of its members are cops. While they
are not the most reliable bunch, civil rts groups like Klanwatch suggests they
are overepresented. The question then becomes why does the profession
draw more racists to it, and how can we keep that from happening?

As a historian, I can say that the why is not much of a mystery. The first
lawmen in the US were slave patrols. (Indian societies did not need police
really, since there was informal authority to keep order. There were akicitas
who kept order during battle and hunts, but that's not really close.)
It's really only in the last generation that there has been much of an effort
to tutn the police into something more than a way to keep some segments
of the public under strict control.

Edited 11/27/00 7:43:19 PM ET by ALCARROLL1

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From:
BRENN0
Nov-27 9:17 pm
To:
ALCARROLL1 unread
28 of 28

417.28 in reply to 417.27
“Keep in mind I we were talking about who gets STOPPED, not who the
criminals are. The FBI statistics give a very distorted picture, and actually
prove the widespread existence of racism among the police.”

Fair enough; how do you know? To say that the overrepresentation of
minorities in the FBI statistics proves racism you would have to have another
set of reliable statistics on which to base your claim.

“The FBI statistics represent who is ARRESTED for crimes NOT WHO
ACTUALLY COMMITS MOST CRIMES. “Sorry for seeming like I'm shouting,
but there's no way to do italics on my computer. The FAR more accurate
picture of who actually commits crimes comes from the Justice Dept and
their surveys of crime victims. They show those statistics I mentioned
before. One of the rare people in the media to point this out is John Stossel,
in a program called "Scaring Ourselves to Death". “

How can those statistics possibly be more accurate: (1) they are not as
close to a 100% sample as the FBI’s and therefore have a wider margin of
error (2) Why are the surveyed victims less likely to be skewing the data due
to racism than ALL of the police in the country (FBI UORs are a nationwide
crime report prepared by each individual officer investigating a crime); the
police are trained, educated, screened for criminal history and psychological
traits, whereas crime victims almost entirely come from the same pot as the
criminals (to the point that with a very small minority of exceptions, the
same people simply rotate positions as offenders, victims and witnesses in
any community); (3) Many crimes do not have a victim (other than society)
or else there is no living victim or witness, the statistics would therefore be
skewed with regard to certain categories of crime and must entirely fail to
include others (not EVERY murderer is seen and if the survey is of victims,
well...) (4) Anybody who has ever had to do it (as I often do) can tell you
that if you are contacting crime victims after the fact your response and
ability to locate these people is going to be HUGELY biased toward the
middle class and above, as poorer victims tend to be less fixed and less likely
to be contacted or respond to a government survey.

“Now, those arrested are overwhelmingly nonwhite, we both agree. But the
fact that authorities target nonwhites (most of whom did commit the crimes)
and choose either to NOT go after whites who commit crimes, or to deal with
them far more harshly when they do, that shows an unmistakable and very
widespread pattern of racism.
It hardly takes much effort to find evidence of racism in the "justice" system.
The most obvious is the different sentencing for crack and powdered
cocaine.”

Not only do I think your evidence fails to really back up this claim, but you
are indiscriminately mixing allegations of racism by police, juries, judges and
legislators - these are all very different groups with very different class
backgrounds and racial make-ups (the police being the most racially diverse
(juries possibly included) and socio-economically similar to the people they
are allegedly out to get). Police have little or no influence on the final
treatment of the arrested. Most of the time they don’t even know what the
final verdict or sentence is, except in a case that is especially important, such
as a murder.

“Another would be the different treatment given to street crime in general
and white collar and corporate crime. “

Is it racist to be more frightened of violent crime than money disappearing
from your checking account? There probably isn’t enough gap between
robbery and embezzling, considering the elements of each. To suggest that
we treat white-collar crime, which by definition does not endanger, frighten,
damage neighborhoods, etc., the same as robbery, assault, arson, or
whatever, seems ridiculous to me.

“The latter cost up to ten times more in both property losses and lives, but
you sure don't see that reflected in sentencing. “

Voters elect legislators and I don’t see many voters living in fear of big
corporations. In addition, it’s worth noting that law enforcement does not
make laws and the economic and racial makeup of the police is more similar
to criminals than legislators (to the extent that I know several police officers
just in a 2 county area who have arrested their own family members).

“Another question is whether law enforcement as a group is as racist as the
general public, and so what they do reflects that, or is more so. The KKK,
for example, brags that 1/4 of its members are cops. “

Well, lets see, law enforcement officers in general are (1) members of the
general public who (2) have more than average education (3) have clean
criminal backgrounds (4) pass various psychological screening in any large
department (5) perform well on some type of intelligence or ability test (6)
complete training without either academic or disciplinary failures. This doesn’t
seem to add up to the general stereotype of a group of people likely to be
more racist than the general public according to most of what I’ve read on
the subject. Also, it seems very doubtful that the KKK even knows who “its”
members are, given the variety of dislocated groups that are called/call
themselves the Klan. There hasn’t been a united KKK in at least 30 years.

“While they are not the most reliable bunch, civil rts groups like Klanwatch
suggests they are overepresented.”

At least you didn’t cite Morris Dees and the SPLC.
“As a historian, I can say that the why is not much of a mystery. The first
lawmen in the US were slave patrols.”

I’m pretty sure the United States had law enforcement, including constables
and watches, before we had slavery, much less slave patrols. The office of
sheriff as a law enforcer dates back to about 1634 in Virginia. The slave
codes and subsequent slave patrols didn’t come about until 1700-1750, only
about 55 years before the first black police officers (1805, New Orleans) and
after civilian law enforcement had been firmly established in any well-settled
part of the colonies. I disagree with this claim as well as assert that even if
the slave patrols had been the earliest law enforcement, that has nothing
whatever to do with modern governments or law enforcement agencies that
have no historic connection with them. It would be like arguing the modern
Gendarmerie of France police should be held responsible for the WWII
Gestapo, since they’re both police.