Post-mass culture

He has written widely on media and defense issues. He is author of KAL 007: The Cover-Up—Why the True Story Has Never Been Told,and a forthcoming book on the worldwide Military Command and Control System.     

How Do the Laws of Probability Constrain Legislative and Judicial Efforts to Stop Racial Profiling?

Faced with pending legislation and litigation, numerous jurisdictionshave begun programs to monitor a range of traffic stop outcomes,focusing on variation by race or ethnicity. Existing programs,however, ignore the unequal outcomes that motivate oppositionto racial profiling. Statistical relationships limit the abilityof public policy to equalize the various outcomes, even if officersdo not engage in racial profiling to "any extent or degree."This article demonstrates relationships among five outcomesthat are or should be considered when policy on racial profilingis formulated: search rates, find rates, thoroughness of search,rates of detention of the innocent, and rates of apprehensionof the guilty. Once decisions are made as to how to balancedesires for equality of each of these outcomes, problems remainthat are common to statistical assessments of pattern- or practice-of-discriminationclaims.