January 23, 2005 to January 28, 2005
Is Ethnic and other Profiling Discrimination?
Is Ethnic and other Profiling Discrimination? BECKER
The value of using group membership in judging unobserved characteristics is uncontroversial most of the time, and so is hardly noticed. For example, automobile insurance companies consider young unmarried males as a relevant group in determining driver insurance premiums because they tend to have more car accidents than older males or young women. These higher insurance rates also help cut down the number of auto accidents by reducing driving by accident-prone young males. Yet given that group membership is almost always an imperfect predictor of unobserved characteristics, some individuals will be treated much worse (or better) than their true characteristics justifies. In the driving case, young unmarried males who are careful and responsible drivers will pay more for insurance than they would in a world with better information. They might be discouraged from driving because they suffer from the bad driving of other young unmarried males.
Still, limited information about individuals means that group identities is often useful in gaining information about them. However, the use of religious, racial, or ethnic characteristics for national security protection and in fighting crime has been a political hot potato, and has led to accusations of discrimination on the basis of race and other characteristics. For the use of group identities in order to treat different groups differently may be the result of a desire to discriminate against various minority groups instead of a desire to act effectively to prevent some undesirable actions.
On top of the current agenda is the effort by organizations fighting terrorism to treat Muslim with greater suspicion. Is it justified to single out young Moslem males from the Middle East for much more careful searches at airports, or for tougher requirements to gain tourist visas and green cards? Or are employees at stores that are trying to prevent theft of their goods justified in watching minority customers more carefully than they watch others? Macy's was recently fined for allegedly watching blacks and Hispanics more carefully, although the company denies that such profiling of customers is their policy.
Efficient actions would say minimize the amount of terrorist activities in the US, given a limited amount to be spent on preventing terrorism, or would minimize store theft, given a budget for security personnel. Then security checks at airports would try to both catch terrorists before they board a plane, and to discourage future airport terrorism by raising the chances that they are caught at the airport. Similarly, store security both tries to apprehend thieves, and to discourage future store theft.
If young Moslem Middle Eastern males were in fact much more likely to commit terrorism against U.S. than were other groups, putting them through tighter security clearance would reduce current airport terrorism. Whether such religious and ethnic profiling furthers the second goal, of deterring future terrorism, depends on the degree of responsiveness of different potential terrorists to a greater likelihood of being caught. If the degree of response by different groups were proportional to their average propensity to engage in terrorism, then checking young Moslem Middle Eastern males more carefully would also help deter future terrorism at airports.
On the other hand, profiling by average propensities might be inefficient if the marginal propensity to reduce terrorism with more careful checks were smaller for groups like Moslems that might have higher average propensities. That could well be true if these groups were more fanatical and less easily deterred by the prospects of being caught. Then the "deterrent" effect on future terrorism would be opposite to and might be stronger than the "apprehension" effect on current terrorism.
The deterrent effect is less likely to dominate the apprehension effect when the difference in average behavior is greater. This is why it is efficient to profile young male Middle Eastern Moslems for terrorist attacks at airports, and perhaps it is efficient also to watch minority shoppers more carefully at stores. To be sure, such profiling is "unfair" to the many young male Moslems who are not terrorists, and to the many minority shoppers who are honest. That could be made up in part by compensating groups who are forced to go through more careful airport screening through putting them in shorter security lines, or in other ways. Similarly, innocent shoppers who are stopped and searched could be compensated for their embarrassment and time.
To be sure, some profiling by governments and the private sector has been due to prejudice against various groups, not as a way of achieving efficiency. So it is crucial to be able to distinguish whether a profiling is efficient from whether it is evidence of discrimination. This distinction can be made in the terrorist field (similar considerations apply to fighting crime) by keeping records on the fractions of young Moslem males and others who were searched and found with weapons or other evidence of intent to commit a terrorist act. If the fraction were much greater among Moslems searched than among others, this would at least be consistent with an emphasis on efficiency rather than discrimination.
A further test would be to determine what happens to apprehension rates as the amount spent on airport security increased or decreased. The profiling policy would again be consistent with efficiency if greater spending on airport security reduced the apprehension rates of young male Moslems who were searched about as much as the apprehension rates of others.
So it is possible to provide analytical criteria and guidelines to determine when particular types of profiling are explained by efficiency considerations rather than discrimination. By using these guidelines to analyze data on apprehension rates, one can determine in an objective manner whether discrimination rather than efficiency is responsible for different treatment of members of ethnic, religious, or racial groups.
