Law Enforcement Reform Thread (formerly Defund the Police) (1 Viewer)

Bottom line, the below is the legacy that has been created and the burden each of us grow up with.



Ten years old. In his own yard. Own driveway. Just shooting some hoops. Almost, instinctively, is aware, pauses and hides from a random police cruiser driving down the street. Imagine if your son, your grandson, your nephew, your brother had to go through life with that very real fear. Ten years old. That's heartbreaking to watch. That's me.

Ayo said:

So I'll just list a few things and try to keep it brief.

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But people use it because it diminishes the actual systemic nature of the oppression.
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When I was working in Louisiana, more than 80% of the kids locked up in the system were black despite the fact that they make up about a third of the population. Many of them for drugs.
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This was found in a study in California, that showed Black kids were 600% more likely and Hispanic kids 200% more likely to be disciplined, arrested, etc than white kids.
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4. Ignorance of the ghettoization
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City planners designed their urban spaces to confine blacks. They were cordoned off in ghettos and the problems that exist in these places are, in large part, the responsibilities of the people that created these strictures. And those of us who turn a blind eye to them.

So if you want to point to 'crime in these communities' you gotta take a step back and consider how it evolved in the first place. Because it has a very clear genealogy.

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This video touches on a lot of what you have mentioned here. It's worth the watch.

V Chip said:

Sure. I imagine you wouldn't consider me a "non-biased source" but IMO it should be obvious there are issues with the NCVS/PPCS to any casual observer with a critical eye. It is a survey -- not actual real statistics recorded by police or citizens on each interaction, and that depends on people not only telling the truth about police interactions, but correctly recalling any possible interaction that covers the survey timeframe. Second, it is a household survey, which I would think tends to hamper responses (say, a household with domestic violence, or a household with minors or other members who have a vested interest in hiding the truth about things in front of their whole household, etc.). Third, it's done as a household survey in the field, and leaves out certain people (homeless/itinerants, incarcerated persons or those in detention centers for juveniles, those in hospitals) and until recently was only offered in English. It doesn't seem to take into account that certain people are the target of calls for police, or targeted by profiling or police policy (stop and frisk, broken window policing, etc) much more often than other people, but the responses show these facts. But the biggest to me is that it is making up a "statistic" -- "police interactions" -- that I think is misunderstood and being used to discount actual crime statistics.

But I'm sure you don't want to just hear my take.

https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/leo16_fryer.pdf

That same analysis has this quote later on:

9 Synopsis of Potential Errors in the National Crime Victimization Survey | Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault | The National Academies Press

Read chapter 9 Synopsis of Potential Errors in the National Crime Victimization Survey: The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) National Crime Victimizati...

www.nap.edu

Victims - Problems With The Victimization Survey

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/2035/b78fa073c7c18dc7afd36124499ff049c83f.pdf

(This one is from 2018, but has language that indicates it is talking about the PPCS from pre-2015.)

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10572

Which would be very hard to do for a couple reasons. The most obvious, the PPCS does not include homicide or lethal force. The second is -- again, IMO -- the "per police encounter" is a made up statistic that doesn't accurately account for situations that would be more likely to result in use-of-force. The PPCS included police encounters such as talking to a neighbor/friend who is a police officer, asking directions, being asked by police after a crime was committed if you happened to notice anything, calling 911 to report a crime, calling about a community watch program, asking if your school can have a McGruff the Crime Dog meeting. An "encounter" doesn't really mean much unless it is police-initiated, and even then it doesn't really show much re: black deaths.

But I can absolutely show you the thing you don't want to see, for some reason. A black person is far more likely to be killed by police than a white person (per capita). That is without question. And for all it's faults, the NCVS shows quite clearly that blacks are targeted more in traffic stops, street stops, and are more likely to have use of force used against them than whites.

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Thanks for the links. Several of those links are related to sexual assault and rapes, that I believe rarely lead to police killings or even abuse during arrests, because most of the people committing rapes and sexual assaults are cowards. The cursory review of the information doesn't discredit the NCVS, but points to areas of weakness. I'm all for getting better data, but that might be the best available. Also, that data was only a supplement to the report.

