Racial Profiling: Should it be Used for Aviation Security?


By Richard Bloom, associate professor of clinical and political psychology and chairman of the security program for the science, technology and globalization degree program
 

Recently, many politicians, activists, media representatives, concerned citizens, and some security experts have attacked the use of racial profiling as a tool to prevent, minimize, and manage security problems. These opponents are often misguided, misinformed, and at times flat-out wrong.

Racial profiling is the identification of racial factors, such as skin color, hair texture, facial structure, physical attire, spoken language, accent, surname, and travel history, which experts and statistics have associated with a specific behavior, such as an act of aviation terrorism.

Once an association is developed, the relevant characteristics are used to predict the possibility of the behavior and become part of an operational procedure. For example, individuals displaying these characteristics in an airport check-in line may be subject to more and/or different screening than others. Rarely, if ever, do racial factors alone comprise a profile.

Opponents of racial profiling attack the practice for several reasons.

Problems of definition

Some say racial factors cannot be useful in confronting aviation terrorism, because race as a valid concept does not exist and is often confused with ethnicity.

Scholars do disagree about what constitutes race, and some even interchange race and ethnicity. However, if a human characteristic can be used to predict a specific behavior, such as aviation terrorism, the difficulty in naming it does not matter.

Problems of value

Some opponents insist the use of racial factors as predictors of behavior is illegal, immoral, or unethical, and that racial profiling is no more than blatant stereotyping.

Even if racial profiling can be used to prevent, minimize, or manage aviation terrorism, strong arguments can be made for and against its legality. This calls for an ongoing dialogue in society.

The ongoing discourse on the morality and ethics of racial profiling ultimately depends on whether one uses criteria of means, ends, or a combination of both. In other words, answers depend on philosophical and religious determinations of whether ends justify means in situations such as aviation terrorism, and whether certain means, such as racial profiling, can never be justified by ends.

Stereotyping denotes the use of membership in a group to make inaccurate judgments about an individual. If racial profiling continues to lead to accurate predictions about incipient aviation terrorism, stereotyping, by definition, is not occurring.

Problems of accuracy

Some claim racial profiling just doesn't work. They maintain that using racial factors offers no accuracy, unacceptable accuracy, or unacceptable errors in predicting aviation terrorism.

It is true that racial profiling is not 100 percent accurate when used to prevent, minimize, and manage aviation terrorism, but neither does it approach zero percent accuracy. Sophisticated opponents and supporters argue over the combinations of true positives, true negatives, false positives, and false negatives that result through the use of a specific racial profile or a number of profiles in aviation terrorism situations.

New methods to assess the accuracy of racial profiles are being developed, but these still cannot handle the complexities of data collected from different profiles and aviation terrorism situations. Meanwhile, what levels of accuracy or failure are acceptable until better evaluation methods are developed? This is a public policy question that depends largely on answers to the problems of value described above.

Problems of implementation

Some opponents assert racial profiling engenders mistreatment and abusive security screening incidents, and that people identified as security risks are inevitably harassed.

At times, racial profiling has engendered abuse, as have other types of profiling. But if problems of value and accuracy are addressed, safeguards can be put in place to minimize abuses. And if opponents can prove empirically that the practice causes an unusual frequency or intensity of mistreatment, safeguards can be improved.

Problems of evaluation

Some complain no ongoing system is in place to track the success and failure of racial profiling, and that feedback is nonexistent, inaccurate, or untimely. Even if racial profiling starts out as accurate, they say, it soon drifts into huge error and actually ensures the growth of aviation terrorism.

Many profiling systems, including those using racial factors, have neglected the collection of ongoing feedback and subsequent modifications. Assuming adequate answers have been developed for problems of value, accuracy, and implementation, one can correct this shortfall through the myriad of methodologies developed by social scientists.

Opponents draw our attention to several important concerns about racial profiling. But when these problems are addressed according to society's values and scientific accuracy, racial profiling is an appropriate tool in the fight against aviation terrorism.

Yet why has racial profiling generated so much furor? One answer lies in the ongoing ugliness of racial politics in the United States and other countries. Another is the all-too-frequent incompetent and corrupt use of racial profiling. Both have led to a full-court press on a tool that can be effective in preventing and adjudicating aviation terrorism and security problems. Aviation leaders must resist this offensive, remain sensitive to legitimate concerns, and contribute to the safety of us all.

For more information on racial profiling and other security topics, access the International Bulletin of Political Psychology (IBPP), a weekly international journal, at http://security.pr.erau.edu.

For information on Embry-Riddle's science, technology and globalization degree program, access http://www.erau.edu/0Universe/01/01b-sctechglob.html.

The views expressed in "Perspectives" are those of the writer and not necessarily Embry-Riddle's.