Are You in Favor of Racial/Gender/Etc. Profiling

[rishaed]

And how long does it take to answer a few questions?
2 maybe 3 minutes max?

[Phatscotty]

Are you in favor of racial/gender/ethnicity profiling? If a rash of burglaries occurred in your neighborhood and they were allegedly committed by an old, white, woman, are you in favor of the police stopping old, white, women walking in or near your neighborhood? What if the crime was more serious? What if the crime was less serious?

What about the police? When a call is made that a person broke into a house and raped a person and was just spotted leaving the house on foot 30 seconds before the 911 call was made, indicating the rapist is still in the neighborhood, is there anyone who seriously thinks the dispatcher should not ask the 911 caller "what race is the rapist, what gender is the rapist, what color are the rapists clothes, what is the height/weight" and the the police responding to the call should not look for someone matching the description received by a witness?

[Woodruff]

Saying "its a black man" is really no more informative than saying "it was a human being". THAT is the real problem.

No, that is a stupid statement. Of course it is more informative, and realistically so. That information may not be particularly useful in, for instance, a deeply black neighborhood, but in most cases it does add usefulness to the information.

No, it really doesn't, except in VERY limited circumstances... sad you think it does.

It's sad that I think it doesn't add usefulness to the information that when a black man is almost certainly the perpetrator of a crime (let's say it's a bank robbery and the teller knew with certainty it was a black man), that the police LOOK FOR A BLACK MAN? You think that's just as useful as the police looking FOR A MAN? My God PLAYER...sometimes, you say the stupidest things.

You want to talk about his jacket or his getaway vehicle or whatnot...but THOSE THINGS, while momentarily useful, quickly become non-useful and the perpetrator discards them. And if you think that many criminals don't discard anything that is quickly identifiable, then you're not thinking clearly. They actually plan it out that way.

If you add even a few details -- a black man wearing a white cap and black pants, for example, then it becomes more realistic, but then you also can risk making mistakes as noted above.

Of course...this is obvious to anyone. And there will almost always be risk of mistaken identity in such situations, but you can only do the best you can with the information you have available.

You can also recognize how often the "information given" is just wrong. When you add a t-shirt of a specific type or such, that is real information. Just saying "it was a young black guy"

That may add "real information" if someone is found within the next ten minutes. After that...not really, no.

or feeling that anyone who is black should get extra scrutiny because they are more likely to have committed crimes.

I suggested no such thing - do you even English?

[PLAYER57832]

Saying "its a black man" is really no more informative than saying "it was a human being". THAT is the real problem.

No, that is a stupid statement. Of course it is more informative, and realistically so. That information may not be particularly useful in, for instance, a deeply black neighborhood, but in most cases it does add usefulness to the information.

No, it really doesn't, except in VERY limited circumstances... sad you think it does.

It's sad that I think it doesn't add usefulness to the information that when a black man is almost certainly the perpetrator of a crime (let's say it's a bank robbery and the teller knew with certainty it was a black man), that the police LOOK FOR A BLACK MAN? You think that's just as useful as the police looking FOR A MAN? My God PLAYER...sometimes, you say the stupidest things.

Except, now you are stretching things considerably. Saying "keep a watch out for a black man" is OK, just like saying "keep a watch out for a white blonde-haired man". But, the thing is if I said "a blonde man robbed the bank", it would not lead to police stopping and questioning or searching every blond-haired man they see. Somehow, many people think that IS OK if the man being targeted is a black man.

You want to talk about his jacket or his getaway vehicle or whatnot...but THOSE THINGS, while momentarily useful, quickly become non-useful and the perpetrator discards them. And if you think that many criminals don't discard anything that is quickly identifiable, then you're not thinking clearly. They actually plan it out that way.

Yeah, like wigs, etc. The point is not that police shouldn't keep track of race, the point is that if the only identifier of a person is gender and race, its not much better than just saying "its a human".