You may think encounters with police is made up, but I'll repeat that killings per capita means far less than killings per encounter. I'll give you an exaggerated hypothetical to make the point. Let's consider a made up population in which there are 10 American Indians, and 990 of other races. So in this population, American Indians represent 1% of the population. Let's say 100% of American Indians encounter the police in a given year, while 1% of the others encounter the police, so roughly 10 American Indians and 10 others encounter the police. Let's say 10% of each of those encounters by both groups lead to a killing, so 1 American Indian and 1 of the others is killed. That would indicate that in a given year 10% of American Indians are killed, while 0.1% of others are killed. That would lead you to believe that the police are killing a disproportionate number of American Indians, but in reality their killings do not show any racial preference. Now let's flip that. If the police had killed 1 of the 10 American Indians, and all 10 of the others they encountered, would that indicate a racial factor in the killings? I would argue that it DOES indicate a racial factor in the killings, because everytime they encountered anyone other than an American Indian, they killed them. If you looked at that latter case on a per capita basis, it would still appear that the police force was killing a disproportionate number of American Indians, but in reality, you would not want to be a member of the other race encountering this hypothetical police force. That is why you have to look at the killings per encounter, not per capita.

Why a race has more encounters is a different debate. The policeman that encounters a person shouldn't have to debate the policies of his police force's resource allocation and think well this is an American Indian and I know we over police them, so we won't kill him, but if this guy is a member of that other race that we don't over police, then I can kill him. I don't doubt that some killings are racially motivated, yet it may not fit the narrative for BLM, but per encounter, whites are slightly more in danger of being killed by the police. It is not a significantly larger danger, so it won't generate big outrage, but I don't doubt that cops go through that thought process whenever they have an encounter with the black community. I would like to think that they go through the thought process that no one should be killed, and I think they largely do that. About 1000 killed out of over 7.7M encounters in 2018 attests to that, especially with over 10k murderers having to be arrested.

I'll repeat, where I think the problem lies is police abuse and unnecessary force. I know people that have been abused and I've had an abusive encounter when I was 23 years old. Many of the reforms being discussed will improve that. We don't need hyperbole or to tar the police as the enemy to agree that that needs to improve. I think good cops want that as badly as the public at large.

Lapaz said:

Thanks for the links. Several of those links are related to sexual assault and rapes, that I believe rarely lead to police killings or even abuse during arrests, because most of the people committing rapes and sexual assaults are cowards. The cursory review of the information doesn't discredit the NCVS, but points to areas of weakness. I'm all for getting better data, but that might be the best available. Also, that data was only a supplement to the report.

You may think encounters with police is made up, but I'll repeat that killings per capita means far less than killings per encounter. I'll give you an exaggerated hypothetical to make the point. Let's consider a made up population in which there are 10 American Indians, and 990 of other races. So in this population, American Indians represent 1% of the population. Let's say 100% of American Indians encounter the police in a given year, while 1% of the others encounter the police, so roughly 10 American Indians and 10 others encounter the police. Let's say 10% of each of those encounters by both groups lead to a killing, so 1 American Indian and 1 of the others is killed. That would indicate that in a given year 10% of American Indians are killed, while 0.1% of others are killed. That would lead you to believe that the police are killing a disproportionate number of American Indians, but in reality their killings do not show any racial preference. Now let's flip that. If the police had killed 1 of the 10 American Indians, and all 10 of the others they encountered, would that indicate a racial factor in the killings? I would argue that it DOES indicate a racial factor in the killings, because everytime they encountered anyone other than an American Indian, they killed them. If you looked at that latter case on a per capita basis, it would still appear that the police force was killing a disproportionate number of American Indians, but in reality, you would not want to be a member of the other race encountering this hypothetical police force. That is why you have to look at the killings per encounter, not per capita.

Why a race has more encounters is a different debate. The policeman that encounters a person shouldn't have to debate the policies of his police force's resource allocation and think well this is an American Indian and I know we over police them, so we won't kill him, but if this guy is a member of that other race that we don't over police, then I can kill him. I don't doubt that some killings are racially motivated, yet it may not fit the narrative for BLM, but per encounter, whites are slightly more in danger of being killed by the police. It is not a significantly larger danger, so it won't generate big outrage, but I don't doubt that cops go through that thought process whenever they have an encounter with the black community. I would like to think that they go through the thought process that no one should be killed, and I think they largely do that. About 1000 killed out of over 7.7M encounters in 2018 attests to that, especially with over 10k murderers having to be arrested.

I'll repeat, where I think the problem lies is police abuse and unnecessary force. I know people that have been abused and I've had an abusive encounter when I was 23 years old. Many of the reforms being discussed will improve that. We don't need hyperbole or to tar the police as the enemy to agree that that needs to improve. I think good cops want that as badly as the public at large.

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Do you assume that every encounter is logged? And are you saying that there is not systemic racial discrimination in law enforcement based on your 'encounter factors'?

That would lead you to believe that the police are killing a disproportionate number of American Indians, but in reality their killings do not show any racial preference.

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What? The logic behind this seems a bit of a mess. The way you present scenarios or analyze data is really strange. 100% of Blacks would have to be killed versus 10% of whites to show that there is a racial bias. But that's still relative to population. I mean, they have to kill them "because every time they encountered X, they killed them." The logic is so bizarre.

