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B2G

(9,766 posts)
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 11:34 AM Jul 2016

Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings

This is interesting. I'm still digesting it.

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Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings
QUOCTRUNG BUI and AMANDA COX JULY 11, 2016

A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard. The study examined more than a thousand shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.

The result contradicts the mental image of police shootings that many Americans hold in the wake of the killings (some captured on video) of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Laquan McDonald in Chicago; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in South Carolina; Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; and Philando Castile in Minnesota.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

23 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings (Original Post) B2G Jul 2016 OP
The key limitation of the data is they only capture the police side of the story. Native Jul 2016 #1
How ridiculous. Pure bullshit. Guess the black men and women killed shot themselves. brush Jul 2016 #2
I Doubt RobinA Jul 2016 #3
Why not? B2G Jul 2016 #4
Basing conclusions on incomplete and misleading data is unacceptable. KittyWampus Jul 2016 #5
Yes, he acknowledges that B2G Jul 2016 #8
Insist Police Departments start compiling accurate data and allowing advocacy groups access. KittyWampus Jul 2016 #14
Which particular statistic do you find erroneous? nt clarice Jul 2016 #11
ALL the data is incomplete/inaccurate/biased. You didn't read my post very well. KittyWampus Jul 2016 #15
All the data sets are poor. Igel Jul 2016 #18
"The study examined...shootings...in Texas, Florida and California." BumRushDaShow Jul 2016 #6
Not what the OP said. Igel Jul 2016 #21
79 unarmed black people were killed by cops in 2015. Sorry if that's not enough for you. ContinentalOp Jul 2016 #22
Here is what your long dissertation missed - BumRushDaShow Jul 2016 #23
That is an interesting article, need to read it again.In the more egregious shootings, color matters uppityperson Jul 2016 #7
A lot to process. B2G Jul 2016 #9
It is incomplete, but still interesting to see. uppityperson Jul 2016 #10
Man... are YOU asking for trouble. lol clarice Jul 2016 #12
BS. Total BS. According to the data collected by The Counted mnhtnbb Jul 2016 #13
Then, as a ratio per crime committed, whites are killed disproportionately more often Albertoo Jul 2016 #16
the data is INCOMPLETE & INACCURATE. The researcher involved could have used more accurate data KittyWampus Jul 2016 #17
The more accurate data doesn't change the essence of my point #16 Albertoo Jul 2016 #19
19 unarmed black people were shot and killed by police so far this year. ContinentalOp Jul 2016 #20
 

B2G

(9,766 posts)
4. Why not?
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:14 PM
Jul 2016

It's pretty obvious no one has all of the answers.

I do know most minds are already made up, which is half of the problem. Can't consider a well researched opinion that differs from ours, can we?

 

KittyWampus

(55,894 posts)
5. Basing conclusions on incomplete and misleading data is unacceptable.
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:20 PM
Jul 2016

The professor should rethink his research.

The article even admits the data is poor. That is the fact.

So how can you draw any meaningful conclusions?

The study did not say whether the most egregious examples — the kind of killings at the heart of the nation’s debate on police shootings — are free of racial bias. Instead, it examined a much larger pool of shootings, including nonfatal ones. It focused on what happens when police encounters occur, not how often they happen. Racial differences in how often police-civilian interactions occur reflect greater structural problems in society.

Official statistics on police shootings are poor. James Comey, the F.B.I. director, has called the lack of data “embarrassing and ridiculous.” Even when data exists, the conditions under which officers decide to fire their weapons are deeply nuanced and complex.

 

KittyWampus

(55,894 posts)
15. ALL the data is incomplete/inaccurate/biased. You didn't read my post very well.
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:49 PM
Jul 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fbi-director-calls-lack-of-data-on-police-shootings-ridiculous-embarrassing/2015/10/07/c0ebaf7a-6d16-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html

FBI director calls lack of data on police shootings ‘ridiculous,’ ‘embarrassing’

…………………………..



This Might Be a Better Way to Track Police Shootings

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/cdc-data-police-shootings

Now, researchers from Harvard University and Northeastern University say they have identified an overlooked source that could offer the most complete accounting yet of fatal encounters with police. In a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health, the researchers point to the National Violent Death Reporting System, a database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC's trove of data on violent deaths, they write, "captures detailed coded data and rich narratives that describe the precipitating circumstances and incident dynamics for all suicides and homicides." In other words, the data gives a pretty clear picture of the deceased and the moments leading up to their death.

snip

Thirty-two states are now reporting to the database, though current data is only available for 16 states. Surprisingly, even in just those states, Barber and her colleagues identified 1,552 police-involved homicides between 2005 and 2012. That's 71 percent more than the 906 cases identified in the CDC's Vital Statistics, and more than double the 742 cases reported in the FBI's Supplemental Homicide Reports during the same period.

