A Voss and Pike Casefile: The Early Days
Section 51: Someone Has to Be the Problem
"Darek Kowal," you said, and watched a man who'd spent a night logging hazards receive the oldest answer in the building.
"Of course," he said, with the dry courtesy of a man who designed quay walls. He didn't argue. He'd learned that arguing only ever proved the thing being argued.
There was no evidence, only a reflex that reached for the foreign lad with the keys because a register somewhere already had a row for people like him. His camera and his call log cleared him within the day. By then the Sentinel had run its headline and the register had acquired a new line, MIGRANT NIGHT-WORKERS (RISK), and Darek had already booked a flight he'd never wanted to need.
Sociological note: a social problem is whatever powerful groups define as one (Carter), and it needs a face. A man who logged the hazard became the problem while the hazard stayed where it was - the relativity of "problem" in its most practical form, and a reminder that "Other White" is the largest minority in the data nobody consults.