Take the FBI's Geek Profile Test

Thanks to the miracle of e-mail and a few administrators outraged at the latest law enforcement intrusion into American schools, we present below the FBI's Geek Profile, the agency's secret checklist of potentially violent characteristics being distributed to educational institutions in the United States and Canada. I'm turning myself in.

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?

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 Geek Profile, its checklist of dangerous or potentially violent characteristics in school children.

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, following 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 (AFT) 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.

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 non-existent 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 who report 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 trenchcoats or Goth make up, 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. Have experience with chronic bullying and drug use. Engage in attention-seeking behavior, and 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 it in this FBI profile.") the FBI's "geek profile" was outlined to a Halifax, Nova Scotia newspaper (http://www.hfxnews.southam.ca/NatStory3.html) by an official of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The FBI's checklist is as revealing for what it doesn't say as for what it does. Bullies and predators who prey on kids who are different or "non-normal" aren't considered dangerous, nor are 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.

But what's certain is that in the wake of the Columbine killings, they 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.

Comments

Mosaic up North

[DanaL]

I heard in the news a week or two ago that Mosaic 2000 is being presented to some school officials in Canada (in the Toronto area IIRC).

I'll be interested to see what is done with the results from these profiles, once someone is labeled a pontential killer, I wonder what they will do with them. Force them to become jocks?

Incidently, there has been a few incidents of school violence up here recently. One shooting incident in Canada that made the national headline. A little while after Columbine, a kid in Alberta shot 2 of his classmates. More recently, in TO, there have been a couple of kids beaten (one to death). Another gang-beating in BC last year and 1 kid stabbed over a box of Pokemon cards a month or so ago in Montreal. That's about half a dozen deaths, probably way less than the number killed in car accidents. Haven't seen any Bad Driver profiling being proposed!

Dana

Well, that's me.

[Amphigory]

I was fascinated with cults and the occult. I was beaten at home. My family was highly disfunctional and I still, ten years later, seek counseling. I was a geek, a nerd. Whatever. I was bullied at school.

And I was dangerous. That's right: I spent most of my high school years with a tenuous grasp of "killing people is just wrong" being the only thing that kept me from blowing the join up. I knew how. I had explosives. I had no reason to love anyone. All I had was a vague realization that there was a supreme morality and if I 'killed them all' as I wanted to I would have just reduced myself to their level.

The problem is not the profiling: that's normal prudence. I desperately wish that someone had realized just how dark my world was and tried to help. I wish they would have locked me up in a mental institution and some of what was going on in my home would have come out. But it didn't. And I still pay the price in emotional anguish. I wish there had been a chaplain in my high school instead of a "guidance counselor". I wish someone had loved me enough to intervene.

But no one did.

Bottom line is that I have no problem with this "profiling" you whine about Jon. But I wish they would concentrate more on what to do with the kids once they find them. It comes down to love. And no one in our society is ready to make that kind of commitment.

What's on the net...

[rde]

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.
Yeah, there's some nasty stuff out there. Anyone with a web connection can have their mind polluted by such pernicious crap as...

Thoreau's Walden

The complete works of Shakespeare

Pretty much all of the surviving philosophical writings of the ancient Greeks

Government legislation, bills being prepared, what congress has to say every day...
I could go on all day, but I'm sure you get the point.

and me and me and me

[rodentia]

I'll wager a significant proportion of slashdotterii fit this profile. I know I do and committed my share of violent, primarily self-destructive acts. But the key here is that the profile is being used to identify potential violent offenders, the better to react swiftly with the full force of the law as necessary. It would be naieve to imagine that the FBI, BCA, or ATF are profiling individuals for some "love."

I was a principal suspect in a pretty serious local crime based on the heresay of a "concerned" law enforcement official. The BCA interviewed my parents and girlfriend while I was in school. The up-shot: come home from school to find myself homeless, my girlfriend no longer permitted contact with me. They apprehended the responsible party a few weeks later, but I didn't get the girl back and an already tenuous relationship with my parents deteriorated further. I won't bore you with the details of the black decade which followed, suffice to say there is a big hole where my twenties should have been thanks to the intervention of "concerned" adults.

The Profile Fits!

[A Big Gnu Thrush]

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

Well, the profile fits Katz at least. It might not catch potential murderers, but it may help us find and contain future "journalists".

I support Katz profiling!

Giving a Damn

[goliard]

They need to be shown that somebody who can do something gives a damn.

Actually, it's sufficient to be shown that anybody gives a damn - even if they can't do anything about it.

Of course, it's nicer if they can rescue you from your misery. But we geeks are made of stern stuff. We can tough out anything, so long as we have corroborating evidence of our premises: just one other person saying "You are worth fighting for" is all it takes to make a difference.

(And may this stand as an indictment: that there are clearly young men who have never once heard that message.)

Here is the one needful thing; if you find yourself in a situation with such an anguished young person, this is what you can say:

"What has been done to you is wrong. What is being done to you is wrong. It is wrong for anyone to hit you. It is wrong for you to have to live in fear of physical violence. It is wrong for you to feel hatred for yourself, and it is wrong for people to try to make you hate yourself. You are not crazy for being in pain. You do not deserve to be treated like this."

