Geek profiling for 'school safety': Real goal is enforced conformity

by Jon Katz
First Amendment Scholar

12.3.99

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Journalism continues to doze through one of the most pressing civic issues of American life: Should school-kids be evaluated, hunted down and labeled in the same way that presidential assassins and international terrorists are?

Do the young have any rights of free speech? Any right to due process? Are children all over the United States being labeled and punished because they are dangerous, or because they are different?

Should federal law enforcement agencies be invited into America's schools to distribute secret computer software programs and other questionnaires and profiles ("geek profiling," I've called it) in place of procedures that rely on administrators and teachers?

This issue might seem like a big, even urgent social issue for the news to explore. But it isn't. It's not covered even fractionally as much as the president's sex life was, even though it goes directly to the most basic American ideas about freedom, individuality, the power of government authority, and constitutional protection for all.

Profile of a profile

Do you have above-average intelligence? Are you sometimes a loner, a part of a small circle of friends perceived as outsiders?

Do you have "unstable" self-esteem? Are you fascinated by cults, weapons, games with themes of violence and death? Spend a lot of time on the Net?

Do you come from a dysfunctional home? Resent authority? Reject criticism?

If the answer to most or all of the above is yes, then congratulations and welcome to the FBI's Dangerous Behavior Profile, its checklist of dangerous or potentially violent characteristics in schoolchildren.

In recent weeks this psychological "tool," polished by the FBI and other agencies and now being distributed to a school near you, has been creeping across the country.

Federal and local law enforcement authorities have used this sort of profiling for years to spot potential assassins, criminals and terrorists.

Now, after a small number of horrific school shootings, it's being made available to educators in the United States and, according to a number of northern e-mailers, Canada as well.

And it's not alone out there. Last month, the federal government announced that Mosaic-2000, a computer profiling system developed by the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division and a private celebrity-security agency, was being deployed to 30 or more U.S. schools to "target potentially dangerous people."

Neither federal nor school officials have said how this material will be stored, or to whom it might be made available. Nor is it clear whether students will be made aware of the fact that they are being labeled potential murderers, or whether they and their parents will have any opportunity to respond.

The subtext: Squelch rebellion

Such geek-profiling tools are increasingly popular despite the fact that the violent-crime rate among kids in America has been plunging for years and is virtually nonexistent in Canada.

This doesn't seem to bother educators much, perhaps because even if there isn't much violence to contain, geek profiling is proving an invaluable tool against rebellious, offensive, individualistic and outspoken students. Many participate in Net and Web culture, where they have vastly more freedom and creative experience than in schools. And they report that the goal of this war on the non-normal isn't safety, but conformity and silence.

But why be deterred by truth or logic? Since the Columbine shootings in Colorado last year, students at American schools have reported an epidemic of suspensions, expulsions and forced counseling sessions for various offenses: wearing "inappropriate" clothing like trench coats or Goth makeup, playing computer games like "Quake" and "Doom," spending too much time online, responding honestly to questions about whether they like school, making what administrators consider threats against classmates or teachers.

This week, more than a dozen principals, administrators and geeks e-mailed me a chunk of the FBI report circulating through U.S. and Canadian schools, purporting to detail some of the characteristics of "potentially violent" kids.

"Your term 'geek profiling' is dead on," wrote one principal. "The kids we are all beginning to look at are those that play violent video games, who are on the Internet all the time, and who don't participate in 'mainstream' school activities. Or who are seriously disenchanted with school or the structure of school. Of course, now, we can just label them as psychos rather than listen to what they say. But I can tell you, kids who spent a lot of time on the Net or playing computer games are prime suspects for evaluation and observation. Because we all know what they can get their hands on."

Here are the specific FBI characteristics, according to several principals. Potentially violent or dangerous students are:

• Usually boys of average or above-average intelligence.

• Often loners, or have small circle of friend who are outsiders.

• Experience unstable self-esteem.

• Often fascinated by cults, Satanism, weapons, themes of violence and death.

• Experience a decline in schoolwork and marks.

• Come from dysfunctional homes.

• Suffer or practice chronic bullying and drug use.

• Engage in attention-seeking behavior, don't accept criticism.

In addition to the e-mail sent by disturbed principals and guidance counselors ("there's a fine line between bright and unhappy adolescents and mass-murderers," e-mailed one counselor. "I don't see it spelled out in this FBI profile."), the FBI's geek profile was outlined to a Halifax, Nova Scotia newspaper by an official of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Individuals need not apply

The FBI's checklist is as revealing for what it doesn't say as for what it does. There seems to be a de-emphasis of the danger of bullies and predators who prey on kids who are different or "non-normal." Nor is anything said about teachers and educators who preside over uncreative, hostile and, to many kids, suffocating classroom environments.

No group of students, parents or citizens anywhere in the United States had been given an opportunity to vote — or even comment — on the practice of injecting federal law enforcement investigative tools, designed for responding to the most serious imaginable crimes committed by adults, into daily classroom life.

Kids who call themselves geeks and nerds vary widely in social skills, emotional characteristics and family and class background. But many have experienced differing degrees of boredom, alienation, and experiences with bullying. They may like forms of gaming that might be branded violent. Many are often seen as loners, or rely on small circles of friends who share their culture.

Now they may have to deal with the suggestion that they're potential killers as well.

It's possible — though statistically just barely — that some of these kids will turn violent and hurt themselves or their classmates. It's also possible they are being widely persecuted as potentially violent when their real crime is that they are different.

The people who incorporated notions of individual liberty into the American political system went to extraordinary lengths to protect the right of the individual citizen to be different. It's hard to believe they would be anything but horrified at the idea than an entire generation of Americans has no such rights because its members happen to be younger than the people who pass laws.

What is certain is that in the wake of the Columbine killings, many younger Americans are the targets of ignorant and unfounded hysteria from the very people who are supposed to be protecting them, with the willing co-operation of those who are supposed to be educating them.

As for the press, the unofficial branch of government whose mission is supposed to be keeping the power of the official branches under watchful eye, it is nowhere in sight.

Jon Katz can be e-mailed at jonkatz@slashdot.org.