This morning I was in the Macomb County Probate Court. While waiting for the clerk to process my paperwork, a woman entered the courthouse with two young children I presume to be hers. As the boy, who looked to be about five years old, was going to walk through the metal detector carrying some handheld electronic game, the security guard asked the kid if he wanted to put the game into the basket until after he cleared the detector. The kid said he didn't and just kept walking, engrossed in his game. Everyone laughed and the mother offered to have the kid pass through the detector again, this time without the game in his hand. The security guard said it wasn't necessary.
While the whole thing was cute, it made me question just how effective this security, as well as at just about any other building I enter, really is. Granted this was only a probate court where the likelihood of someone pulling a gun or using explosives is pretty low. Yet, it made me realize just how easy it is to evade security, whether it's by using a kid to carry your contraband or utilizing materials that the metal detector won't catch. For example, my parents have a very sharp lucite cutting knife for challah.
In the end, I would prefer that this country's security, whether for government or private entrances, adopt the Israeli approach. In a recent article about how this country's airport security would start mingling with travelers in security lines to assess their demeanor, I loved the following quote from an Israeli security official: "In your country, you look for weapons. In our country, we look for terrorists."
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2 comments:
I'm not so sure that just spending more money in general is the right approach. I'm not saying it's definitely wrong either. I would be interested to see a comparison in security spending by Israel and the United States, both in the public and private sectors, relative to things like population or the traffic flow that the security must protect, as well as the relation between the security workers' salaries to their relative economies.
Without seeing that information, I wonder if the question isn't how much the United States is spending versus how it spends the money. The courthouse in Eaton County, which is just southwest of Lansing, has five judges with varying jurisdictions. Four of those five judges hear divorce and criminal cases, the type of stuff that incites more violence than probate. The Macomb County Probate Courthouse has only two judges who, as the building's name connotes, only preside over probate matters. Yet, the Eaton County building has absolutely no security while the Macomb County building has not one but two security guards. I wonder if one county knows something the other doesn't. Before you say that no crime happens in Eaton County, I just did a very quick and rudimentary look at the counties' crime figures relative to their populations and it seems like Eaton's is actually slightly higher. I accept that the spending I mention is at each county's discretion, but it certainly reflects a mindset.
In the end, barring the spending figures I mentioned earlier, I would pin part of the problem on the fear that some will scream violation of rights and bigotry, which is exactly what happened when Homeland Security announced the plans to have security members mingle with travelers like Israel has done for decades.
HZW-If that's your first pick in the game of how we'll divvy up our parents' stuff, I look forward to the draft.
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