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The Fining of Black America

MichaelBurge 10y ago
The only source of revenue for government operations should be tax revenue, voted on by taxpayers. Anything else should redistributed back to the taxpayers as a credit. Same thing with civil asset forfeiture: The government needs to be held to a high standard in collecting revenue, so there isn't even an appearance of being selfish. I've lived in a few areas, and the 'black part of town' is always some rundown ghetto compared to the rest. They talk differently, and can talk back more aggressively than the others. It's the only race that seems have its own unintegrated subculture: Someone who's Asian, Jewish, or Mexican after 1 or 2 generations might have distinct friends in a friend graph, but if you meet them on the street they're just another person. Even visiting foreigners stand out less than black people in the United States. If I were a police officer interested in fining people, I'd head to the rundown parts of the city where the "broken window theory" says more crimes will be committed. And there seems to be more black people there. So I'd probably end up fining more black people than not. My guess is that whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture. That is, a black person who cannot be easily distinguished over the telephone would be statistically similar to the population as a whole. In particular, they wouldn't be fined as much. I would also guess that black children adopted by middle-class white families don't have this problem.
- eevilspock 10y ago
  Sounds like you're putting the blame on black people. I recommend you read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisis Coates.
  - GrinningFool 10y ago
    I leaned towards reading it as blaming the culture that rewards the behaviors that lead to trouble. Only "leaning" because the strongest support of it is the idea presented of moving a black child to a middle-class American family - that child will still be black, but he contends (rightly or wrongly) that the same issues would not be present. At least to me, this suggest it's perception of a culture under discussion - a culture that is concomitantly dominated by black members. Could just be I'm being to generous in my reading though :)
    - ams6110 10y ago
      Exactly, it's not skin color it's culture and behavior.
      - runako 10y ago
        How does an armed police officer evaluate the culture of a person moving past in a vehicle, so that they know who comes from a bad culture and thus is okay to target?
        flukus 10y ago
        By knowing the region they're working in.
      - natrius 10y ago
        How many unarmed black people have to be gunned down by their own government before skin color makes a difference? I am beyond despair. A society that systematically oppresses black people still thinks skin color is irrelevant. There is no hope.
    - lukeschlather 10y ago
      The thing is, the data clearly show that police are using skin color as a signal in deciding who to pull over, and furthermore the data show quite clearly that skin color does not correlate with illegal behavior. So even in your "charitable reading" the premise is faulty. Black culture is no more criminal than white culture. For example, black people who are stopped and searched are less likely than white people to have drugs. (This doesn't mean that black people are less likely to have drugs, just that police are more likely to stop black people without probable cause.) [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffi...
- pessimizer 10y ago
  "My guess is that whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture. That is, a black person who cannot be easily distinguished over the telephone would be statistically similar to the population as a whole. In particular, they wouldn't be fined as much." What?
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    I'm describing a scientific experiment that goes something like this: 1. Collect N voice samples from N people, and ask M people to classify whether each sample is 'black' or 'not black'. Don't tell the N people exactly how the rest of the experiment is being run, to avoid people intentionally trying to sound different. 2. Define a 'black index' for each of the N people that is the percentage of M people who voted "Sounds like a black person" over (the average percentage of "Sounds like a black person" for the N candidates as a whole). The denominator is said to be the "baseline" percentage. 3. I predict that the black index is positively correlated with frequency-of-fines. I'll further predict that white people with a higher black index are fined more than black people with a lower black index.
    - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
      Something like this was done with resumes from black- versus nonblack-sounding names [1]: "Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity. The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant...a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience. Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a better resume for those with Africa-American names was much smaller." [1] http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
      - 10y ago
- Shivetya 10y ago
  It is easy pickings for cops in many poor areas, driving older vehicles, having obvious damage, and worse a light out, its a freebie to the cops. Best of all, there is a good chance of no license, suspended license, drugs, or alcohol. I am curious about studies of outlying areas, how much of their revenue is also disproportionately from minorities or do you just need to be poor? The saddest part its not just fines that bury inner city poor, but all those little costs government imposes on people through fees and similar. I do love your idea that all fines and confiscations must be refunded to the population as a whole. However I figure some communities might latch onto the local interstate for a boost.
- kamau 10y ago
  Typical racist.
  - scelerat 10y ago
    Care to address the parent's postulates, rather than calling names?
    - unclebucknasty 10y ago
      It's so bad on so many levels that it is actually difficult to respond. Literally don't know where to begin or end. But, your parent summed it up nicely. It's not just name-calling. It's a concise description of the thinking and attitudes that would produce such a misguided comment: pure racism.
