Rational Profiling
by Marion Edwyn Harrison

Many organizations and individuals, with varied (and sometimes highly questionable) motives, vociferously oppose any measure of profiling in law enforcement and in defense against terror.

The rather legendary, and quotable, bank robber, Willie Sutton, when asked why he repeatedly robbed banks, supposedly answered: "Because that's where the money is!"

Why for years have many metropolitan police profiled neighborhoods to intercept, and make arrests for, such crimes as peddling of narcotics, pickpocketing, prostitution (just alliteratively to name three)? For the obvious application of Willie Sutton-type logic: Because that's where the crimes are.

Those who criticize such selective law enforcement almost inevitably charge racial or ethnic bias. In so doing, they blissfully or maliciously, as the case may be, overlook the realities, among the more obvious, that police cannot be ubiquitous - nor would we want them to be, that police must concentrate upon protecting citizens where criminals are, that there are very real budgetary limitations as to the size of police forces.

Amid the plethora of airline-passenger complaints about delay and inconvenience upon passing through security at terminals, too many passengers bemoan, criticize, gripe inconsistently. On the one hand, they do not want profiling because that is politically incorrect; on the other hand, they fit no suspicious profile so they object to the delay and inconvenience of somewhat broadly applied security checks upon passengers.

Police in many large urban areas know the neighborhoods in which crime is most prevalent. How much we know about the newer crime of terrorism remains to be seen. Some history may be more than coincidence.

What do all the criminals in the following episodes have in common?

Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968. Athletes were kidnapped and massacred at the Olympics in Munich in 1972. The American Embassy in Teheran was seized in 1979. In the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon. In 1983 the United States Marine Barracks in Beirut was blown up. In 1985 the liner ACHILLE LAURO was hijacked and an American passenger and his wheelchair were thrown into the sea to drown. In 1985 TWA Flight # 847 was hijacked in Athens and a United States Navy diver attempting to rescue passengers was murdered. In 1988 Pan American Flight # 103 was bombed. In 1993 the World Trade Center in Manhattan was bombed. In 1998 the American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salam were bombed. In 2001 four airliners were hijacked, two used as missiles to destroy the World Trade Center, one used to crash into the Pentagon, one diverted from its mission (perhaps to blow up the Capitol) by passengers - the infamous Day "9/11." In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered.

What is the profile of each terrorist upon these eleven occasions? Answer: Muslim men, mostly in their late teens, twenties and thirties.

These tragic historical examples obviously do not implicate all, or even most, such men. However, elementary reasoning compels the conclusion that a necessary means to reduce terrorism is to profile, just as local police have proven time and again the efficacy of neighborhood profiling.

The wisdom of Willie Sutton: Where are you when we need you in a worthy cause?

Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq. is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.

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