And then you follow that up with "encounters are a different debate" when I would say that it's not. Not at all. IN fact, the nature of the 'encountering' is absolutely central and related to the first point.

How you seemingly arbitrarily separate the two seems a matter of convenience for your extreme hypothetical than answering, sincerely, a question about the systemic nature of racialized treatment by blacks when it comes to law enforcement and the courts

And then the final point is a personal anecdotal that is supposed to somehow speak to the reality that there isn't some bias?

These things are not mutually exclusive.

Police officers can abuse their authority generally, and there can also be systemic racism in the institution.

You're having to resort to a mutual exclusivity that doesn't exist to make your point - that speaks to how poor the point is to begin with.

Ayo said:

Do you assume that every encounter is logged? And are you saying that there is not systemic racial discrimination in law enforcement based on your 'encounter factors'?



What? The logic behind this seems a bit of a mess. The way you present scenarios or analyze data is really strange. 100% of Blacks would have to be killed versus 10% of whites to show that there is a racial bias. But that's still relative to population. I mean, they have to kill them "because every time they encountered X, they killed them." The logic is so bizarre.

And then you follow that up with "encounters are a different debate" when I would say that it's not. Not at all. IN fact, the nature of the 'encountering' is absolutely central and related to the first point.

How you seemingly arbitrarily separate the two seems a matter of convenience for your extreme hypothetical than answering, sincerely, a question about the systemic nature of racialized treatment by blacks when it comes to law enforcement and the courts

And then the final point is a personal anecdotal that is supposed to somehow speak to the reality that there isn't some bias?

These things are not mutually exclusive.

Police officers can abuse their authority generally, and there can also be systemic racism in the institution.

You're having to resort to a mutual exclusivity that doesn't exist to make your point - that speaks to how poor the point is to begin with.

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I disagree that why police encounter blacks more is not a separate issue from how people are treated once encountered. That isn't convenience. They are totally separate issues. There are many reasons why areas are policed differently. That policy is not set by individual cops. Once a cop encounters a crime that leads to an encounter, there does not seem to be any bias towards killing more blacks. The bias is slightly towards killing more whites per encounter.

The point wasn't to be bizarre. I was trying to make an extreme example to make it easier to understand. You have it backwards. I exaggerated by saying that if you kill 100% of people you encounter from the larger population (whites, not 100% of blacks), to 10% of the blacks encountered, you would end up killing 10% of blacks per capita to a tiny per capita (0.1%) of others. So when you do the analysis on a per capita basis, it would seem like the police were killing way too many blacks, but the conclusion would be backwards. Clearly in this scenario there is a huge problem if every white/other race person encountered was killed, but per capita comparisons don't reveal that. That's why I say using per capita is not nearly as useful as per encounter. It's not to say that per capita is useless, because it points to police resource allocation, but it is far less valuable to assess how police treat different races during encounters. If you look at it per encounter, then you see the huge problem in this scenario is bias against the other/white population. That is why I say the analysis of killings needs to be done on a per encounter basis.

I also never said that bias doesn't exist. I'm sure cops are biased, but the stats indicate whites are more in danger of being killed per encounter. I completely agree that cops often abuse their authority. I never claimed that they were mutually exclusive. Just because you don't understand my point doesn't make it a weak point. I'm waiting to see data that shows police kill more blacks per encounter. Maybe some goes unreported, but then I would need to see something that indicates more white encounters are unreported than black encounters. Murders are hard to underreport.

Lapaz said:

I disagree that why police encounter blacks more is not a separate issue from how people are treated once encountered. That isn't convenience. They are totally separate issues. There are many reasons why areas are policed differently. That policy is not set by individual cops. Once a cop encounters a crime that leads to an encounter, there does not seem to be any bias towards killing more blacks. The bias is slightly towards killing more whites per encounter.

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It's integrated. The complexion of encounters and patrol procedures and surveillance practices are a *direct* result of the legacy of racism. It's absolutely central to a discussion of 'is the law enforcement institution racially biased?'

The reasons why police target these communities is racially directed, going back hundreds of years and certainly more in the period of 1970s to the 2000s. And the 'individual cop' factor is - pardon the pun - a cop out.

This is something I heard often - including from cops themselves, when they refused to participate in measures and programs to attack the racial disparity that is absolutely prevalent in our system. "We don't make the laws - we just do what we're told."

To absolutely excuse that autonomy is something that is incredibly short-sighted.

Take this example: NYC cops were throwing kids into cop cars and taking them downtown to the precinct for booking. Black kids in poor schools. Kids taken from their school, no bus and no practice and many cases no way home.

Why?

They were taking advantage of the "Clean Hallways" Act that allowed them to do this. Why did they do it so often? To accumulate overtime by booking these kids and doing paperwork. It was rampant across the city until a judge blew the whistle.

