Racial profiling to stop Islamist terrorists in London is a Bloody Stupid Idea. Not because it’s morally wrong – if we were being targeted by, say, Black Panthers, then there would be a serious and unappetizing choice facing society. However, this isn’t the case.
Let’s put the actual Islam-vs-terrorism debate to one side for the sake of argument, and assume that the point of this racial profiling would merely be to discover Muslims (who are, presumably, more likely to be Islamists than are non-Muslims).
Muslims of Pakistani origin look similar to Indians. Muslims of Arab origin look similar to Greeks (and Brazilians). Muslims of Indonesian or Malaysian origin look Oriental. Muslims of African origin look African. Muslims of European origin look European.
We can probably assume that Japanese people and Inuit are unlikely to move to the UK and convert to Islam. But beyond that, any racial profiling you carry out will still either leave 95% of the population within its sights, or will rule out people who are just as likely to be Muslims as the racial groups you’re including.
You’re right John, the heuristics are fucked up. Just look at the poor Brazilian guy that got shot in Stockwell…
And, as I said before, once the Qutbists convert a couple of black Islamic guys to their crazy version of jihad, we’re in for a nasty attack. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet actually…
Well we could make all muslims register on a central database so we know who they are. They would also be required to wear yellow armbands with a little star on them in public to make sure we can identify them…
Hang on a minute wasn’t that done somewhere before.. ;-)
"any racial profiling you carry out will still either leave 95% of the population within its sights, or will rule out people who are just as likely to be Muslims as the racial groups you’re including."
You know that’s a distortion. I’m not a fan of racial profiling in most crimes, but when it comes to searching for terrorists common sense dictates that you do use a racial, ethnic, religious, age and gender profile to narrow down possible supsects. It isn’t foolproof, it might well stir up resentment among the law abiding folk, but on the whole, as that police commander said, there’s no point in stopping white grannies in Bournemouth.
It’s much worse than you say, actually. This sort of "profiling" makes life easier for the terrorists at rather little gain for everyone else. As Bruce Schneier puts it (paraphrasing), "if you create a hard path and an easy path through security, all you’ll do is ensure that the bad guys take the easy path" — if security don’t stop white people, then all the terrorists need to do is recruit a white person to carry/plant the bomb.
I’ve met at least one white granny who was a nutjob Muslim convert… The BTP shows once more that it’s not the sharpest knife in the box.
Like I said on Europhobia, the Met Police famously used stop and search powers in the early 1980s to stop young black kids who they suspected of muggings. In some cases Met officers swamped entire areas in order to "crack down" on the problem.
The result? Kids get angry and feel criminalised by the police , and the posioned atmosphere was a contributing factor in leading to the Brixton riots.
Its impossible to say whether this could happen again in sight of the South Asian community. But in terms of warming yourself to ethnic minorities, racial profiling stop and search is a Bad Idea.
It’s really disappointing that all of the discussion of this (in the news and elsewhere) has been of the form, "we shouldn’t use racial profiling because it will make brown people hate us", rather than of the form "we shouldn’t use racial profiling because it DOESN’T WORK". Basically people appear to be living in some fantasy universe where racial profiling (presumably because it has a technical name) is an effective law-enforcement technique which has some undesirable consequences, and therefore there’s a trade-off between security and good community relations. But actually there is no trade-off: it makes us less secure and will fuck up community relations.
OK, what is the alternative? No profiling (and the focus solely on race is misleading here) of any kind? Everyone gets stopped and searched in equal measure, with a quota system that reflects the ethnic, religious and age composition of the locality? This would require a lot more man (AND woman-!)power. Or no searching: instead, focus resources on other ways of catching fundamentalist nutters?
Day 1: BTP spokesman announces they’ll be using racial profiling.
Day 2: That nice Hazel Blears gets up & says that of course racial profiling has no place in the police response to terrorism & Mr Tony doesn’t want it to be used.
Ever get the feeling you’re being exploited?
Frank: Argue the points being made instead of whining on about something different. Chris et al (and John in the OP) have made several excellent points that sum up to show that racial profiling WILL NOT WORK here. Maybe stopping everyone aged 16-45 would work (as kids and grannies are unlikely to be suicide bombers) but you CANNOT single out one ethnic group here. The self stated claim is that these are MUSLIM terrorists, but given that islam is a religion with many followers of all ethnic backgrounds (and not just converts) how will racial profilling help, exactly?
You said: racial, ethnic, religious, age and gender profile Well, we’ve cleared up racial. I’m not really sure how ethnic differs from race, so I’ll tick that box too. How do you tell someone’s religion on a street corner? Tick. Age and gender: okay, I agree here, but that’s still a massive chunk of the population. And as Chris said, if we get really good at stopping all 16-45 males, the TERRORISTS will just find some mad old grannie to carry a bomb instead.
