A quick note about profiling

In the comments, Locomotive Breath (is he the all-time loser running headlong to his death? Turn to page 1 of your Gideon bible to find out) attempts to make the case that Duke students are the victims of police profiling, and that somehow, their presence in the arrest log in large numbers on charges of public intoxication and other similar crimes is morally equivalent to the presence on death row in Texas of a disproportionate number of African-American males.

Let's bring this strawman out into the open where, in the presence of sufficient oxygen, it can be burned to the ashes it deserves and never be resurrected again. Because it's my blog, and i can.

Let's imagine a hypothetical neighborhood, call it say, Trinity Woods, nestled up against an equally hypothetical mid-sized private university, most of whose students come from other states. We'll call that Earl University.

Now, the residents of Trinity Woods, hard working citizens all, any number of whom are actually employed by Earl University, begin to notice that there's an increasing number of petty crimes in the neighborhood. Lawn furniture is being stolen. Outdoor fixtures are broken. Noise complaints at 3 in the morning. There's beer bottles and empty cups on their lawn, even if they haven't had any parties. pools of vomit on the sidewalk. (And they know that choking on someone else's vomit is a crime for which police technology is inadequate to solve. You can't dust for vomit, you know.)

So they call the police, who respond by stepping up patrols in the neighborhood, and making a few arrests. Lo and behold, most if not all of those arrested are Earl University students. Some of them are even athletic team members. No profiling there.

Now, let's further imagine that a particularly astute community affairs officer of the local police department starts noticing, over the years, that there's a pattern to the locals' complaints. They peak during certain times of the year, and during certain days of the week. And the people that are being arrested for these petty crimes all tend to be students of Earl University. So the community affairs officer starts assigning officers to work the neighborhood during times of the year and on days of the week when complaints are likely to be highest. He keeps records of the addresses of the students arrested, and notices that the same dozen or so addresses turn up over and over again. He shares this information with leaders of the neighborhood and the University. Special attention is paid to the incoming residents at those addresses, who, being undergraduates from other parts of the country with no interest in the local political scene, or in being good neighbors, are unaware of the history of complaints that have been made against the previous residents of their houses, nor of the corresponding arrest records. When they continue the tradition of committing petty crimes against their neighbors, and are subject to arrest for these crimes, they claim they are being discriminated against, singled out, and, gasp, profiled.

Eventually, Earl University decides to bite the bullet, buy these dozen or so properties and take them out of the student rental market, and resell them to prospective homeowners who will agree to never again rent them to Earl University undergraduates.

Nothing in this scenario (which, although simplified, is a pretty accurate narrative of events in the real Trinity Park neighborhood over the past 20 years) comes close to profiling, or demographic discrimination, or any other pathetic claim of victimhood that the Earl University undergraduates might care to make.

So spare us the sophistry. Trying to compare yourselves to real victims of discrimination and injustice, which in many cases is a life and death act, is a bit, well, unseemly. It makes people gag. And try to put that mental energy towards becoming better citizens and neighbors, OK? You might find it has benefits.