British cops stop and hassle thousands to "balance racial statistics"
"I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice," he said. "But it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches...Terror law used to stop thousands 'just to balance racial statistics' (Thanks, Glyn!)Carlile uses his annual report to endorse complaints from professional and amateur photographers that counter-terror powers are being used to threaten prosecution if pictures are taken of officers on duty.
He said the power was only intended to cover images likely to be of use to a terrorist: "It is inexcusable for police officers ever to use this provision to interfere with the rights of individuals to take photographs." The police had to come to terms with the increased scrutiny of their activities by the public, afforded by equipment such as video-enabled mobile phones. "Police officers who use force or threaten force in this context run the real risk of being prosecuted themselves for one or more of several possible criminal and disciplinary offences," he warned.
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I find it very amusing when people are offended by this since they are basically saying that white people are obviously always innocent. Kind of sucks to have the shoe on the other foot, doesn't it?
And we're surprised, why, exactly?
Statistics are useful tools, to be sure. They are not, and can not become, the sole basis for public policy.
Ah, I wonder if this was why they were doing random stop and searches (random being a selection of white males 20-35) at Vauxhall last week?
This is what happens when people cry racial profiling every time a minority is arrested.
I don't blame the police here at all, it's not their fault, it's the fault of the system that will criticize them if they do their job and only choose to investigate people they might think are potentially doing things illegal.
Recently my family went our our first trip to Disneyworld. Does airport security REALLY need to check my 5 year old for explosives in their shoes? Of course not, but anything less would be "racial profiling".
I just hope they don't NOT arrest someone who is doing a crime because they have already met their quota for that minority that month.
So in case it comes up in the future, what should i say to a policeman who stops me for taking photos?
"Don't taze me, bro!" ?
This is what happens when people cry racial profiling every time a minority is arrested.
No, this is what happens when people not accustomed to being singled out solely for the color of their skin get a taste of what it's like.
If nothing else, it's good to know that more people have been watching The Wire.
There are lie, damn lies and absolute power corrupts absolutely... or something like that.
-- MrJM
I suppose it's sort of an improvement to see them mistreating everyone roughly equally...
But it's still an increase in the rate of mistreatment, when the solution should be to decrease mistreating the overly-abused minorities.
I really hope most peoples reactions isn't "oenoes, theyz pickin' on the poor innocent white folks, they should go find some blacks and asians to harass". At least for me, my first thought was "Human Rights: Ur Doin It Wrong", and I'm pretty sure that was the point of Corey's post.
GeekDadCanada,
Because white, English-speaking people never commit terrorist acts. At least never in the UK. Yay profiling!!!
The police had to come to terms with the increased scrutiny of their activities by the public, afforded by equipment such as video-enabled mobile phones.
I wonder if anyone in our nation's police departments plans on relaying this to the rank and file officers.
Yes, so now that the police have been called out for a history of institutional racism, we get arbitrary tactics that target the guilty and innocent alike regardless of race or ethnicity.
Policing FAIL.
I was in London in December 1988, a white boy, surfer-dude type traveling with my wife through Heathrow. We were on Pan Am flight 103.
They took me/us and proceeded to go through our luggage, stopping to look up at my face with every item that they took from our bags, including a teddy bear that had been "everywhere" with us.
A week later, another Pan Am flight 103 was blown up over Scotland.
I didn't know what was "up" at the time, but apparently they had had an inkling.
Yeah, we give up some of our rights when we are subject to harsher outcomes. Don't blame the police.
But when something goes wrong, well, it's the police's fault again, isn't it?
Nowhere did I say that whites don't commit terrorist acts.
The police should be able to interrogate the most probable suspects regardless of race, or how many people of that category they have questioned in the past.
Yeah, I've often commented that blond guys from Michigan didn't get profiled after the OKC bombing.* I know, because I'm a guy from Michigan who at the time was blond.
Funny how I didn't come under any additional suspicion or scrutiny after that. Yet after 9/11, there were some people who actually defended racial profiling as a useful tactic!
___
*Anyone else hear at first that it was "Mideastern terrorists"? It wasn't, it was Midwestern terrorists.
GDC 14: The police should be able and willing to interrogate the most probable suspects regardless of race, or how many people of that category they have questioned in the past.
FTFY. With that change, I agree. I would respectfully submit that the problem comes most often in their will, not their ability.
