Police profiling has some merit

I'm looking forward to it. "Police profiling is simple, for now, however tomorrow, say 10-20 years, what will it be like? It would reflect the government's veiws! " Sure, and pigs COULD fly in 10-20 years too, hypothetically. Damn near anything could happen, however, if there is no substantial reason other than speculation and wild vagaries, you are going to have to give persuasive reasons why it would reflect the government views. Moreover, the government is a conglomerate comprised of many different people with varying opinions. The "government," though it acts as a single entity for purposes of cohesion, it does not mean that people are not entitled to their private opinions just like any other citizen. As a microcosm of society, governments also act on behalf of its constituents. In fact, it is its sole purpose as per the Constitution. It seems to me, then, that if you are going to make speculations, in the very least, there has to be some factor or reason that would substantiate the possibility. Otherwise, we could just as easily say that profiling will only get more sophisticated with time and work out its kinks. "what if the trouble is not that some ethnicity is causing troubles, but instead a radical Jewish group blows up the Statue of Liberty" What if there are no police men in 20 years? What if in 20 years, police officers will be cyborgs that turn on their human masters and we have fight a war with robots? I mean, this is useless speculation. You are going to have to present compelling reasons why I should assume your assertion is realistic and plausible. Possible is very, very different from plausible, and plausible is very different from probable. "What if we had an african american policeman? would he not, today at least, go lenient on the very people his Chief ordered him to profile? " Then he has no idea what profiling is for. Profiling is specific to psychology, not skin tone. When looking for serial killers, certain psycholigical composites are drawn up by looking at a specific demographic that have been shown to historically and statistically be prone to such crimes. Besides, it is simply a tool. Think of it this way: Have you ever seen the movie, "Seven," with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman? There was a scene where Freeman's character employs the help of an FBI agent. In order to help narrow down the list of possible suspects, Freeman requests information in library searches. He is looking for people who are reading a lot about the Seven Deadly Sins. Why? Because someone who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time reading about such topics will invariably lead you to probable suspects. And when Freeman is explaining this to Pitt, he mentions that you cannot prosecute using this information because its subjective. And that's true. However, monitoring reading habits is a great way to lead you to people fascinated with certain crimes. Furthermore, people profile all the time whether they are aware of it or not. If you know someone who seems obsessed with a certain type of sport, and notice memorabilia all over their home, speak about it incessantly, etc, chances are you have a sports fan on your hand. Why not utilize this natural human instinct to catch criminals? If you have a BTK copycat killer in your city, and you just so happen to stumble upon information about a guy obsessed with this murderer, aren't you going to follow that lead? Sure, its not something you can prosecute with, but it IS a useful guide that could reasonably lead you to hard evidence. For these FEW reasons, and so many more, I say that profiling a legitimate discipline that can lead to justice. So why must people speak so disparagingly about it? Perhaps it is just ignorance. If so, I hope this debate will shed some positive light on the subject.