Know how I know this? I worked with the research team for a bit as we shared data.

Those cops - and you - would point to "Well, I didn't make the Act a law, I'm just doing what I am supposed to." It excuses absolutely abhorrent behavior.

To act like the cops are zero-tolerance automatons is such a defeatist stance and it absolutely defies logic and reality.

The more you post, the more I think you show how little you understand about this field and the established, complicated, interrelated dynamics at play.

Lapaz said:

The point wasn't to be bizarre. I was trying to make an extreme example to make it easier to understand.

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Oh okay. If there's something I need explained to me and made easier to understand, it's criminological stats and procedural protocols.

Thanks.

Ayo said:

It's integrated. The complexion of encounters and patrol procedures and surveillance practices are a *direct* result of the legacy of racism. It's absolutely central to a discussion of 'is the law enforcement institution racially biased?'

The reasons why police target these communities is racially directed, going back hundreds of years and certainly more in the period of 1970s to the 2000s. And the 'individual cop' factor is - pardon the pun - a cop out.

This is something I heard often - including from cops themselves, when they refused to participate in measures and programs to attack the racial disparity that is absolutely prevalent in our system. "We don't make the laws - we just do what we're told."

To absolutely excuse that autonomy is something that is incredibly short-sighted.

Take this example: NYC cops were throwing kids into cop cars and taking them downtown to the precinct for booking. Black kids in poor schools. Kids taken from their school, no bus and no practice and many cases no way home.

Why?

They were taking advantage of the "Clean Hallways" Act that allowed them to do this. Why did they do it so often? To accumulate overtime by booking these kids and doing paperwork. It was rampant across the city until a judge blew the whistle.

Know how I know this? I worked with the research team for a bit as we shared data.

Those cops - and you - would point to "Well, I didn't make the Act a law, I'm just doing what I am supposed to." It excuses absolutely abhorrent behavior.

To act like the cops are zero-tolerance automatons is such a defeatist stance and it absolutely defies logic and reality.

The more you post, the more I think you show how little you understand about this field and the established, complicated, interrelated dynamics at play.



Oh okay. If there's something I need explained to me and made easier to understand, it's criminological stats and procedural protocols.

Thanks.

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I don't know anything about your expertise, but obviously you didn't understand my explanation, so you did need me to explain it again. I don't know if the second go around made it any easier to understand. I have not heard anyone in the media discussing the killing data per encounter, but I believe it is much more relevant with respect to killings than per capita.

I didn't excuse police resource policy. I said it is a different issue than what happens when an encounter occurs. Of course if we police black communities less, it will probably lead to reducing the number of encounters with the black community, and there should be a proportional decrease in black killings by the police, but will it lead to fewer black killings? Considering that the police killed about 200 blacks in 2018, while blacks committed over 5000 murders, I think reducing policing may not yield the desired result of fewer blacks getting killed.

Lapaz said:

I don't know anything about your expertise,

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For a decade I worked in the field of youth incarceration, and interrelated areas - in particular education, but not restricted to that (also healthcare, social supports, therapy approaches, addiction, pregnancy, GED, etc). Worked in a youth prison. Worked with parole officers, cops, lawyers, judges, other professors, therapists, juvenile prison administration and security staff, and more. Studied criminal statistics and multiple areas of sociohistorical influences on crime. Taught graduate level research methodology courses on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Worked and collaborated with researchers at other institutions. Did provincial level consulting work for a secure youth custody facility who solicited my help because of my 'expertise.' Head a police department from the east end of Toronto reach out to help them connect with the youth they were policing but apparently unable to connect with or have any impact on. Years of research. Hundreds of books and articles read. Thousands of pages written.

That's a short snapshot.

Lapaz said:

but obviously you didn't understand my explanation, so you did need me to explain it again. I don't know if the second go around made it any easier to understand. I have not heard anyone in the media discussing the killing data per encounter, but I believe it is much more relevant with respect to killings than per capita.

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I understood your point. I was saying it didn't make sense. You are making a case of 'per interaction' (and you are *not* the only one who has made this case, incidentally, but the people who do are typically employing it for the same reasons. I just had an encounter on twitter that I wasted too much of the day on, last week, that was based precisely on your argument of per encounter) but then turning around and dismissing encounter as a variable that needs troubling.

You're treating it as a static variable, which is selective and inappropriate for the conclusion you are trying to draw.
You're saying "per encounter" is the criterion or variable that you want to use. I've already asked if you think the numbers are wholly reliable, fixed? You didn't answer. But you don't have to. They aren't.

You are starting from your conclusion and working backwards, choosing to use a single approach that you think mathematically makes your point unassailable.