    - lkrubner 10y ago
      kamau is not calling anyone a name, they are correctly categorizing the parent post. The parent post is typical of the type of post that is written by racists. That is not name calling, that is the act of categorizing. If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid.
      - flukus 10y ago
        So if an argument is used by racists everyone else that uses it is racist, no matter how sound the argument is? | If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid. Now try it by changing squid to white and cat to black and see if you still think it's a good argument.
      - hueving 10y ago
        Whether referring to the post or the poster, the comment is vapid.
    - kamau 10y ago
- yardie 10y ago
  the 'black part of town' is always some rundown ghetto compared to the rest. Yes, that is the case with redlining, disinvestment, and lets not even get started with them being treated as a nonentity. Interstates and highways were built over and through predominantly black/minority neighbourhoods. White neighbourhoods did not want them because property values, black neighbourhoods weren't even asked. It's the only race that seems have its own unintegrated subculture It's so unintegrated white America can't stop adopting it. Rock and Roll was black. Today, you wouldn't be able to tell. If I were a police officer interested in fining people, I'd head to the rundown parts of the city where the "broken window theory" says more crimes will be committed. And there seems to be more black people there. So I'd probably end up fining more black people than not. If all you do is look for black criminals, yes that is exactly what you will find. whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture. ¿Wait, what!? black children adopted by middle-class white families don't have this problem. Oh, they find out soon enough, when being pulled over for "XXXXing while black" the police aren't concerned with who raised you, just the colour of your skin.
- natrius 10y ago
  Newsflash: a distinct accent and unassimilated culture is a pretty predictable result of government-enforced segregation, a policy which still has not ended. Voluntary segregation on top of that makes it worse. Single-family zoning is explicit segregation, yet it's popular across America. You can only build the most expensive kind of home in those neighborhoods. A majority of white families live in that type of home. A minority of black families do. Surprise! Segregated neighborhoods! We culturally define "good schools" not as schools that increase a child's chances of success relative to other schools, but as schools that rich white people attend. We buy homes in segregated neighborhoods so we can send our kids to segregated schools, and we fight against cheaper housing options like apartments because they will make our schools less segregated and reduce our property values as a result. Surprise! Segregation! Wealthy selfish people use our governments as weapons against black families, yet it's their fault that there's an unintegrated subculture. God bless America, a nation that will never allow black families to thrive.
  - astronautjones 10y ago
    This is a stellar response. I'm kind of appalled at some of these replies, but as was noted earlier today it's nice to have a forum where differing views are espoused (even if some are broadly ignorant)
  - Snargorf 10y ago
    Everything you described is simply ways that rich people avoid living around poor people. Yes, it generally excludes blacks, but that's incidental and only because blacks tend to be poor. On the flipside, these policies keep out poor whites as much as poor blacks, for the exact same reasons. Rich black basketball players, musicians, doctors and politicians have no problem living in mostly-white neighborhoods. Of course, rich Asians also have no trouble living in white neighborhoods, because there are no racial segregation policies. I find it amazing how you attribute the simple dynamics of people sorting themselves by wealth, which have been very strong in all urban societies everywhere ever, and make them out as though they're some sort of racial targeting system. e.g. 19th century Paris was almost all white French and had the same wealth clustering patterns for the same fundamental reasons.
- 50CNT 10y ago
  My hunch is that "what gives black people a 'back accent'" is continued segregation into the "black part of town". Not legal segregation (at least not anymore), but unbroken feedback loops that keep them there. As a non-politically tinged example, look at black expats in China. They dis-proportionally go into the entertainment industry. Why is that? They usually come over as students (Sino-African friendship and all). Now most Caucasian foreign students find jobs as English teachers. However, many Chinese parents want white teachers as a bragging token, so most schools will not hire black English teachers. With the easiest option out, most of the circle of black friends you'd acquire as a black foreign student partying is involved in the entertainment industry, and suddenly you're a promoter too. There's a barrier to entry in that example (for English teaching), and a self-perpetuating feedback loop (if you have predominantly black friends in China, your network is mostly in entertainment or leaves after finishing their studies). Now back to Compton. Worse barriers to entry, and most of your network has shot someone. What color is your parachute?
- infosample 10y ago
  Crime statistics for black people are high, therefore black people are criminals. Same argument rehashed since the 1860's - https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-Americans/dp/0385722702/ https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-A...
  - steveeq1 10y ago
    Straw man.
- ilaksh 10y ago
  Congratulations, you just defined prejudice and racism, in case a few people in this thread weren't sure what it was.