The paper also found stark racial disparities in the available violent death data, consistent with disparities in federal data that have been noted previously:

SEE CHART AT LINK

Igel

(35,191 posts)
18. All the data sets are poor.
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:57 PM
Jul 2016

That is the more important fact, but it's one that we usually rush to ignore when it suits us.

Actually, we go one step further. We don't ignore the incompleteness or non-random nature of the data, we insist that it is based on a random sample. It's not, and the non-randomness has to be factored in at every step of the way.

These researchers try. They're surprised by their results.

We don't. We're consistently pleased by our results.

And still, you can say that "the conditions under which officers decide to fire their weapons are deeply nuanced and complex," while everybody else just says, "Screw those misleading claims of complexity, we know the answer. They're racists."

There are structural discrepancies in society, but even given those there are differences in behaviors between groups. My redneck white kids and professional-parent kids don't act the same. My black immigrant kids and my African-American kids don't act the same. Even if the rules are enforced equally and really are color blind, the outcome is different. Usually they're not, because most of the enforcement is at the level of the teacher--that's me--and if somebody is caught breaking a rule infrequently and just says he'll stop (and pretty much) does he gets a pass, but if another person is caught breaking a rule consistently or doesn't just come clean and makes the problem worse and worse he gets written up.

And I'm still trying to sort out how this kind of thing affects my attitudes and actions: http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/05/culture-and-smiling/483827/

BumRushDaShow

(127,296 posts)
6. "The study examined...shootings...in Texas, Florida and California."
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:23 PM
Jul 2016

Just 3 states. Out of 50. And then they blurt out that their conclusion "contradicts" what is then a listing of the killings in states OTHER THAN Texas, Florida, and California.

Really? How is this "contradicting" anything except common sense because they are now claiming that any police killings of blacks that didn't happen in those 3 states, "didn't happen" at all?



Igel

(35,191 posts)
21. Not what the OP said.
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 01:20 PM
Jul 2016

He said that the study contradicted the *perception* of those killings.

Look, even here I'd get the idea that hundreds of unarmed blacks must be killed every year. It's a rather small number, but my perception from the posts and videos is that it happens every day. It's more like "every week," but even that's not a horribly useful number because that doesn't show if there's racial bias involved. What's needed is the difference between what you'd expect if all the blacks were "white" and what you get because blacks aren't white. And the "excess" in the number of unarmed blacks killed by police versus whites killed by police is small.

There's no claim outside of your post that the killings elsewhere didn't happen. Just that given the factors controlled for, they're not exceptional. That's the nice thing about controls, they sometimes take into account factors that we don't like. If we all liked crtical thinking, it wouldn't be so bloody painful.

The perception is that there's a large, no, a huge discrepancy. But in this case it's not a "you can't challenge my perceptions" over the use of a word because the numbers are there. Are they perfect? No. But they're sent in jurisidiction, and those not reporting are typically very, very small. Then there's the Guardian's numbers, which are very similar to the official numbers when it comes to statistics. Yeah, they're all incomplete. But the same results keep coming up, year after year, so they are probably valid and probably can be compared year after year.

We mock RWers when they say how afraid they are of being killed by terrorists. Humans suck at evaluating risks that are very low but which, if they actually happen, have a big downside. Like terrorist attacks. I'm unlikely to be in one. But if I am, it's likely to be very bad. I know I intuitively suck at this kind of stat.

I'm at higher risk where I live of being shot than being in a terrorist attack, and at higher risk here than where many of my students live. I could exaggerate that. It's hard not to. Esp. since a lot of the young adult male population around here hates my family because of race. Still, we stay because the risk is small. And--at the risk of blaming the potential victim--there are things we can do and do do to reduce the risk. Same for driving--there's a greater risk I'll die in a car crash on the way to the post office today than there is I'll be shot this year, much less shot by police. (That's true for you, too, if you drive or bus anywhere today.) But the fear of being shot could easily be exaggerated. Perceptions =/= reality.

As for having a restricted sample, why do you think that the three states included are unrepresentative? Apart from being disproportionately minority, they seem reasonable according to most standards. There has to be a reason. Why is DC different from NYC different from LA different from Houston or Dallas or Boca Raton or Milwaukee or Detroit or Sausalito when it comes to racist police? If you have a reason that's not already in the research, I'm sure they'd like to know. But saying that a sample isn't fully random because of X is one thing, saying that it uses a sample when all such research *has* to use a sample is pointless. Might not be a flawed claim, but that's not how to bet.


One thing I do think is probably left out is how killings--not by police, mind you--pattern by geography. Nearly half of murders in the US are committed in the South. Statistically far fewer in the NE, NW, or SW. The chance of being shot seems to be greater if you live in an area with a culture historically related to the South. I personally think the economists have to include a bit of cultural anthropology in their work, but that's just me. I'd really like to see the results. Esp. if they teach me something and contradict what I already believe.