But is precisely that fixed naivete about and investment in this narrow application that makes your argument even less credible and on much more precarious ground.

You are entitled to your opinion, but your approach is methodologically faulty. Your sample size is not as reliable as you think it is. The necessary context is ignored. It's not a sound approach and it's not a reasonable conclusion - certainly not with the certainty with which you seem to be taking others to task.

All your right, of course. But that doesn't make it so.

Lapaz said:

I didn't excuse police resource policy. I said it is a different issue than what happens when an encounter occurs. Of course if we police black communities less, it will probably lead to reducing the number of encounters with the black community, and there should be a proportional decrease in black killings by the police, but will it lead to fewer black killings? Considering that the police killed about 200 blacks in 2018, while blacks committed over 5000 murders, I think reducing policing may not yield the desired result of fewer blacks getting killed.

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I addressed this in the first bullet point in the first sustained response I had in this thread. You've decided to ignore it, because it complicates or undermines your conclusion. You keep narrowing and cherry picking until you arrive at only one thing, that lacks the credibility and validity you think it does, and you dismiss all else.

You've effectively combined two partisan talking points - ignoring the fact that it's not just about killing and then following that up with the black on black crime trope.

You're not making a strong argument. For all you are typing, you come back a to single data point and the rest is just artifice and hypotheticals.

Ayo said:

For a decade I worked in the field of youth incarceration, and interrelated areas - in particular education, but not restricted to that (also healthcare, social supports, therapy approaches, addiction, pregnancy, GED, etc). Worked in a youth prison. Worked with parole officers, cops, lawyers, judges, other professors, therapists, juvenile prison administration and security staff, and more. Studied criminal statistics and multiple areas of sociohistorical influences on crime. Taught graduate level research methodology courses on quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Worked and collaborated with researchers at other institutions. Did provincial level consulting work for a secure youth custody facility who solicited my help because of my 'expertise.' Head a police department from the east end of Toronto reach out to help them connect with the youth they were policing but apparently unable to connect with or have any impact on. Years of research. Hundreds of books and articles read. Thousands of pages written.

That's a short snapshot.



I understood your point. I was saying it didn't make sense. You are making a case of 'per interaction' (and you are *not* the only one who has made this case, incidentally, but the people who do are typically employing it for the same reasons. I just had an encounter on twitter that I wasted too much of the day on, last week, that was based precisely on your argument of per encounter) but then turning around and dismissing encounter as a variable that needs troubling.

You're treating it as a static variable, which is selective and inappropriate for the conclusion you are trying to draw.
You're saying "per encounter" is the criterion or variable that you want to use. I've already asked if you think the numbers are wholly reliable, fixed? You didn't answer. But you don't have to. They aren't.

You are starting from your conclusion and working backwards, choosing to use a single approach that you think mathematically makes your point unassailable.

But is precisely that fixed naivete about and investment in this narrow application that makes your argument even less credible and on much more precarious ground.

You are entitled to your opinion, but your approach is methodologically faulty. Your sample size is not as reliable as you think it is. The necessary context is ignored. It's not a sound approach and it's not a reasonable conclusion - certainly not with the certainty with which you seem to be taking others to task.

All your right, of course. But that doesn't make it so.



I addressed this in the first bullet point in the first sustained response I had in this thread. You've decided to ignore it, because it complicates or undermines your conclusion. You keep narrowing and cherry picking until you arrive at only one thing, that lacks the credibility and validity you think it does, and you dismiss all else.

You've effectively combined two partisan talking points - ignoring the fact that it's not just about killing and then following that up with the black on black crime trope.

You're not making a strong argument. For all you are typing, you come back a to single data point and the rest is just artifice and hypotheticals.

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Obviously you have tons of experience, but your explanation about my analysis was still wrong, therefore you haven't accurately explained why it is illogical to evaluate behavior of the police per encounter to determine whether treatment is starkly racially biased. I didn't start with any preconceived notion. I suspect you started with more of a preconceived notion than me, because your stance is the popular stance. I was curious about the things that people are alleging, so I went to look for data to see if the data supports it. I'd be surprised if I was the only person analyzing it as per encounter, because the DOC collected the data per encounter, so someone probably analyzed it, but I have not heard anyone use the per encounter argument. It makes far more sense. My hypothetical just explains it in starker terms that would be apparent with a less extreme example. It's far easier to accept the narrative that almost everyone is espousing and to get carried away with some videos. Also, I haven't used the black on black trope. You have me confused for someone else. In fact I have stated in this thread that it is a distraction.