- infosample 10y ago
  "I've lived in a few areas ..." - anecdotal. "can talk back more aggressively than the others" - opinion. "only race that seems have" - opinion. "If I were a police officer" - I'm glad you aren't. "I'd probably end up fining more black people" - clearly. "My guess is that whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture." - history is recorded so you don't have to guess. To fine someone for an accent is discrimination and illegal. "they wouldn't be fined as much" - evidence please. "I would also guess ..." - guessing is the basis of discrimination. Rather than guess, I recommend researching for facts, ask why, make sure your facts are right, repeat. Bonus points for optimism, empathy, and assuming others want the same from life as you.
  - themartorana 10y ago
    "...is discrimination and illegal..." Ain't that exactly what TFA is about, though? Doesn't seem to matter when the people in charge of upholding the law flagrantly break it themselves.
- sbov 10y ago
  Your guess is probably wrong. My wife had a black friend in a small town (~5k) without many black people. There weren't enough to have a "black part" of town but her friend was still constantly pulled over by the police. Driving while black might sound like a joke but it isn't.
- marchenko 10y ago
  "Visiting foreigners" stand out less than blacks (to whites) because America defines "black" as "Other". The racial division in America is often described as black v. white, and sometimes as white v. nonwhite, but is best described as black v. nonblack. Every other ethnicity has a chance, however slim, to sue for entry to whiteness. Attempts to compare the experience African Americans to other ethnicities are complicated because these groups are not similarly situated with respect to racial bias.
- infosample 10y ago
  > "Asian, Jewish, or Mexican after 1 or 2 generations ..." African-American's after 1 or 2 generations were slaves, after 15 generations were still slaves, after 20 generations didn't have rights, after 23 generations are over-policed and incarcerated at rates unprecedented in developed countries. Maybe there is a difference between descendants of slavery and those who came to America voluntarily, with every legal protection, and without the assumptions that come with a 'black accent' or being from a 'black part of town'. The Broken Window Theory will find crime in places with broken windows. Like going through your innocent looking girlfriend's phone - surveil, search, stop and frisk any neighborhood and you will find what you are looking for. Please keep in mind what won't show up in crime statistics because they weren't illegal: Kidnapping 12.5 million Africans, enslaving them, raping them, taking their children, hanging them, burning their homes, terrorizing them, denying their right to language/religion/reading/home ownership/voting/education/use the same classroom, swimming pool, water fountain, bus seat, restaurant, hotel as white people, and being forced to live in the "'black part of town' is always some rundown ghetto compared to the rest" otherwise known as segregation. The solution isn't adoption by middle-class white families but by treating black people fairly before the law tells you to do so. Voluntary segregation is a two-way street. When black people move to white neighborhoods, white people don't have to move.
outis 10y ago
> It seems unlikely that the connection between fines and large African American populations—a connection that cannot be explained by poverty—is the result of African Americans across the United States committing more finable offenses. I'm not sure why that seems unlikely. African Americans commit a disproportionately large amount of violent crimes. It seems reasonable to expect that they also commit a larger amount of misdemeanors and minor infractions. It would be far more surprising if they had a higher propensity to break the law, but only when the violation is serious and the penalty heavy.
- cassieramen 10y ago
  They give some data to back up that statement. > Although African Americans and Whites report smoking marijuana at the same rates, African Americans are 3.7 times more likely get arrested for marijuana possession. > An analysis of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 6.6% of White people between the ages of 12 and 25 have sold drugs compared to 5.0% of Blacks. Yet Black people are 3.6 times more likely get arrested for selling drugs.
  - flukus 10y ago
    How many of those are arrested in high crime areas? What is the arrest rate like in comparison to poor white areas? The discrepancy may be explainable simply by the police presence in the area.
    - alsetmusic 10y ago
      > The discrepancy may be explainable simply by the police presence in the area. I'd take it one step further: I live in a medium to medium class neighborhood with a few lower priced apartments dotted throughout. One is actually next door to me. I had to call 911 last weekend when a bbq at the apt building next to me was close to violence. I listened through an open window as one calm male tried to disuade his friend from starting a fight as the latter ranted for 45 minutes in the street sometime after midnight. I heard male number one mention an open arrest warrant as an attempt to reason with male number two that violence was not going to end well. Male number two repeatedly dismissed this and periodically became hysterical with anger. Between my initial call to 911 and the time when police arrived, I heard a new voice arrive, alerting the hostile guy that he (male number three) had called his cousin for backup and reminding everyone that his cousin is a Crip (a west coast gang, for those who are unfamiliar). I made a second 911 call to update the officers that the situation appeared to be escalating. So, what I'm driving towards is the additional possibility that this type of behavior sticks out terribly in a quiet neighborhood where most residents have families and go to sleep by 10pm. The likelihood of someone notifying authorities is probably greater than in a high crime area because this is an extremely rare occurrence here. Edit: yes, I live in a predominantly white neighborhood and the bbq attendees were all black, but that seemed less relevant until I remembered that someone is likely to ask.
