The Efficiency of Common Sense Profiling

With full body scans and enhanced pat-downs being implemented at airport security checkpoints, the issue of the effectiveness (and intrusiveness) of screening procedures has been brought up again.

Since there is a general outcry over the body scans and pat-downs, some people have suggested that rather than being intrusive and ethically-questionable, airport security should simply use profiling. The arguments for profiling include, 1) it is used to great effect in other countries (such as Israel) and 2) it would be cheaper and quicker. The arguments is that it can be abused, and it is demeaning and contrary to a free society.

As for the argument that profiling can be abused, of course it can. So can full body scans (will scans of attractive women be saved?) and pat-downs (will men doing pat-downs give women extra attention?). For that matter, so can military powers, tax laws, judicial appointments, judicial rulings, bail outs, trade laws, medical laws, and so forth. What aspect of government can not be abused? So there is nothing special about profiling that makes it more abusive than other laws or procedures.

What about the argument that profiling demeaning and contrary to freedom? To answer this critique, a closer look at profiling is in order.

There are some people who hear the word “profiling” and perceive “black men have a predisposition to violence,” or “being of Middle East descent makes one a terrorist.” In other words, these people see profiling as attributing a behavior to a person because of a physical characteristic. This is not what is meant by those who advocate profiling by airport security. They advocate criminal profiling. Criminal profiling involves knowing who a criminal is and using the criminal’s characteristics to find him. For example, a witness at a scene of a robbery describes the suspect as a man, 6 foot 4 inches tall, with blond hair. Therefore, cops will profile all 6 foot, 4 inch, blond haired men as possibly being the robber, not because 6 foot, 4 inch, blond haired men have a predisposition to robbery, but because a known robber has those characteristics. The same strategy can apply to groups: members of one group (say, terrorists) have common characteristics (young men of Middle Eastern descent). So profiling young, Middle Eastern men at airports is not based on the theory that being a young man born in the Middle East makes a person a terrorist, it is based on the knowledge that other terrorists are young Middle Eastern men.

So, to use criminal profiling is not to say, “Because you have feature X, you are more prone to do Y,” rather it is to say that “Criminal A has feature X. You have feature X, therefore the possibility exists that you are criminal A.” The former statement is condescending, demeaning, and does not look at men as equals. The latter statement is good police work based on common sense. I should also point out that it is not sufficient: while profiling can focus attention on a specific type of person, highlighting who should be watched or scrutinized, it is not sufficient to convict a person. Still, it is more efficient to focusing attention on a selected group of people rather than treating every airplane passenger as a potential terrorist.