I also don't ignore that there could be other problems associated with over policing, but I don't understand how you can't understand how every encounter is unique unto itself. You can look at the stats for what happens during encounters, and it doesn't fit the popular narrative of bias against blacks. I've never claimed the stats are static, but the stats for the last few years consistently present the same picture. I'm not opposed to BLM, but their narrative doesn't fit the data. I think the movement can be an impetus for good reforms, but I want people to be treated fairly, and I don't want whites and police to be tarred unfairly in the process of implementing good reforms. Don't assume that I'm following any talking points, and discount what I'm saying based on what you've heard others argue. I frankly don't care what agendas others have, and I haven't heard anyone arguing the case like this. I don't have an agenda other than fairness. If I see data that refutes what I'm saying, then I'll change my position. I haven't seen it. All I keep seeing is per capita data that shows that blacks are disproportionately killed per capita. I agree with that, but if they are having to be encountered at a much higher rate than their per capita population, for whatever reason, then it doesn't make sense to judge cops by population.

Lapaz said:

I suspect you started with more of a preconceived notion than me, because your stance is the popular stance.

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Or, because I've put in a decade's worth of research and have a solid understanding of racialized discrimination against blacks by law enforcement and in our legal system.

If you want to deride that as merely "preconceived" or "popular" and dismiss as a result, then that only speaks further to the precariousness of your argument. As for the 'per encounter' I've brought up more than once the reliability of the data you are going on. There are more than a quarter million officers in the US. You pointed to a "7.7 million encounters" in 2018. What is an 'encounter'?

Do you believe that each officer, on average, had around 10 encounters for the year? Contact with the police is 8-10 times that number. I don't know what you are talking about in your data set. And you linked to statista. There are databases I had access to that the public doesn't have direct access to. Databases I no longer have access to because I am not actively working on incarcertation in the States. Your 'methodology' is all over the place.

I am saying that you don't understand the numbers or methodology behind your fundamental criterion - the 'encounter' and, therefore, any conclusion you draw from it is going to be problematic. I think this is the third time I've explained this. I don't know how you operate under the impression that I've failed to explain it.

And even assuming you could get a handle on the methodology and the numbers, and assemble your argument from there, it would still not dismiss the pervasive racial discrimination in the system, now or historically.

I understand your argument completely. The faults in your logic aren't the result of my inability to understand your argument. In fact, I think I understand your argument - and where it will lead assuming you wrangle control over your variable and the numbers - better than you do.

Lapaz said:

It's far easier to accept the narrative that almost everyone is espousing and to get carried away with some videos. Also, I haven't used the black on black trope. You have me confused for someone else. In fact I have stated in this thread that it is a distraction.

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"Easier"?

Let's imagine two people. The first spent a decade doing all sorts of research, reading, field work, publication, consulting. The second person did a google search. And let's say both of these people arrive at a conclusion.

Are you asserting that the first person's path was "easier" and that the conclusion was merely the "acceptance of a narrative" and "got carried away with some videos"?

Your argumentation skills are really not as strong and credible as the certainty of your conviction in them.

As for the trope of black on black crime - this is what I am talking about:

Lapaz said:

Considering that the police killed about 200 blacks in 2018, while blacks committed over 5000 murders, I think reducing policing may not yield the desired result of fewer blacks getting killed.

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the argument here is that black people should welcome more police presence because with less police presence, there will be more blacks killing each other. Because the cops, then, care more about stopping blacks from killing each other than blacks do.

Lapaz said:

I'm not opposed to BLM, but their narrative doesn't fit the data.

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their narrative has around 15 different beliefs - did you read them all? Are none of them with merit? Here's the first one:

Black Lives Matter began as a call to action in response to state-sanctioned violence and anti-Black racism.

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Are you saying that there is no state-sanctioned anti-Black racism when it comes to law enforcement and treatment under the law?

I've raised this point before and you keep coming back to "cops killing black people" and that becomes an extension of your hyper-narrow focus.

Do you disagree with these other beliefs of theirs - these other components of their narratives - that grow out of a history of discrimination, segregation, and targeted oppression?:

We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work.

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We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

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We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.

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We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people.

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What about these messages is so objectionable or not manifest in things we witness routinely in the US (as well as here in Canada, incidentally)

You can dismiss my perspective as "easy" or "preconceived" or whatever else. I am not responding because I think you will have any sort of realization about how thin this argument actually is. But the larger importance of this movement and the shortcomings of your assumptions and casual dismissiveness of actuality and lived oppression go beyond just our back and forth.

This is bigger than the both of us and I think I only understand a fraction of what's going on, but that particular fraction is verifiable and a critical part of our nation moving forward.