"Maybe stopping everyone aged 16-45 would work"
Firstly, we’re not talking about stopping "everyone" — that would be impossibly expensive. And if you say "don’t stop anyone younger than 16 or older than 45" that means that all the terrorists need to do is recruit old people and kids. A policy of that kind makes it easy for the terrorists to avoid security.
"OK, what is the alternative?"
To the extent that it’s worth bothering at all, focus on intelligence rather than random searches (and to avoid the problem I describe, they really have to be random). Random searches are basically a waste of time anyway — considering the tube as an example, you have ~3 million passengers per day and at most "a few" bombers. On a day when three bombers attempt to attack the tube, you’d have to conduct about 600,000 random searches to stand more than a 50% chance of catching one of them. For comparison, the Met has about 30,000 personnel in total.
Realistically, the determined terrorist cannot be stopped. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, what we ought to be doing is attacking the supply of terrorists somehow. I understand that the government some time ago concluded that the supply of terrorists was controlled by Iraq, and that blowing up that country should therefore stop the supply of terrorists. Apparently this policy has not worked, so we can expect the best brains of Whitehall to be coming up with a new one as we speak. No doubt it will be sensible and effective.
Searching the brown people, like searching bags (what’s a sucide bomber to do – say ‘it’s a fair cop’ or press The Button? ) only makes sense as part of a strategy of reassurance. Something Is Being Seen To Be Done.
On the other hand, does anyone know if the 1970s anti-terrorism film ‘Time of Terror’ ever got a wide release? I’ve seen it and it sure mongs the scare out of me. "Suspect your neigbours…"
Chris, Yeah, I fully agree. But the idea of randomly searching people who "look muslim" or "look middle-eastern / india sub-continent" is (regardless of every other complaint) about as practical as stopping every male aged 16-45, given this is modern, racially-diverse London we’re talking about.
But, yes, any form of random searching is rubbish, and will no doubt lead to more shooting if armed police are allowed to do it (as the probability of someone acting a bit weird is far height than the probability of actually catching a bomber: there must be e.g. loads of people carrying drugs on the transport system — compared to the number carrying bombs, that is).
The trouble with "racial profiling" is that certain officers will use it as an excuse to stop _lots_ and _lots_ of innocent dark-skinned people. This will fuel resentment in various communities as people will feel "picked on" [especially as blanket searches will normally not turn up anything and so 90%+ of searches will be seen as unwarranted].
… 1970s anti-terrorism film ‘Time of Terror’…
I haven’t seen it, and can’t find it on IMDB — are you sure that’s the title? There was also the now-somewhat-prescient-looking The Siege (suicide bombers in New York, followed by vicious overreaction by the authorities), but sadly with a rather silly fairytale ending.
GeriatricLabour: by all accounts, they already are stopping innocent people.
‘Time of Terror’ was a 25-minute documentary made I think for the Met. I’ve got access to a copy (it’s a historian thing) but I don’t know if it ever got a cinema or TV release.
I find it quite re-assuring to know that in 1974 a few people were in headless chicken mode as well.
Nick Cohen had a very sensible piece on this subject in the Evening Standard, which we have excerpted on the Aaronovitch Watch (Now Incorporating Nick Cohen Watch!) site.
Isn’t this profiling being put forward by the Transport Police, and not the Met?
Like Chris L and others have said: trying to catch bombers once they’ve got to the ticket gates is not going to work, profiling or otherwise.
Oh, regarding racial profiling, would someone care to remind Frank about Richard Reid, and contrast him with say, Lofti Raissi? *Racial/ethnic* profiling is risible given that we’re supposed to be threatened by *religious* fanatics.
Im Brazilian and get stopped every now again. I look very similar to that guy who died. I make sure my visa is up to date and always give my address details to the police station as i must do with the visa which must help the police. It doesnt bother me at all or make me worried, i welcome it. I welcome that it makes me feel safer the bombers might not want to risk using the tube. I see people looking around on the tube all the time and I liagh when i think your government mighte want to ask them to stop commuters using their own racial profiling in their heads. Passengers will be more nervous now and stare more if they feel police are not allowed to do a job based on current intelligence. This will increase ‘racism’ at a basic level. I profile people all the time and dont intend to stop. I wonder what your problem is? What are you all so scared of here? You are laughable sometimes. Noone has come up with any new good ideas above. last time i checked the bombers fitted the profile the police want to use, so until that changes they should not waste their time with anyone else. Deterrants are useful as they make bombers worried about using the trains and tubes. As how can they implement searches using intelligence on random tube passengers. Also most of the Brazilian community here feel the police were right and that it was a sad mistake. Your police services here are so good and your government wants to stop them doing a job. And so do you! Im very surprised.
