In Praise of Profiling

Arizona's law targeting criminal immigration has drawn tremendous amounts of fire for giving law enforcement officers in that state the procedural tools to require citizens prove who they are, and that they are in the country legally, if (and only if) they are stopped for suspected law-breaking.

Criminal immigrants, their support organizations, and various groups that seek to profit from these criminals are trying to claim that the law is illegal and unconstitutional "racial profiling," and that it will unfairly focus law enforcement on minority populations by targeting the criminals that reside in or transit this nation illegally.

Jamelle Bouie provides us with a typical anger-filled example of this thought pattern:

One of the most objectionable things about Arizona's law is the blatant racial profiling, but that doesn't seem to phase most conservatives. Jonah Goldberg doesn't see a problem with it. George Will doesn’t see a problem with it. Byron York doesn't even understand that it is racial profiling (note to Mr. York: the difference between flashing your ID at the DMV and being asked for your papers is that the latter will only happen if you're brown). There's a straightforward explanation behind this tacit support for racial profiling in Arizona; simply put, conservatives have long been defenders of racial profiling in law enforcement.

You only have to look back five months — after the failed "underpants bombing" — to see conservatives voice their enthusiasm for anything that would give extra scrutiny to brown people. Tom McInerney, a retired Air Force general, proposed that we "be very serious and harsh about the profiling," especially if "you are an 18 to 28-year-old Muslim man," in which case "you should be strip-searched." The National Review's Andy McCarthy endorsed the view of the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens, who argued that profiling was necessary given that "suicide bombing is a purely Islamic phenomenon." Even conservative elected officials are willing to voice their enthusiasm for profiling. In an Armed Services Committee hearing on Fort Hood, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) declared that he "believes in racial and ethnic profiling."

In fact, the conservative enthusiasm for racial profiling goes beyond national security and immigration. Conservatives tend not to see a huge problem with the fact that African-Americans are disproportionately stopped and searched by law enforcement.

There is a simple reason that humankind has used profiling techniques for thousands of years: they work. And there is another unpleasant fact that some would rather ignore:

This nation has been in a long emotional discussion concerning the use of profiles by law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, this debate has been entitled, "racial profiling." There is a saying in debating, "If you can define the terms, you win the contest." Utilizing the term, "racial profiling," ensures that the debate will be negative in tone and divisive in nature. I propose that instead of inflaming emotions, we take a look at what actually is being done in this area of enforcement. This issue is so important to law enforcement and its efforts to interdict drugs and terrorists that a dispassionate examination is essential.

No government agency or law enforcement association, in their interdiction training, teaches that race is a characteristic of criminals. Not the Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Customs, The International Association of Chiefs of Police or any national police association, period. Officers are taught to look at the individual for characteristics or indicators of criminal activity. These characteristics, when seen in clusters by trained officers, have been recognized as a valid investigative tool by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Those who purport to be shocked that ethnic groups are over represented in the population arrested for certain criminal activities must have been in a prolonged coma. The fact is that ethnic groups control the majority of organized criminal activity in the United States. They also tend to hire as their underlings and couriers others of their same group. Why? Because these are the people they grew up with, feel comfortable around and because it's human nature.

The truth is, if you work criminal interdiction in this country, you will not arrest the same percentages of ethnic groups as represented in the U.S. general population. People may not like it but that is the reality.

Profiling certain groups for certain types of criminal activity is legal, justified, and proven under fire in the justice system.

Jamelle Bouie may not like reality, but reality doesn't change based upon what is convenient or easy, or because the community-based reality would rather not address empirical truths.

It is an unquestioned statistical fact that black males are more likely to be arrested, incarcerated, unwed fathers, school dropouts, and victims of violent crime than any of their peers in any other significant ethnic group not because of some bias against them, but because they drop out of school more frequently, embrace cultural norms that devalue the family structure, fatherhood, emotional maturity, and responsibility, and they commit a disproportionate number of violent crimes (often at the expense of their peer/victims) with weapons that can lead to serious injury or death.

Likewise, because of our geography and sociopolitical dynamics in this hemisphere, is it far more likely that criminal immigrants will be from nations in Central and South America, and therefore, of the native and/or Hispanic ethnicities that dominate those regions. Obviously, ethnicity is not the only criteria that law enforcement officers use in building a profile. They also look for indicators and characteristics that may indicate illegal behavior or criminal affiliation, and it these additional markers that often make the difference between a simple speeding ticket and a more detailed investigation that may lead to criminal arrest.

But to pretend that there is anything wrong, immoral, or unconstitutional in recognizing ethnicity as part of an overall profile is absurd.

Profiling—think of it as characteristic clustering—has been used and refined around the world for thousands of years, because it is an effective tool that catches criminals and cuts down time wasted interrogating law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong.

If one didn't know better, one might think these liberals were champions of criminal behavior. But that couldn't be right. Could it?