I tend to stay in my lane, because I only really know about or understand a few things to the point I feel like I can really go on and on. This happens to be something I know a lot about and have spent the better portion of my life investigating and building on. It informs the work around equity that I am engaged with every single day. And this wasn't the path that I thought I was going to take. It was the path that became the one I felt I *needed* to take, the work that *has* to be done. I'm passionate about it and have invested a lot of hours into it, and will continue to do so going forward

And if that means hours on here, included, then so be it. This is just another place where I can share what I've learned and my motivations for doing so and offering help for those who might be interested.

I've had enough takers over the years to keep me coming back.

And if you're not one, that's fine. Had plenty of those, too

Lapaz said:

You may think encounters with police is made up, but I'll repeat that killings per capita means far less than killings per encounter. I'll give you an exaggerated hypothetical to make the point. Let's consider a made up population in which there are 10 American Indians, and 990 of other races. So in this population, American Indians represent 1% of the population. Let's say 100% of American Indians encounter the police in a given year, while 1% of the others encounter the police, so roughly 10 American Indians and 10 others encounter the police. Let's say 10% of each of those encounters by both groups lead to a killing, so 1 American Indian and 1 of the others is killed. That would indicate that in a given year 10% of American Indians are killed, while 0.1% of others are killed. That would lead you to believe that the police are killing a disproportionate number of American Indians, but in reality their killings do not show any racial preference. Now let's flip that. If the police had killed 1 of the 10 American Indians, and all 10 of the others they encountered, would that indicate a racial factor in the killings? I would argue that it DOES indicate a racial factor in the killings, because everytime they encountered anyone other than an American Indian, they killed them. If you looked at that latter case on a per capita basis, it would still appear that the police force was killing a disproportionate number of American Indians, but in reality, you would not want to be a member of the other race encountering this hypothetical police force. That is why you have to look at the killings per encounter, not per capita.

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"Per encounter" *IS* a made up statistic. Do you know the things an "encounter" includes? Talking to a neighbor who is a cop. Calling the police to report noisy neighbors, or report barking dogs. Asking for directions when there is a roadblock. Hosting or setting up a Night Out Against Crime event. Field sobriety checks. Having police go door to door to inquire about a crime in the neighborhood. Calling the police to report a suspicious person in your neighborhood. All these and more "encounters" are counted in the PPCS. The vast majority of these "encounters" are benign -- can you recall ever hearing about police beating someone who was just talking to the police? Including them in the numbers skews any real statistics on police use of force. I think you and many others who use this "encounters" report thinks that "encounters" means when police respond to some potential threat or lawbreaking ("encountering" a potential suspect, or someone who was reported as suspicious, or a speeder/traffic stop, or a response to a burglary/battery/etc. It's not that at all. People who initiate contact with police for whatever reason rarely if ever raise suspicion and potential danger to police, However, when police respond to a call, or pull someone over, or stop-and-frisk they are usually alert to the possibility of something being wrong or out of place or threatening. It's a completely different interaction. Yet -- again -- ALL interactions/contacts are included in the PPCS. It is a flawed, made up statistic being used to (IMO) explain away the racial biases that are systematic in law enforcement.

But lets look at the number of deaths per encounter anyway.

In 2015 (the year of the latest PPCS), there were 560 white people killed by police and 318 blacks. The deaths per 100,000 police encounters is then 1.4999 white deaths by police per 100K encounters (560 / 373.342), and 5.1737 black deaths per 100K encounters (318 / 61.464). That means black people have 3.4 times the per-encounter death rate (NOT per capita -- nothing per capita is done in these numbers). And that's the TOTAL number of encounters.

Limiting it to police-initiated encounters makes things better: whites have 3.039 deaths per 100K police-initiated contacts, and blacks have 9.060 deaths per 100K -- 2.98 times higher than whites (initially I didn't think this would happen, but it makes sense -- white are more likely to initiate police contact than blacks are; blacks get contact initiated by police more often than whites).

I don't think the PPCS is saying what you think it says.

Lapaz said:

I disagree that why police encounter blacks more is not a separate issue from how people are treated once encountered. That isn't convenience. They are totally separate issues. There are many reasons why areas are policed differently. That policy is not set by individual cops. Once a cop encounters a crime that leads to an encounter, there does not seem to be any bias towards killing more blacks. The bias is slightly towards killing more whites per encounter.

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I'm going to go back and re-read your previous posts to find out why you think the bias is more towards killing whites per encounter. I just used the PPCS statistics and the number of deaths by race by the police in the most recent year available and the result is NOT that whites get killed more per encounter -- it's exactly the opposite. Maybe I can find out why our numbers are so different.

Lapaz said:

IIn 2018, about 1000 people were killed out of 7.7 million encounters, and about twice as many of those were white than black, although blacks committed more murders.

