Valid Bias?

Ummah Pulse:

74% of Muslims in Britain are Asian and a report by the Metropolitan Police Authority in London titled Counter Terrorism: The London Debate reveals that a disproportionate number of Asian men are stopped and searched, particularly on London's underground.

As a percentage of London's total population, Asians constitute 12% and Muslims, of all nationalities, constitute 8.5%. If there was no bias against Asians then we would see only around 12% of those being stopped being Asian but instead the figures are between 16% and 21%.

Two questions:

1. Is this shocking?
2. Should people be stopped and checked randomly?

Comments

[slickdpdx]

They would be foolish not to consider ethnicity as a factor and age as another factor (among others, carrying a bag, concealing a bag) since there are significant correlations with the bombers. They would also be foolish not to search generally randomly as it acts a deterrent and the extremists are not defined by ethnicity but by ideology and can be of diffeent ethnicities. I would use a weighted algiorythmn to make 'random' searches and I would supplement that with searches based on reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct or peculiar behaviors that are associated with bombings/bombers.

[slickdpdx]

I don't think there is anything wrong with being sensitive to the inconvenience you are causing and trying to minimize perceptions of unfairness or spread around the inconvenience. A good law-enforcement effort depends on Muslim residents who are not ill-disposed toward the government.