Comment on Profiling--Posner
At one level, "profiling" is unexceptionable. If witnesses report a theft by a young black male, it would be absurd for the police to look for suspects among other groups in the population. Profiling becomes interesting only when the differential probability of "guilt" is much smaller. Even then, it is unproblematic, as Becker notes, when the disfavored group is not a sensitive minority. No one objects when smokers are charged a higher price for life insurance than nonsmokers, even though many smokers outlive many nonsmokers. Even when the condition that puts one in the disfavored class is involuntary, such as having a family history of cancer or heart disease, "discrimination" on this basis (what economists call "statistical discrimination") is generally considered permissible because it is not exploitive or based on hostility or contempt and it does promote a more efficient allocation of resources.
Profiling based on race, sex, or national origin, however, is intensely controversial. It is helpful in discussing it to make two distinctions: between ordinary crimes and Islamist terrorism (e.g., al Qaeda), and in the terrorist case between profiling U.S. citizens and profiling foreigners. I will be discussing these issues purely as issues of policy rather than of law.
In the case of ordinary crimes, where for example profiling might take the form of disproportionately frequent searches of vehicles driven by Hispanics because Hispanics are disproportionately represented in illegal drug trafficking, I would expect profiling to have little effect on the crime rate. The reason is the positive elasticity of supply of persons who commit victimless crimes, which is to say crimes resulting from the outlawing of products or services for which there is a demand. If one class of suppliers is driven out of business, this makes room for others. Given the fixed budget for law enforcement assumed by Becker, the increased apprehension of Hispanic drug couriers would be offset by a reduced risk to non-Hispanics of being apprehended for transporting drugs, and so the non-Hispanics would flock to replace the Hispanics as couriers. The ethnic composition of the illegal work force would be altered by profiling, but the crime rate would be affected only to the extent that Hispanics are more efficient drug couriers because of language and other ties to major drug supply countries; the net effect on the crime rate would probably be small.
In the case of terrorism, a similar replacement effect can be anticipated, although it would probably be smaller. Assume a fixed budget for screening airline passengers and a reallocation of funds within the budget limit to enable more young male airline passengers who appear to be Muslim (or of Middle Eastern origin, but for simplicity I'll assume that Muslim-appearing is the screening criterion) to be subjected to intensive screening, as distinguished from the limited screening to which all passengers are subjected. Then fewer passengers who do not fit the profile will be screened (this is implied by the fixed budget), which will induce terrorist groups to make greater use of female Muslims (as happened in suicide attacks in Israel), older Muslims, and young Muslims who do not appear to be Muslim, for members of these groups will now be less likely to be apprehended than before the adoption of profiling. The elasticity of supply of terrorists is probably not as great as that of drug couriers, but it is positive and will reduce the effect of profiling. A parallel analysis recommends against concentrating too many of our antiterrorist resources on the protection of New York and Washington, since terrorists can substitute other targets.
The benefits of airline passenger profiling are thus likely to be modest, and the costs may be great in the case of Muslims who are U.S. citizens. Being singled out on the basis of race, religion, or ethnic origin is intensely resented by the people who are discriminated against and could undermine their loyalty to the United States if they have strong ethnic and religious ties with the nation's enemies. A paramount goal of U.S. antiterrorist policy should be to prevent the disaffection of U.S. citizens of the Muslim faith and Middle Eastern ethnicity. That goal would be undermined by profiling. I do not think compensating them financially for the additional inconvenience would rectify the problem; indeed, it would underscore their differentness from their fellow citizens. (This is also an argument against reparations for blacks and American Indians.)
The argument for the efficiency of profiling is further undermined by relaxing Becker's assumption of a fixed security budget. By increasing the budget for airline security, it would become possible to screen everybody carefully. I suspect that the optimal policy is to subject more U.S. citizens of apparent Middle Eastern origin or Muslim religious identity to intensive screening than other citizens, but to subject enough of the other citizens to the same intensive screening so that the (lightly) profiled group does not feel markedly discriminated against--and so that substitution of terrorists who do not fit the profile is held in check.
My view with regard to profiling noncitizens is different. Noncitizens are not expected to be loyal to the United States and so the concern with alienating them by profiling is less acute. No foreigner expects to be treated identically to a citizen.