People shot to death by U.S. police, by race 2024 | Statista

The trend of fatal police shootings in the U.S. seems to only be increasing each year, with Black civilians having the highest rates of being killed by police.

www.statista.com

The reality is that all races encounter the police about equally per capita.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpp15.pdf

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Where are you getting 7.7 million encounters? I think that's where your numbers are wrong, perhaps.

And what does number of murders have to do with anything? Just look back at the past 20-30 black deaths by police that are causing the outrage and they all to my knowledge have nothing to do with the deceased committing a murder first.

Apropos of the recent protests over police brutality, I wanted to share this opinion piece from a good friend of mine from law school that was published in the Denver Post today:


Jason is as genuine and all-around good as anyone I've ever met. I could go on about him all day, but would rather let his words speak for themselves. I asked him if I could share it, and he said "share it everywhere where you think it will make a difference!" A couple of us are trying to get it into the Advocate too.

They are painting the streets downtown right now:

Street painted as anti-racism rally planned in Toronto this afternoon

MT15 said:

I agree with everything you wrote here until that last sentence. I think you are short changing the dedication of the majority of police officers that truly do see themselves as public servants. The good ones are drawn to that service as a calling. There is no doubt in my mind, though, that these days have been very difficult for them. When your profession is in total upheaval that has to be stressful, added on to the stresses of doing their jobs.

This whole redefinition is necessary, though, I just hope it has a positive outcome.

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It looks like it's already happening.

V Chip said:

Where are you getting 7.7 million encounters? I think that's where your numbers are wrong, perhaps.

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I think I see what it is -- you keep saying "encounters" when what you're referring to is arrests. Is that what the 7.7 million number represents?

V Chip said:

I think I see what it is -- you keep saying "encounters" when what you're referring to is arrests. Is that what the 7.7 million number represents?

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I apologize about the confusion, and thanks for engaging in good faith. Yes, I meant arrests, not just encounters. I wrongly used them as synonyms. Also, I posted the source of the 7.7M arrests at SR.com, and I thought I had posted it here. Here it is:


The 7.7M figure indicates that the police have to arrest a large number of people annually, so considering that many people resist violently, having about 1000 people killed by the police isn't extraordinary.

My analysis mostly focuses on the most violent crimes that are not biased by over-policing, which are murders, because I doubt that over-policing is skewing that number.

With that, my assumptions are as follows:
1) 80% of police killings occur when police are arresting someone for a murder, because murderers have the least to lose by killing a cop. I suspect at least another 15% are for other arrests associated with violent crimes, and 5% during arrests for non-violent crimes.

2) The statistica stats on police killing by race are accurate which state that in 2018, police killed 399 white people and 209 black people. That 2 to 1 ratio is fairly steady over the last few years.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/numbers are representative.

3) Since I have the FBI murder stats for 2018, I assume that 2018 is representative of today's rates. In 2018, blacks committed 4778 murders to whites committing 3953 murders.

If 80% of the police killings occurred when arresting murderers, then 167.2 (209*0.8) blacks and 319.2 (399*0.8) whites were killed during murder arrests.

From that I determined that the likelihood of being killed by a cop during a murder arrest for blacks is simply 209*0.8 killed by cops/4778 murder arrests = 3.5% while for whites it is 399*0.8/3953 = 8.07%. So it is more than twice as likely for a white murderer to be killed by the police during an arrest than a black murderer.

That leaves about 42 (209 -167) blacks and 80 (399-319) whites killed during all of the other 7.7M types of arrests. Whites were arrested about 5.3M times while blacks were arrested about 2.1M times in 2018. The murder arrests are effectively already taken out of those numbers, because they are round-off errors. So for all other crimes, the likelihood of a white person being killed was 0.0015% (80/5.3M) while for blacks it was 0.002% (42/2.1M). So blacks were a little more likely to be killed during other types of arrests. This doesn't tell you anything about whether any of those people threatened the police. Most of the killings during arrests of murderers and at least some of the arrests for other crimes were probably justifiable homicide due to threats against the police. So the number of unjustified homicides by the police is very small.

If you eliminate my assumptions, and just divide police killings of a race/arrests of that race, then you get the likelihood of a white person being killed during an arrest is 0.0075% (399/5.3M) to 0.0099 for blacks, so blacks are most likely to be killed during arrests, but I don't think this is an accurate depiction, because the vast majority of arrests are for non-violent crimes, and people don't usually want to add murder charges to non-violent crimes. So the critical element in all of these analyses is the behavior of the person being arrested, and the most violent acts towards police are almost certainly coming from the arrests for the most violent acts. This suggest to me that there is very little if any bias towards killing blacks.

I believe there is a lot of distrust among the black community towards cops, and it is a self-fulling prophecy, because it leads to more tension in any arrests and encounters. This may be justified due to more abusive tactics towards the black community, so the real problem may be perception and some abusive tactics, but not so much killings.