Showing papers by "Nelson Lund published in 2002"

The Conservative Case against Racial Profiling in the War on Terrorism

Abstract: I. INTRODUCTION Although it now seems like something from the distant past, racial profiling was a hot political issue in 2001. The crime known as DWB, or driving while black, had emerged from the shadows of casual conversation and had become the subject of fairly intense public controversy. That controversy, however, was almost entirely concerned with questions about facts and remedies, not about principles. We had what appeared to be a clear national consensus that it was completely improper for the police to use racial stereotypes when selecting individuals for stops or searches--even if it might be true that members of certain racial groups are more likely than other groups to be guilty of specific criminal behavior. (1) The controversy was mostly focused on whether the police were in fact commonly using such stereotypes, especially when choosing which motorists to pull over for traffic violations that are so common that the police necessarily ignore them most of the time. Generally speaking, conservatives were probably more skeptical about claims that racial profiling was actually very common, (2) while liberals were more willing to believe that it was a serious problem. (3) But almost nobody argued that the police should be allowed to engage in this practice. (4) Then came 9/11. All of the hijackers who carried out the attacks that day were Arab men, (5) and commentators began saying that racial profiling is an appropriate tool for the war on terrorism. And the public seems to agree. Polls have shown strong majorities in favor of subjecting those of Arab descent to extra scrutiny at airports. (6) Interestingly, blacks and Arab-Americans were even more likely than whites to favor such policies. (7) By now, most of us have had the opportunity to see little old ladies stopped for humiliating random searches at the boarding gates in the airports, while far more dangerous looking men have walked down the jetways without so much as a second look from the security screeners. Conservatives, in particular, have skewered the government for persisting with these apparently silly, and quite possibly very dangerous, policies. (8) This is consistent with the general tendencies of conservatives to be more supportive than liberals of aggressive law enforcement techniques and to be less likely to believe that police officers are prone to racist behavior. (9) Political correctness, obsessive pandering to racial sensitivities, bureaucratic mindlessness--whatever the diagnosis, the cure is taken to be obvious: Stop the silliness, we're told, and get serious about protecting us from another attack, which we can be quite sure will not be carried out by septuagenarian Norwegian-American women. In my opinion, this new enthusiasm for racial profiling is misguided. My argument has three main points. First, racial profiling or racial stereotyping is something that all of us do all the time. There are good reasons why we do it, and there are also good reasons why we need to make an effort not to do too much of it. Second, free societies--and especially free markets--foster profound forces that tend to curb irrational racial stereotyping. These mechanisms certainly do not work perfectly, but they do work. Third, governments are highly prone to excessive racial stereotyping and are largely immune from the forces that keep this practice in check in the private sector. For that reason, government policies that entail racial profiling should be treated with the greatest skepticism. Not only do they threaten the legitimate interests of various racial groups, but they tend to distract government agencies from alternative policies that are likely to work at least as well. Certainly, we should not pander to left-wing racial mau-mauing if doing so will leave us vulnerable to another catastrophe like 9/11. But by the same token, let's also avoid pandering to dysfunctional bureaucratic imperatives that have their own potential for disaster. …