"last time i checked the bombers fitted the profile the police want to use, so until that changes they should not waste their time with anyone else"
So: police harrass people who "look a bit foreign", finding no bombers and pissing off everyone else. The next bomber to attack doesn’t fit the profile, and so is neither caught nor deterred by the "profiled" police searches. Now the police expand the profile to include people matching the description of the new bomber, thus annoying more people and further decreasing the already small probability that they’ll catch anyone. Result: money wasted, police time spent on a wild goose chase, and terrorists undeterred.
"Your police services here are so good and your government wants to stop them doing a job. And so do you! I’m very surprised."
Quite the opposite, actually. I do not want the police to waste their time on activities which are somewhere between useless and actively counterproductive. If you’re reassured by police officers hanging around tube stations searching anyone who fits some (imagined) profile of suicide bombers, well, that’s your problem, not mine. I’d rather this kind of irrational bullshit was kept off the streets.
Result: money wasted, police time spent on a wild goose chase, and terrorists undeterred.
Oh you optimist. We also notch up the likelihood of race riots and provide a few bored young men with an idea that the British state isn’t fair and will never give them a chance.
Also most of the Brazilian community here feel the police were right and that it was a sad mistake…
Either I’ve been speaking to the wrong Brazilians, or this is cobblers.
"Either I’ve been speaking to the wrong Brazilians, or this is cobblers."
Nah — a selection effect, probably.
once the Qutbists convert a couple of black Islamic guys to their crazy version of jihad, we’re in for a nasty attack
Er, wasn’t one of the 7/7 guys a West Indian convert? And the second gang are from the Horn of Africa? Not exactly your stereotypical tabloid image of a Muslim.
Don’t know where the vitriol has come from: my question was not meant to be facetious, I am genuinely interested to read other people’s opinions so let’s keep the snarky asides, er, aside for now, shall we?
As I said, I see huge problems with racial (or any other profiling), but if you’re going to engage in stop and searches you might as well try and narrow it down to the kinds of people who get involved in terrorist violence. Police at football grounds keep their eyes on young men in groups, not dads with their sons, right? So either you accept that this shotgun tactic has something to offer in the way of preventing/solving crime, or you drop it entirely and take a different approach.
If that’s the case, how do you deploy your resources instead?
Well, the problem is that the range of people who can take part in terrorist violence is incredibly wide. From the terrorist’s point of view, the only characteristics the bomber needs are to be physically able to carry the bomb, and to be able to be persuaded or tricked into doing so. That could describe pretty much anyone.
I can’t think of any instance of football hooliganism that’s not involved a medium to large group of young men. I can think of plenty of suicide bombings by Muslims that have involved people who aren’t south aisian males aged 18-40.
But let’s assume that they are the only problem. So we’ve got (to a first approximation) about 400,000 people to search in London. About 5% of the population. There are a lot of bus queues in London. Are we going to search people getting on to the bus in a way that has a significant chance of catching even a single bomber? Somehow I doubt it.
The extra uniforms ought to be intensively investigating every islamophobic attack – which will have the double benefit of helping to stop the backlash acting as another recruiting sergeant for the bombers, and increasing the chance of picking up significant intelligence about the next wave.
Some Met officers are certainly clever enough to be advocating this, but is I. Blair? Time will tell.
Youve been speaking to wrong Brazilians. How many do you know in London and Brazil? Im interested to know. I work with at least 40 every day. I post a comment and you post these kinds of replies. Why are you so dismissive? Maybe i am better to leave your discussion to you "Brits" en? Its simple for me to see you are not open minding enought to see anyone else’s opinion and are rude enough to assume you know what all Brazilians think. Which is half the problems with you Brits anyway. You talk to a couple of ‘ethnics’ and think you know it all.
…I can’t help wondering about the focus on train and tube stations at the expense of buses. If you’re going to engage in stop-and-search, that does seem to indicate a class bias, as it tends to be people on the lower end of the income scale who use buses rather than the tube. But I digress…
What are the chances that the Met (or other ‘security services’) have got a decent infiltration campaign against extremist groups going? They seemed to be able to get their people into every local anarchist get-together in the 90s. Where are the undercover people when you need them? Would it be too much to ask a diligent copper to convert to Islam for Queen and country?
