Judging?

I was watching a movie. The story revolved around a father searching for his abducted daughters. A gang of organized criminals used to traffic women and his daughters had fallen into their trap. The man was an ex-detective. The only thing he had to start his search with, was the voice sample of the abductors. He sent the sample to an expert, who, noticing the accent and choice of words, identified the criminals to belong to a particular nationality and origin. Now matching their ‘way of doing crime’, he guessed that they belonged to a particular gang (gangs were formed also on the basis of the area from which the members had migrated from). This gang was found to be more active at airports, so the man concluded that he would find the culprits there. And he was right! He laid a trap for the abductors to come out again and nabbed them.
 

What interests me is the fact that the detective’s predictions were based on some common traits existing in the communities and groups. If a particular suspect had a particular type of beard, he would be from a particular community. If he pronounced a certain word in a certain manner, his origins would be guessed with confidence. His choice of words and even body language would tell where he came from. And then detectives would go on their trail. But, all these seem to me in contrary to what we have been taught to practice, by our civilized society. Just because a person behaved in a certain inappropriate manner, it should not mean that he came from uneducated or uncultured parents. Just because a person’s language is derogatory, we should not judge about one’s upbringing. We are asked not to judge people – “judge not lest ye be judged” as they often quote. So are we really judging people by their actions, in instances like interrogation and detective services? And are we doing right?
 

The question may be answered in different ways. In my view, the question arrived in my mind because I got confused between ‘personal judgments’ and ‘speculations’ or ‘suppositions’.  To understand it we should go deeper into the way investigations are done. Many a time we really don’t have any other choice than to start with whatever smallest clues and evidences available. We make a story around it – we form hypotheses – and then we test the hypotheses. The hypothesis is a tentative theory provisionally made to explain certain facts. As we go along the investigation, we test our hypotheses. If the actual facts encountered during the course of investigation indicate our hypotheses to be wrong, we look along a different line. This way of forming and testing hypotheses is actually not the same as judging others. 
 

Therefore, in my opinion it is nothing wrong in the way the detective in the movie went about in his trail– guessing about the criminals based on their appearances and way of doing things. If the facts would contradict his hypotheses, he would have to take a different line. Judging is like concluding and making verdicts. If we make verdicts and judgments based on incomplete facts, we have high probability to commit mistakes. Therefore, let us not judge others; but at the same time nothing is wrong in forming a hypothesis when we are going to test it. 
 

What do you say?