cassieramen 10y ago
Great analysis! I'd be interested to see an analysis of the demographics of the police departments in cities with a high percentage of revenue coming from fines. It might also be interesting to look at the historical demographics of that city. I wonder if a city "in transition" (either becoming more or less diverse) is more fine happy as the dominant population loses or gains power.
- adrr 10y ago
  That would be interesting. Also voter turned out as another dimension to go along the same line of thinking. I am going to take a guess that a local government that preys on its citizens has low voter turn out either by apathy or disenfranchisement or maybe a combo of both. Wonder if exit polls track race which would be another helpful bit of information.
flareback 10y ago
What I didn't see in the article is the percentage of fines that come from each race. If Ferguson MO is 65% black then it would make sense that roughly 65% of the fines come from blacks, but if 80% comes from the black population then that would show a racial bias.
- yardie 10y ago
  Read the FBI report. It's way past 80%, citations are 90%, arrests are 95% from 2011 to 2013, African Americans accounted for 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges, and 94% of all Failure to Comply charges.
  - ams6110 10y ago
    Well? Were they walking in roadways, and not moving to the sidewalk when instructed to do so?
    - zepto 10y ago
      Were they instructed to do so as frequently as white people?
    - ceejayoz 10y ago
      Those sound like good candidates for arbitrary, hard to defend, catch-all offenses for "I don't like you and am going to charge you with something."
    - yardie 10y ago
      I don't know, spend 30 minutes and read the frigging report, like I did. Maybe it will have the exact answer you are looking for.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Not necessarily. It could be that, say, poor people are more likely to get fined. If more black people are poor, then it could look like discrimination against blacks, when it's just discrimination against the poor.
noonespecial 10y ago
The Finance Director wanted the police to generate more revenues from fines If you've already criminalized so much of daily life that there's an essentially unlimited amount of "criminals" to go out and fine whenever you need a little extra cash, you've ceased to be "law enforcement" at all and have simply implemented a brutally regressive tax scheme, Sheriff of Nottingham style.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- superuser2 10y ago
  That's pretty much what speed limits are.
  - brian-armstrong 10y ago
    I don't think that's a fair comparison, no. A car is a multiton killing machine if used improperly. Speeding is substantially more dangerous than jaywalking, and it moves the risk to other people.
    - mcbits 10y ago
      Speeding is a chicken-and-egg problem due to the culture of driving 10-15 over whatever the speed limit is. It's generally safe (weather permitting) because the speed limits are low enough to offset it, but it creates an atmosphere where police can pick and choose who to pull over. If the speed limits were raised to a level where speeders were genuinely unsafe without a major attitude adjustment among drivers, the roads would be considerably more dangerous.
      - gambiting 10y ago
        To offer one example - in Poland, the motorway limit is very high, 140km/h(90mph), highest in Europe I believe if we ignore the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn. That leads to two things: 1) most people actually drive slightly below the limit, since vast majority of cars are not comfortable cruisers at 90mph, sure you can get to 90mph in your 1.4 Polo but it will be very loud inside and uncomfortable. 2) Even less people drive significantly above the speed limit, so the police does not see patrolling motorways as worth their time - even if you were doing an otherwise crazy 120mph(200kmh) the largest ticket they could give you would be like ~$100 and a few points on your licence(you need 21 to lose it). So it's not worth their time. As a result, when I drive there I don't have to worry about constantly being 5-10mph over the limit, since 90mph is fast enough. Setting the speed limit on a 4-5 lane highway to 50mph like in some places in the States is just asking for trouble,and I'm sure it's an excellent source of revenue for the local law enforcement.
jomamaxx 10y ago
As a Candian in Cali, I too, was fined rather large amounts for minor (though admittedly consistent) traffic violations. I suggest this is mostly a problem with how law enforcement works across the board in America. Also - going to see a 'judge' for a minor traffic ticket? That's crazy. In Canada, you get a ticket, you pay it, done. And there aren't crazy traps everywhere etc.. That African Americans happen to occupy the lower tier of the economic stratum (not saying this is right), means they are much more likely to be thrown by any disbursement of these fines: 'not showing to court' for tiny offenses can be worse than the offence itself. Perhaps it's exasperated by racism, but it's more of a general problem.