If you add even a few details -- a black man wearing a white cap and black pants, for example, then it becomes more realistic, but then you also can risk making mistakes as noted above.

Of course...this is obvious to anyone. And there will almost always be risk of mistaken identity in such situations, but you can only do the best you can with the information you have available.

You can also recognize how often the "information given" is just wrong. When you add a t-shirt of a specific type or such, that is real information. Just saying "it was a young black guy"

That may add "real information" if someone is found within the next ten minutes. After that...not really, no.

True.

or feeling that anyone who is black should get extra scrutiny because they are more likely to have committed crimes.

I suggested no such thing - do you even English?

It IS what a lot of people think and it was the subject of the thread.

[PLAYER57832]

Are you in favor of racial/gender/ethnicity profiling? If a rash of burglaries occurred in your neighborhood and they were allegedly committed by an old, white, woman, are you in favor of the police stopping old, white, women walking in or near your neighborhood? What if the crime was more serious? What if the crime was less serious?

What about the police? When a call is made that a person broke into a house and raped a person and was just spotted leaving the house on foot 30 seconds before the 911 call was made, indicating the rapist is still in the neighborhood, is there anyone who seriously thinks the dispatcher should not ask the 911 caller "what race is the rapist, what gender is the rapist, what color are the rapists clothes, what is the height/weight" and the the police responding to the call should not look for someone matching the description received by a witness?

No, but looking, stopping even questioning people meeting a description right after an event, and assuming that any black person you see is going to be the guilty one are two different issues.

In the example I gave, (a REAL one), a couple of well known basketball players were stopped and arrested, made to lay on the ground, etc -- because a black man had just been reported to have robbed a bank and so "naturally" any black men in Santa Barbara were questionable. The result was a serious delay in catching the real perpetrators -- I am not even sure if they ever were caught, in fact.

[Woodruff]

Saying "its a black man" is really no more informative than saying "it was a human being". THAT is the real problem.

No, that is a stupid statement. Of course it is more informative, and realistically so. That information may not be particularly useful in, for instance, a deeply black neighborhood, but in most cases it does add usefulness to the information.

No, it really doesn't, except in VERY limited circumstances... sad you think it does.

It's sad that I think it doesn't add usefulness to the information that when a black man is almost certainly the perpetrator of a crime (let's say it's a bank robbery and the teller knew with certainty it was a black man), that the police LOOK FOR A BLACK MAN? You think that's just as useful as the police looking FOR A MAN? My God PLAYER...sometimes, you say the stupidest things.

Except, now you are stretching things considerably.

No I'm not.

Saying "keep a watch out for a black man" is OK, just like saying "keep a watch out for a white blonde-haired man". But, the thing is if I said "a blonde man robbed the bank", it would not lead to police stopping and questioning or searching every blond-haired man they see. Somehow, many people think that IS OK if the man being targeted is a black man.

There is no difference in the two situations. And I never suggested that the police should "question or search every black man they see", but I certainly have no problem with them taking a longer look at every black man while they're searching for the bank robber, just as I would have no problem with them taking a longer look at every blond man while they're looking.

You want to talk about his jacket or his getaway vehicle or whatnot...but THOSE THINGS, while momentarily useful, quickly become non-useful and the perpetrator discards them. And if you think that many criminals don't discard anything that is quickly identifiable, then you're not thinking clearly. They actually plan it out that way.

Yeah, like wigs, etc. The point is not that police shouldn't keep track of race, the point is that if the only identifier of a person is gender and race, its not much better than just saying "its a human".

It's still a large generalization, sure...but it ABSOLUTELY is more informative than "it's a human" or even "it's a male". It's a clear, easily-recognizable, difficult-to-conceal identifier.

or feeling that anyone who is black should get extra scrutiny because they are more likely to have committed crimes.

I suggested no such thing - do you even English?

It IS what a lot of people think and it was the subject of the thread.

No it wasn't. In fact, it specifically and directly was not in the original post, never mind the subject line. I really do wonder if you English very well at all now.