MF, being a programmer hence a logical thinker, the core of my definition of "profiling" is "statistical probability", meaning I am very much in favor of it. Where problems arise is in the defining of the profiling criteria. For example, should we choose sex, age, religion, skin color, eye color, the car one drives, the clothes one wears, etc.?
The obvious answer is to choose a combination of factors, as choosing just one would likely snare way too many "innocents". This may sound good in theory, but in practice people are going to assume you targeted them for something broad, like the fact they were dark skinned. The easy answer to that would be to publicly release the profiling criteria, but this would obviously be self-defeating as you'd be tipping your hand. So, my ultimate solution would be to make profiling legal, but also make the arresting body file their criteria with a judge (like they would a search warrant) so that anyone who does feels unjustly targeted has legal recourse.
- Jeff |
