Stereotyping and you

Today's article by Bob Herbert reminded me of something that I've been thinking about for a while. There's a book that's been floating around my house for a while that I have not yet read, but that's been much discussed called something like "Profiles, Probabilities and Stereotypes" by a professor at the Kennedy School here at Harvard named Frederick Schauer. The book explores the increasing habit of courts to treat cases on an individual basis rather than strictly according to the law, and argues against this "particularist" approach.

Of course, particularism can be beneficial - for example, if you don't quite fit what the law was meant for, then an individualized reading can be helpful to your case. The accused always wants to be the exception to the rule, for mitigating circumstance particular to his case to be considered. This is a very PC way to go about laws - that there is something mitigating about the fact that a murderer grew up in a broken home or was beaten as a child. This may be an explanation for his crime, but should probably not be taken into account when charging him with murder and sentencing him accordingly if he's found guilty. At the same time, generalizations can be extraordinarly dangerous - the "young black man" theory is a good example (that white victims of crime are far more likely to claim a young black man as a culprit than a young white one, even when the criminal was actually white). PC opponents of racial profiling and stop-and-search laws are quick to condemn stereotyping and generalizations, saying (rightly) that it criminalizes a large group of otherwise innocent people.

However, the book puts forward a convincing argument that all laws are inherently based on generalizations, and that although some are false or outdated (prohibition, anti-sodomy statutes, etc), there are many that are based in sound statistical calculations. His argument is therefore - when there are real statistics that show, relatively conclusively, that something is a danger, then you're allowed to legislate against it without the risk of racist, sexist or speciesist complaints. (A gross oversimplification until I actually read the whole book).

For example, there are reams of data showing that pit bulls are statistically more likely to be much more violent than other breeds of dogs. Therefore, a law such as the one that attracted much attention recently here in Boston that outlaws pit bulls inside the city limits is justified as protecting the public from an established threat to their dogs and children.

In Bob Herbert's column, Ashcroft's claim that releasing the young refugee would "exacerbate the potential danger to national security of nefarious aliens from Pakistan and elsewhere who might be inclined to use Haiti as a staging area for migration to the U.S." is crazy. There is no evidence for this, and it would mean by extension that allowing refugees in from ANY country would lead terrorists to use that country as a staging area. Ashcroft seems to be assuming some connection between Haitian political refugees and Pakistani terrorists that escapes me - if anyone sees any more connection than a general non-white colour to their skin in most cases, I'd like to know.

The decision to incarcerate this poor kid for two years with no charges and no legal recourse or representation is unfair and unjust, and and he deserves an individual review of his case rather than a blanket, open-ended incarceration with no end in sight. If I was incarcerated for two years right now under those circumstances, I would probably already have either gone crazy or attempted suicide.

The fact that these things are occurring every day in the United States is an excuse for countries like China to merrily accuse all their internal critics and anti-government minority politicians of being "terrorists" and either execute them or lock them up forever with no recourse to legal representation and usually with no formal charges or trial. (And yes, this has already been happening in China since the US started detaining people after Sept. 11th.) If America does it, says the Party, why can't we? So much for setting an example to the rest of the world.

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