Profiling 101

Woody Woodpecker's Work - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman

Not having gone to an Ivy League School like many of my masters, profiling confuses me.  Singling out a particular religious group for its penchant to blow themselves to smithereens in hopes of spending the Here After with 72 virgins is profiling–a very bad thing to do.  But when the IRS places a wary eye on the Tea Party, the process is termed enhanced scrutiny but certainly not profiling.  How do they see matters so clearly?

A year ago an article appeared in FIYE noting the unparalleled success of the NYPD in reducing all types of violent crime.  The results are mainly due to profiling suspicious characters most likely to commit crimes.  The majority of the targeted would-be-perpetrators are Blacks and Hispanics who viciously prey upon their own.  The over whelming beneficiaries of the department’s increased vigilance are Blacks and Hispanics who routinely are murdered, raped, robbed, and assaulted by Black and Hispanic thugs.

Some social activists and progressive attorneys are challenging the New York’s Police Department’s program in court.  They insist New York should be run more like Chicago, a combat zone where carnage is preferable to profiling.  Some bleeding heart judge surely will agree to eviscerate the program and up New York’s body count.  Better to fill the Big Apple’s morgue than concentrate resources to keep the streets safe.

As Mark Steyn recently pointed out, by refusing to profile high risk groups and choosing to treat every citizen as a potential terrorist, the NSA must covertly gather data on every American.  Despite the unlikelihood that the vast majority of Americans harbor terrorist intentions, the NSA's extraordinary encroachment into our personal freedoms are made in hopes of interdicting all acts of terrorism.  Rather than profile a group known to engage in these activities, the government suspects we are all would-be martyrs.  As preposterous and inane as this logic may seem, I have come to understand that without exception everybody should be treated the same.

This epiphany will serve my medical practice well.  If a 70 year old man presents for surgery and complains of cramping and nausea and hasn’t had a period, I’ll order a pregnancy test.  If a 3 year old girl tells me her chest hurts, I’ll order a cardiac work up just like I would with an obese, chain smoking 60 year old man with high blood pressure and diabetes.  Associating Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, or sickle cell disease with a particular ethnic group is racial profiling plain and simple. Big Brother is right.  Profiling is never acceptable, unless, of course, a conservative is the person of interest.        

Sending the NYPD to Afghanistan

Hot Air Balloon in the Cairo Haze - photo by JoAnn Sturman

Scott Sturman
fliesinyoureyes.com

Afghanistan has degenerated into a policing action where the rules and objectives of combat have given way to those of constables and social scientists.  The United States military has been asked to step into the void and stabilize a notoriously corrupt country where the only constancy is instability and the switching of allegiances to gain an advantage over rival clans.  American armed forces have been given the impossible task of making this backward country a forward one, while being constrained by rules of engagement which puts servicemen at great personal risk.  GIs should not be used as policemen in this hapless third world country which has a tradition of making uninvited guests miserable.  America would do better to send the NYPD to Afghanistan in their place and let soldiers be soldiers.

In August 2011 Scientific American published an article “How New York Beat Crime” by Franklin Zimring; it provided some fascinating insights.  In the last two decades New York has seen an 80% fall in homicide, robbery, and burglary -  a drop unprecedented in urban history.  The circumstances surrounding this accomplishment occurred under the following conditions:

“...without changes in racial or ethnic profile and without lowering poverty or unemployment more than other cities. It did so without either winning the war on drugs or participating in the mass incarceration that has taken place throughout the rest of the country.”

“...a hopeful message from New York’s experience is that most crimes are largely a result of circumstances that can be changed without making expensive structural and social changes.  People are not doomed to commit crimes, and communities are not hardwired by their ethnic, genetic, and socioeconomic character to be at risk.”

The extraordinary levels of success sustained over long periods of time were due to a greater level of participation by police at the street level. 

Afghanistan needs policemen more than soldiers, as demonstrated by the success of the recent surge.  Stability and lower crimes rates are based on the number of cops on the beat, whether in Kabul or New York City.  However, at this stage in the  Afghanistan conflict, it is simply not worth the effort, money, or life of one more American soldier.  It is time to rely on efficient, covert intelligence networks and special operations and let this troubled land take charge of its domestic affairs and return to the glorious seventh century when life was simply perfect.  Along the way, if Afghanis want to emulate or hire the NYPD, it’s strictly up to them.