People are always cool with racial profiling as long as it's happening to another race. I read a study after 9/11 showing that a majority of black Americans favored racial profiling as a law enforcement tool... as long as it was used to weed out potential middle-eastern terrorists.
back to the abject fear being photographed inspires in UK police, what exactly is the letter of the law?
Is it specifically to prevent the individual identities from being known as they merrily smash faces and destroy property? Is there a loophole permitting filming so long as the images that become public do not show just who they are?
@ #15 GeekDadCanada:
How do they know who the "most probable" suspects are? How can we be sure that whatever metric they are using is just? And if 90% of their searches were of members of a race that only comprised 10% of the population, would we be justified in calling them out on racial profiling?
I accept that racial profiling in the airports is against non-white races, but this is not to say that the anti-govt 'militia' in the US is not under surveillance by the FBI in some manner (likewise the IRA in the UK). I'm guessing that their dangerous activities do not involve airplanes nut more local forms of transport.
You;re covered.
nut -> but
@ PFLINT. Surely the point is, though, that the militia are under surveillance, rather than all whites? It's really not the same thing as racial profiling.
IMHO racial profiling epitomises the unjust and I fail to see how it can even be effective in dealing with a terrorist threat.
Then, get a flash mob to line up (visions of the 'New Cooker Sketch' from Monty Python Season 2 - Ep. 14 "Face the Press (or Dinsdane)") all wearing brown/orange work jackets, ties, and caps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dVkdCQCAS0
Don't FF to 4:40 for the queuees... Watch the whole thing. There will be a test later.
Obviously, the only thing for it is for white people to go commit more violent crimes, preferably terrorism. We need extremist members of the Church of England to go burn somebody at the stake. It's part of their cultural heritage, after all.
Are there extremist members of the C of E.?
@ Machineintheghost #25:
Obviously, the only thing for it is for white people to go commit more violent crimes, preferably terrorism.
To my knowledge the IRA (which was arguably the biggest terrorist threat to the UK for a time) never had many non-white members.
@26: Interesting you mention the Irish.
The Irish were historically considered to be "non-white". Black people were at one point called "smoked Irish".
Some say that's why Ireland is historically more racist than some other countries, in an attempt to distance themselves from black people.
Which goes to show racism is stupid, even when it masquerades itself as PCness.
I knew there was something I liked about the Irish.
@ Brainspore #26.
That is an excellent point. I recall (reminded by your comment) that UK cops got in deserved trouble back in the day for pinning IRA crimes on innocent people. In the back of my mind was the impression that the British police were once considered the most honest, uncorruptible and democratic in the world. I wonder if that were ever really true at all.
I would make another satirical suggestion here, but none of it seems funny anymore.
I understand that it's reasonable to object to racial discrimination by police officers, because that's a truly horrible thing, as most older black people in America (or younger blacks in some parts) can attest to.
However, at a time in the world where probably at least eight out of ten terrorists, domestic or not, that target Western powers is from a Middle-Eastern country, is it really wrong to look more carefully specifically at Middle-Eastern people?
I mean, obviously people don't trust the cops not to be racist or not to abuse their power -- for good reason, I don't trust most of them, either. But if there is a solution to the problem at all, I don't think that pulling up statistics and going, "Most people stopped at airports are Middle-Eastern in appearance. There must be racism involved," is the solution. If you couldn't profile based on your threat, then insurance companies would be illegal.
@ Masamunecyrus #30:
Racial profiling is one of the reasons that would-be "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, a white Brit, wasn't given a second glance by airport security while people of browner persuasion were being needlessly harassed. Also recall that the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil prior to 9/11 was committed by a couple of white guys with a van full of fertilizer.
Terrorist organizations KNOW that we are watching for young men that look like middle eastern Muslims, which is why they have been going out of their way to recruit people who can blend in with westerners. As long as we're just shaking down the guys with beards and turbans we are setting ourselves up for failure next time around.
Having law enforcement focus on one visible subgroup of the population doesn't make us safer, it makes us LESS safe.
+100, Brainspore.
Thanks Grimc.
@ Takuan: I like a lot of your posts so I'm wracking my brain trying to find a way to interpret your comment at #28 that doesn't come across as terribly offensive to all involved. That's akin to saying "I knew there was something I liked about Palestinians" in the context of a discussion about suicide bombings in Israel. Care to defend yourself, or perhaps apologize?
Yeeeaaaah...Takuan explaining one of his posts instead of joyfully taking the opportunity to sow more confusion...
That'll happen.