Reply on Profiling-BECKER
Let me reply briefly to the main comments. One theme in the negative comments is that if one profiles terrorists, or groups believed to be more likely to commit other crimes, the terrorists or criminals simply change whom they use, or new criminals replace those who are profiled. Sometimes that does defeat profiling, but not usually. Terrorists cannot change that easily whom they use since the supply of types willing to give up their lives to kill Americans or others is highly limited. Similarly, the supply of criminals typically has a limited elasticity of response. These considerations explain why the police "profile" ex-convicts, young people congregating at various suspicious locations, and in other ways. Are the critics saying the police should not be doing this? I doubt if they would carry that position through consistently.
Yes, we can spend more on various types of deterrence, but do we really want to search elderly women at airports as much as young men of Middle Eastern origin? (Let me add that my wife and her brothers are of such origin, and accept that they do get profiled.)
I recognize that being singled out for extra attention can be embarrassing. I suggested compensation for that. Someone mentioned that Steve Landsburg has also suggested compensation-good for Steve! Such compensation may not be sufficient to offset fully the damage from being singled out, but along with courteous and respectful treatment, it can go a good ways toward reducing the distastefulness of the process.
One last point. I work weekends in my university office when the doors are locked and few persons are in the building. I "profile" in judging whether to call the campus police by whether I believe a person belongs in the building- in fact I have called the police on more than one occasion. Do the critics of profiling suggest that instead of such profiling I call the police every time I see someone in the building-that is the purest example of no profiling- or every time I see someone in the building that I do not recognize, or when I judge they do not belong in the building, even though my judgment may depend on age, race, or other group characteristics?
This is not only costly, but borders on the absurd. I believe that the commentators who claim to oppose profiling do in fact profile in this and thousands of other situations. I do not know if this is true, but the media reported a few years ago that Jesse Jackson profiled when he heard someone walking behind him, and turned around to determine what group they belonged to!
Response to Comments on Profiling--Posner
There were as usual many interesting comments, not all of which I can reply to. (Among critics of my position, I particularly commend the thoughtful comment posted by Anonymous on January 24.) I was however startled by the large number of comments that compare profiling to affirmative action and ask that commenters who oppose profiling as demeaning, alienating, and so forth take an equal stand against affirmative action. Although I have serious reservations about many forms of affirmative action, and although there is indeed a conceptual parallel between it and profiling, since in both cases a single criterion, such as ethnicity, is used as the basis for imposing benefits and burdens respectively, the symmetry is incomplete. The reason is simply that most beneficiaries of affirmative action are happy to have the benefits! Most people take for granted whatever advantages they have, however adventitious and undeserved. What is more adventitious than having wealthy parents? And yet how many rich kids are bitter because they have been singled out for benefits unrelated to their merit?
My argument against racial reparations, and likewise compensation for victims of profiling, is not that the beneficiaries will lose self-esteem or otherwise be immiserated by being benefited, but that using ethnic or racial or other such criteria for benefits treats the benefited group as being importantly different from the rest of the community. I would think it healthy for Americans to become less conscious of their differences, whether the differences are based on race, sex, national origin, ethnicity, politics, or sexual orientation, and think of themselves, rather, as being "just Americans." That would certainly help in presenting a united front against the threat, which is real and probably growing, of international terrorism. It is particularly important that Arab-Americans and other Americans of Middle Eastern origins or Muslim religion feel fully American. At the risk of seeming an alarmist (a "McCarthyite," some might call me), I believe that there are almost certainly al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States, and it is extremely important that they not receive any assistance, financial or otherwise, or protection, active or passive, from the Muslim community. Cementing the community's loyalty to the United States is a vital national project, and this has to affect the amount of profiling that is in the national interest.
I do not agree with the comment that, in defense of remedial affirmative action, describes profiling as a product of "entrenched bias." When profiling is based on a relevant characteristic, such as a known greater propensity to engage in some antisocial behavior, it need have no connection whatsoever with bias, entrenched or otherwise.
A comment I strongly disagree with is that profiling airline passengers is unsound because no terrorist has ever been intercepted as the result of profiling. First, we don't know whether this is accurate; people are occasionally stopped from boarding a plane because of a secondary search prompted by their profile, and some of these people may be terrorists though they cannot be proved to be. Second and more important, knowing that there is profiling may discourage some terrorists from attempting to board an aircraft, since if they are arrested their career as terrorists may be terminated before they can do any harm.