The ability of the terrorists to convince "anyone" to carry their bombs is a bit debatable really, and not an entirely smart point to make. Ditto suggesting that the extra officers should be "intensively investigating every islamophobic attack" .. for a start thats what they do, investigate allegations, and they will do it anyway. Secondly.. everyone and their dogs are claiming they are being attacked for discriminatory reasons in the current climate.. its a bit inflammatory to go along with it.
Alex.. dont be discouraged from posting your comments.. I happen to agree with you. Whilst the bombers that have been pinned down appear to have a distinct profile or can be defined, by whatever means, they should be targeted for searches. At the very least it’ll remove one pool of peoples chances of causing a little bit more havoc.
I find it difficult to understand why people are so hostile to the police carrying out searches.. They do have a job to do, and assuming they dont discover a "magic bomb finding device" in the next few weeks they have to go with what they know for sure. They have a profile, it will adapt with time and further events, but if the shoe fits at the moment, go with it.
1. By the time your suicide bomber’s strapped on the explosives and got near the tube station, it’s all a little late in the day anyway.
2. Any policy will be weighed up in terms of benefits (how likely is it to stop/deter a suicide bombing) versus costs (how much will it piss off members of the public who the police depend on for vital information). Based on what these cops told me the other day, I suspect profiling doesn’t score that well. It’s not about being crossed off the Kumars’ Christmas card list, but about getting the help the cops need to catch suspects.
The ability of the terrorists to convince "anyone" to carry their bombs is a bit debatable really, and not an entirely smart point to make.
That is not AFAIK what Chris meant. Rather, he meant that anyone *looks like* a potential terrorist: if you have no intelligence (which you don’t, if you’re engaged in random stop ‘n’ search) then literally anyone *could* be a terrorist. Obviously, if you know something about their background (but how can you if you just stopped them on the street) then you can rule a lot of people out.
I find it difficult to understand why people are so hostile to the police carrying out searches..
But it’s an utterly *USELESS* thing to be doing. As we have a finite number of police, I’d rather they did something potentially useful: like investigate Islamophobic attacks to win support, or carry out intelligence work etc.
The Google adds are hilarious at the moment…
Nikah Search.com : muslim matrimonial service provider
Anyone looking for a muslim marriage on here?
"But it’s an utterly *USELESS* thing to be doing"
I dont agree… I think it does successfully reassure those members of the public that may not be blessed with such analytical skills to see its practical value…
Also, if I was a bomber who seriously thought that if I killed people while blowing myself up I’d be rewarded, then I would probably be put off by police searches purely because I would be unable to draw reasonable conclusions, change my plans, or think coherently…. Damn now im being inflammatory!
<Anyone looking for a muslim marriage on here?>
Maybe we should get OP fixed up…
I think it does successfully reassure those members of the public that may not be blessed with such analytical skills to see its practical value"
That’s fine in theory, but would you rather the police spend their valuable time reassuring nice people, or spend it investigating and catching nasty people? The chances that someone could offer valuable information after seeing a policeman being nice in public are about as slim as the police coming across a would-be-bomber in a ‘racially-profiled’ stop-n-search.
Alex – then what can I say? I must’ve been speaking to the wrong Brazilians – and, come to think of it, the wrong everybody: on the one hand, none of us have much choice but to rely on the police to catch the right people; on other, beyond this appreciation, I don’t find too much in the way of enthusiasm for the way they’ve handled the shooting. That (from my experience) is across the board, regardless of anyone’s background.
I think you’re overstating your case if you say many out there "think the police were right", and I’d be genuinely (and reasonably) surprised if there was a uniquely higher level of support for the police amongst Brazilians in London than amongst the rest of the population. This isn’t to "dismiss" your opinion, that’s to express my surprise that you hold it.
When the Met is massively overstretched, it certainly shouldn’t be wasting officers’ time on this kind of pointless pissing about. And in the incredibly unlikely instance that the police do target an actual suicide bomber for searching, the result will just be that people will be blown up in the queue rather than on the train.
Meaders – I must have speaking to the wrong everybody too -because i genuinely have not met ANYONE who expresses the views shared here of the police in the shooting incident. Noone at all. I also know a handful of Brazilians who as Alexandre has stated above feel indifferent to the shooting.
Alison – Alex didn’t just say Brazilians in London were "indifferent" to the shooting – though I’m sure some are – he claimed that "most of the Brazilian community here feel the police were right and that it was a sad mistake…"
That’s not "indifference", that’s (passive) support. It’s why I am doubtful of his claim that "most" Brazilians – in contrast to what I’d judge (and it is a subjective judgement, as is yours) to be the reaction of most other Londoners – support the police in shooting unarmed, innocent men on the tube. I’d be astonished if that was the case.