Law Enforcement - Flying The Friendly Skies?
The number of people moving through our nation's airports increased 258% from 1977 to 1999. Roughly 1.8 million people are thought to travel by air daily. Airline travel boomed in the late 1990s. The economy was healthy, businesses were willing to send workers on trips, and bargain airline seats were available on Internet ticket sites.
The number of weapons seized increased steadily through the 1980s, most of them handguns. The number of people arrested on firearms or explosives charges increased during the same period, peaked at 1,581, and then decreased steadily in the 1990s. Less than 100 people are arrested for providing false information each year. There was a sudden jump in 1988; when airports might have briefly stepped up security after the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Airline security was an issue even before the events of September 11. There has been talk of federalizing airport security since 1973 when federal law first dictated that all passengers and carry-on luggage must be searched. (The legislation was intended to stop a string of hijackings — which it did.) A Government Accounting Office Report found that in 1978 screeners failed to detect 13% of potentially dangerous objects carried by Federal Aviation Administration officials. In 1987, screeners missed 20% of the objects. The percentage increased in the 1990s, but the figures are deemed too sensitive to reveal. Perhaps the most unsettling information: In the 1990s, FAA agents got 243 fake guns, hand grenades, and bombs past screeners at Logan International Airport in Boston — the same airport where terrorists hijacked two Boeing 767s on September 11.
But who actually provides the security? The government or the airport? The airlines technically provide it, but what they actually do is bid the work out to private security firms. Senator Max Cleland of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee nicely summarizes the problem with this issue: "So, if you have the airlines responsible for $1.8 billion worth of security at 700 checkpoints in America, they're dumbing down the system. They go to the lowest cost per person out there — minimum wage people — so they can make a little money."
What about those screeners? 7 According to a General Accounting Report, the starting salary of security screeners at the largest 18 airports was $6 or less before 2001. Average screener turnover rate in a one year period was 126%. Certain cities saw far greater turnover: St. Louis' rate was 416%, Atlanta's 375%, and Boston's 200%. Some screeners were found not to be U.S. citizens or to have criminal records. They were also poorly trained. How poorly trained? A security expert Ed Brigeman made this statement in an interview with a Cincinnati television station: "We know for a fact that people who work at Starbucks got more training than people who were doing the bulk of the screening."
It might have been tempting to ask the nation's largest chain of coffee shops to take over screening passengers for weapons and explosives. However, the Transportation Security Administration took over security of the nation's airports on February 17, 2002. What happened? In the month following the takeover, there were nearly 1,700 security delays and over 200 security related arrests. A total of 449,417 items were confiscated in this 30 day period, a total that dwarfs the number of items confiscated in the 20 years shown in the chart. Security personnel seized 236,204 cutting instruments, 119,948 knives, 5,312 box cutters and an assortment of pepper sprays, tear gas, fireworks, clubs, bats, and bludgeons (as well as 72 firearms). To be fair, the terrorists of September 11 proved that anything could be used as a weapon. Pre-2001, screeners need only look for guns, knives, and explosives; now nail clippers and hat pins suddenly could be used as weapons and had to be confiscated.
There are now more than 300 airports with federal screeners. Screeners now receive 44 hours of classroom and 60 hours of on-the-job training. They now must be U.S. citizens, have a high school degree or GED equivalent or have at least one year screening experience.
Airports are struggling to meet deadlines imposed by the government, some of which, as of November 2002, are widely viewed as impossibly tight. Travelers are slowly returning to the nation's airports after September 2001 and often still wait in lines at checkpoints or are delayed by security breeches.
Sources: Chart data comes from U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2000, table 3.203; "Many local airport screeners may lose their jobs soon." available online at http://wepo.com; Umhoefer, Dave and Mike Johnson. "Weapons get past Mitchell screening." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 27, 2001; Cleland quote comes from Mike Fish. "Airport security: a system driven by the minimum wage." available online at http://www.cnn.com; information on screener requirements comes from http://www.tsa.gov; "airport breeches challenge security agency." USA Today, April 10, 2002, p. 5A. Data available online as of November 5, 2002.
1 Of the roughly 760 county constable offices in Texas, 623 operated on a full-time basis and employed sworn personnel with general arrest powers as of June 2000. Texas constables are elected officials who are responsible for providing services for the justice, county, and district courts. Nearly half of the sworn personnel employed by constable offices primarily performed court-related duties. Nearly half of constable offices had sworn personnel regularly assigned to respond to calls for service.
2 Of the roughly 760 country constable offices in Texas, 623 operated on a full-time basis and employed sworn personnel with general arrest powers as of June 2000. Texas constables are elected officials who are responsible for providing services for the justice, county and district courts. Nearly half of the sworn personnel employed by constable offices primarily performed court related duties. Nearly half of constable offices had sworn personnel regularly assigned to respond to calls for service.
3 The ratio is based on the percentage of sworn personnel who were members of a racial or ethnic minority relative to the percentage of city residents who were members of that minority group.
5 Data excludes negligent homicides, justifiable homicides by private citizens and murders in which the victim is someone other than a police officer slain in the line of duty.
6 Before 2000, requests for intercepting communications from mobile telephones, electronic pagers, and cellular telephones were categorized as "other." The government has recently changed the way it categorizes requests to reduce the number in the other category.
7 Screening consists of "the systematic examination of persons and property using weapons-detecting procedures or facilities (electronic or physical search) for the purpose detecting weapons and dangerous articles and to prevent their unauthorized introduction into sterile areas or aboard aircraft." (See Source, 1993, p. 42.)
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