Brainspore@33... GrimC@34... in the view of the author, I think it might be helpful to re-read it as something like "I knew there was something I liked about tuna"
mmmmmm Irish! Nope, nothing complicated, just kinship with the persecuted, smoked or marinated,
ps: think of me as providing opportunities for personal growth and development through challenge. ("sow more confusion"... pah!)
The greatest trick Pan ever played was convincing people he was a life coach.
a little wine?
For the record, Richard Reid's heritage was half English and half Jamaican. Nevertheless, not Middle Eastern. Also Jose Padilla, not Middle Eastern.
The point being that when terrorists know that Middle Easterners are being profiled, they deliberately use other people because they know people will suspect them less.
So maybe YOU know you're not a terrorist and that it's silly for them to pick you out in a random search... but if they categorically exempted white people, or old people, or women, etc. from these searches, then guess who'd be the prime recruiting targets? That's why there's been an uptick in female suicide bombers in the Middle East. They draw less suspicion.
None of this, however, should be construed as a blanket excuse for the hassling-yet-questionably-effective security theater they put us all through. I'm just saying that if you're all gung-ho about racial profiling, then you turn a blind eye to plenty of other potentially harmful people.
There are two huge issues with profiling to combat terrorism: one is a matter of definitions, and the other of statistics.
Definitions: Some have pointed out the IRA (although I suspect the link there was to the wrong IRA) and the Oklahoma bombers as examples of white terrorists. Now let's test our definitions. How many would object if the media referred to "Catholic terrorists" or "Protestant terrorists"?
Hands, please?
There's a lot of emotional baggage associated these days with the terms "middle-east terrorist" and "Muslim terrorist".
Statistics: Just about any way you slice the population samples, when it comes to people willing to blow other people up, you're dealing with a vanishingly small percentage. What percentage of Asians are violent terrorists? What percentage of Muslims? What percentage of any given nationality, race, or physical characteristic?
Damn small. Excruciatingly small. You're looking for the exceptions, not for the rule. Profiling based on racial characteristics is meaningless. We're not talking about thousands of innocents cast together with hundreds of miscreants. More like hundreds of millions or even billions of innocents compared to a handful of troublemakers.
Give it a rest, already.
profiling plays to prejudice and makes it look like they are doing something, in other words, government SOP. They certainly don't believe it actually does anything.
Lt. FLAP: Sarge, your dog is hostile toward me.
Sgt. SNORKEL: He's hostile to everyone, sir.
FLAP: Are you sure he's not hostile to me because I'm black?
SNORKEL: No, sir. He's hostile to everyone, regardless of race, color or creed.
FLAP: Fine dog you have there, Sarge.
(Otto the dog is gnawing Flap's leg the whole time.)
--- from an old "Beetle Bailey" comic
@ Takuan #36:
mmmmmm Irish! Nope, nothing complicated, just kinship with the persecuted, smoked or marinated,
There's nothing wrong with kinship with the persecuted (I'm an Irish American myself). What's offensive about your earlier comment was that it implied both
a) Terrorism against British people is OK
b) The Irish only have value when they're blowing up Brits
Again, a comment like "I knew there was something I liked about Palestinians" in a similar context probably would have been disemvowelled.
Moving on now.
I don't know, but IIRC that was how the British media separated the thugs from the IRA and those from the UDF back in the day.
brainspore: You're at an 11 and you need to be at a 2.
"It is inexcusable for police officers ever to use this provision to interfere with the rights of individuals to take photographs"
British individuals (SUBJECTS, not citizens) don't have any right to take photographs! Their "rights" come from Parliament, which can take them away at any time.
One cannot argue that racial profiling is wholly ineffective at catching terrorists, and then with the next breath argue that the terrorists are recruiting whites to avoid racial profiling, because that implies it has been effective. If the profiling weren't effective there would be no need for the terrorists to change their ways.
I'm not saying that profiling is effective (I don't know) nor am I saying that the terrorists *have* changed their recruiting (don't know that either - but it seems more likely to me that there have always been sympathisers among whites and that special recruiting wasn't really necessary). I'm just saying that these two anti-profiling arguments are clearly contradictory; I wouldn't continue to use them both in the future. Make a decision - do you think racial profiling is effective, or not.
One cannot argue that racial profiling is wholly ineffective at catching terrorists, and then with the next breath argue that the terrorists are recruiting whites to avoid racial profiling, because that implies it has been effective.
Your statement implies that terrorists (or anybody) makes intelligent, rational decisions. If only that were true.
Yes. They give you nasty looks if you pour the milk before the tea.