Those are the words no one ever says.
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Scientific approach...

[Seth Scali]

I'm not disagreeing with your main point, Jon-- the geek profiling is bullshit. I don't think administrators are out to get us geeks, but I think that severely misguided principals will wind up inadvertently fucking up a lot of kids this way.

But let's see why the profile fits so well with most geeks:

Klebold and Harris were both computer whiz-kids that also excelled in math and foreign languages (hence all the emphasis on speaking German). The "Trenchcoat Mafia" was nothing more than a group of unpopular kids that would hang out together. Klebold and Harris spoke frequently of guns, death, violence, etc. The two were very much anti-authority. I don't know about family life... But they fit the profile pretty well.

Kip Kinkle was very much involved in guns. He also was an honor student, and unpopular (jokingly said to have been voted "most likely to start world war three"). He had a lot of resentment for authority, though he voiced his anger and outrage to those closest to him. He fit the profile pretty well.

How about the Jonesboro shooters? A little more difficult-- these kids were 11 and 13. But they were both fascinated with guns and death. They both did well enough in school. And they were described as kids that nobody really even paid attention to-- nothing remarkable, but they certainly weren't popular. They don't fit perfectly, but they do hit some of the points on the FBI profile.

Or how about Matt Myers? Killed Chris Eggleston in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Fascinated with murder and death. Trouble with the law. Nasty custody battle, wound up living with his grandparents. Part of a group of social outsiders known as the "Vampires". Fucking scary bright. He fits the profile perfectly.

Taking a purely scientific view of the above data, we see the following:

*The data presented is hardly enough to be statistically relevant. Bias in any one of the above cases is enough to invalidate the results entirely.

*The data above is incomplete. How many other cases of a similar nature are there? What are the details of those cases?

*Assuming that the data is unbiased and representative of the entire population, we still have nothing more that a statistical correlation. And even then, we are unable to determine the strength of this relationship.

*Playing devil's advocate, we can say that the relationship is a strong relationship-- 90% or more of the killers fit the profile. This still doesn't imply causation. There are a number of other factors that might enter into the picture-- acting as if A implies B (especially on such a small set of data) is not only scientifically unsound, but foolish.

So I guess you can say that the profile may have *some* statistical relevance; but it has very little scientific relevance.

Then again, scientists probably fit the profiles themselves :-)

Just my $0.02

Making a difference: a Question to Slashdot

[goliard]

OK, so we pretty much all seem to agree that things can really, really suck for young geeks.

I suspect everyone here would agree that intervention is desirable, as amphigory neatly describes.

I suspect we largely agree with the sentiment (expressed in another thread) that the intervention which the current system is prepared to do ranges from "inept" to "violation of human rights".

Well, that's because the intervention is done by normals. They're never going to get how to help a geek in distress, because (a) they have never been through it and lack the empathy necessary for problem solving and (b) they are unaware of some of the issues peculiar to geeks (list available on request; my profile is better than the FBI's :).

So the question before us is: So, should we, collectively and individually, be Doing Something?

I'm a geek, right. I don't have any particular warm fuzzy feeling about social-program volunteering, and I don't suspect any other geek does. HOWEVER:

If we don't help, aren't we part of the problem: an indifferent world that leaves these kids to rot in their misery?

What I'm envisioning is an organization much like Big Brother/Big Sister -- only run by and for geeks. A sort of "Big Geek" service.

A couple of notes on the idea:

1. There is (allegedly) already another organization focusing on outcast anti-defamation; this would be an organization providing intervention.
2. The reason for making it an organization, as opposed to individual efforts, would be so that it would build "brand" (name identity) so that school administrators would think to call it in.
3. The intervention provided could be as simple as a kind of mentoring relationship. But maybe senior geeks would be moved to intervene more profoundly, offering on-the-job apprenticeships (get them out of the schools!), fostering (taking them in if home life gets untenable), help graduating from high school/applying to colleges early, etc.

Would people actually participate in something like this?

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Re:Bullying

[coyote-san]

Sadly, a strong argument can be made that the victums of bullying are potentially more dangerous than the bullies themselves. Emphasis on "potentially."

We would call the logic sick, but it matches reality. Bullies already know how to handle anger and frustration - they go beat up somebody weaker than themselves. If they fought someone as strong as themselves they would called "fighters," not "bullies," and if they fought somebody stronger than themselves they would be described as having a death wish.

But how do the victims of the bullies handle anger and frustration? Some will have their own, non-violent, outlets, others will become bullies themselves, but the rest will keep that anger inside. When it becomes too much to bear, they might only have a single model for how to deal with it - taking out the "weak." But instead of using their fists, they'll use their brain and be *far* more dangerous.

So if we use history as a guide, it's appropriate to use a history of being bullied as a warning flag for future violence -- but we must also show absolutely no mercy to the bullies themselves. By this same logic, they are acting as recklessly as if they tossed a dozen loaded firearms into the schoolyard playground. Keep track of the victims, if necessary, but the bullies should be expelled on first offense, and locked up on the second offense. If that ruins the football season, tough shit.