ContinentalOp

(5,356 posts)
22. 79 unarmed black people were killed by cops in 2015. Sorry if that's not enough for you.
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 01:33 PM
Jul 2016

38 black people carrying knives were killed.
50 black people armed with something "other" such as a baseball bat were killed.

306 black people overall were killed by police in 2015, so it's almost a daily occurrence. And if you pay any attention to the details of these cases you'll find that many of the supposedly "armed" situations are bullshit. Made up stuff like "He was going after my baton."

You can bet if the Walter Scott shooting hadn't been caught on video, the cop would have used the "he grabbed my taser" defense, because you can clearly see him planting the evidence on Scott's dead body.

BumRushDaShow

(127,296 posts)
23. Here is what your long dissertation missed -
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 02:00 PM
Jul 2016

The fact that police are profiling, targeting, stopping, frisking, and sadly killing unarmed black (mostly) men. And with the advent of cell phone videos, this behavior is being exposed. Absent any video, it's your word against the police and you lose.

The problem with the data that they looked at underscores a problem that has been acknowledged previously - the data really hasn't been collected AT ALL. I.e., we really DON'T have a good handle on how prolific this is outside of cell phone or dash cam videos that just so happened to get posted. In fact, this is most likely why they picked the larger cities in 3 of the largest states (by population) because those locales probably had some sort of data collection going on versus little or none from most of the rest of the states - often due to lawsuits and consent decrees demanding they clean up their acts. In fact it is interesting that one of the most egregious states - New York, where the cops were running rampant in NYC under Dinkins and later Giuliani, was left off the "study" list. And it's also notable that the black population in California, despite all the gang-banger "Crips and Bloods" and "Compton" nonsense, is guess what? 6.4%. In Texas it is 11.8% and Florida, 17%. In NY state it is 16%.

And to address your regionalization argument - here's a clue -




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large_African-American_populations

The issue of getting the type of data needed to really attempt to get a good handle on the problem, was actually addressed by the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing (PDF). The group recently released a 1-year report giving a progress update.

And yes - there are differences from city to city and region to region - notably how the racism manifests. And the problem with "perceptions" is because this country is still so segregated (often thanks to redlining) that to have someone sitting in an all-white town and seeing this report, exclaiming, "Well I've never seen any black people killed by police here!". Well duh. That's just idiotic.

uppityperson

(115,674 posts)
7. That is an interesting article, need to read it again.In the more egregious shootings, color matters
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:28 PM
Jul 2016

As far as being stopped, and how you are treated, color matters. In the more egregious shootings, color matters.

mnhtnbb

(31,318 posts)
13. BS. Total BS. According to the data collected by The Counted
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:40 PM
Jul 2016

Out of 571 people killed by police in the US to date in 2016, these are the stats by race/ethnicity per million

3.4 Native American
3.28 Black
1.59 Hispanic/Latino
1.42 White
0.56 Asian/Pacific Islander

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database

Part of the problem in the US is that no agency is in charge of collecting this data.

Be sure to wander around at the link. Names, places, even photos of most of the killed. You can sort by any number of factors.

 

Albertoo

(2,016 posts)
16. Then, as a ratio per crime committed, whites are killed disproportionately more often
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:50 PM
Jul 2016
Homicide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States#Homicide
According to the US Department of Justice,
- blacks accounted for 52.5% of homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008,
- with whites 45.3%
The offending rate for blacks was almost 8 times higher than whites,

Killed by police http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
Out of 571 people killed by police in the US to date in 2016, stats by race/ethnicity per million
1.42 White
3.28 Black about 2 times higher than whites
 

KittyWampus

(55,894 posts)
17. the data is INCOMPLETE & INACCURATE. The researcher involved could have used more accurate data
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 12:55 PM
Jul 2016

And FAILED to do so.

See my post above for data on violent deaths.


Thirty-two states are now reporting to the database, though current data is only available for 16 states. Surprisingly, even in just those states, Barber and her colleagues identified 1,552 police-involved homicides between 2005 and 2012. That's 71 percent more than the 906 cases identified in the CDC's Vital Statistics, and more than double the 742 cases reported in the FBI's Supplemental Homicide Reports during the same period.




http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/03/cdc-data-police-shootings

 

Albertoo

(2,016 posts)
19. The more accurate data doesn't change the essence of my point #16
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 01:01 PM
Jul 2016

It simply reduces the disparity from 1:4 to 1:2

ContinentalOp

(5,356 posts)
20. 19 unarmed black people were shot and killed by police so far this year.
Mon Jul 11, 2016, 01:10 PM
Jul 2016

23 unarmed white people were shot and killed by police. However four of those were women and children who were murdered at home by their cop spouses/fathers. Take them out and you have 19.

So unarmed black and white people have been shot and killed by police at identical numbers so far this year, despite the fact that there are over five times as many white people in the US.

Numbers from here
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database#

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