- twblalock 10y ago
  You don't generally need to see a judge unless you want to challenge the ticket. Most tickets in California can be paid online or by mail. It differs by county.
  - astronautjones 10y ago
    in Atlanta, you have to go either way - the judge decides your penalty. it's ridiculous and a complete waste of time
    - bmelton 10y ago
      But then they get to tack on "court costs" as increased fines.
- tamana 10y ago
  Do you why AfricanAmericans- "happen" to occupy the lower tier? 200 years of slavery, lynching, redlining, forced unemployment, and segregation, and then letting the cycle of poverty run on autopilot.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    "Do you why AfricanAmericans- "happen" to occupy the lower tier? 200 years of slavery, lynching, redlining, forced unemployment, and segregation, and then letting the cycle of poverty run on autopilot." Yes, dude, I'm well aware of American history, thanks for the deep insight. Also, it's much more complicated than 'slavery and oppression'.
mc32 10y ago
What if police were funded at the state level and all revenues from fines went to the central gov't? Ration of officers per 1,000 people would be distributed where they are statistically needed more --that way you avoid wealthy areas with cops who sit around pulling over out of towners because they have little else to do and locales that need a police force to deal with the crime can have more officers to police the locale. Bonus, one pension one authority to negotiate contracts, etc.
- fiatmoney 10y ago
  That is a recipe for centralized power unaccountable to the population they are theoretically protecting.
  - mc32 10y ago
    Well, from what I gather here, decentralized power isn't faring vary fairly for at least some of the pop. The current decentralization is resulting in abuse an lack of accountability. I'm sure we could devise community oversight over the state police force. At least the police could have less variance and without the pressure to raise funds from citing locals, provide a fairer police force.
  - anentropic 10y ago
    no, it's not
  - infinite8s 10y ago
    That's only true because of the minimal participation of the population in state level elections/politics.
- paulstovell 10y ago
  In Australia police are funded at the state level, and most fines go to the state, but parking fines etc. go to the local councils. The benefit is that you get more consistency between police training across the state and pooled resources. Certainly I think the police are more trusted here.
MajorLOL 10y ago
>White neighbourhoods did not want them because property values, black neighbourhoods weren't even asked. Selective memory? Keystone XL pipeline didn't care about color of property owners when using things like eminent domain. US Fed runs highways through while farmland. Your deceptive when you imply that its blacks only. >It's so unintegrated white America can't stop adopting it. Entertainment, not lifestyle. >If all you do is look for black criminals, yes that is exactly what you will find. Or if all you are doing is looking for a troubled part of town, that's exactly what you will find. >¿Wait, what!? Acting offended doesn't negate his point. The "black accent" is lazy, low lexical density, hyper masculine and caustic. It's the core of a culture, communication. Be white, get pulled over and talk like you normally would to the officer. Get pulled over again and adopt the lingo and "snap on a fuckin' racist ass pig trin' to hol' you down tho'" and let me know how it goes. His point is strong - act like an animal, get treated like an animal. "Oh, they find out soon enough, when being pulled over for "XXXXing while black"" Ok while we are making stuff up - I guess whites will find out soon enough that they are racist for "XXXXing while white". Nobody's concerned with a white males problems, hes probably privileged anyway so fuck him, right?
- jessaustin 10y ago
  News flash: your man Obama saved you from that evil pipeline, so it isn't actually an example that supports your argument. (Too bad for all of us who live near a train track. [0]) And yes, if they could have pieced together a route entirely through Indian reservations and Muslim farms, they would have. Although I think you may underestimate the difference between losing one's home and [EDIT, thanks Joe:] getting a pipe buried under one's field. [0] http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/06/oregon_oil_train_derailment_is.html http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2...
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    I've had a pipeline under my (rural) property for 40 years. No problems yet. Been planted in corn for 20 of those years - so I didn't even lose a strip. Never know it was there except for the boundary markers in the fenceline.
captain_crabs 10y ago
For all the people in this thread who don't feel like they have solid ground to stand on one way or another (more specifically, other me's, middle class white dudes who are bothered by this but don't even know how to start approaching the situation), this book is single-handedly the best resource I've ever come across - "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543 https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/... Give it a read/listen. It's incredible how many things will click into place, how drastically different you'll perceive the world before and after.
- spraak 10y ago
  Thanks, this is a great suggestion
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- JPKab 10y ago
  I think the "middle class white dudes" issue is this: Unless you (like me) had parents who had some bad things happen to them financially, if you're parents knew what they were doing and had some form of means, you were probably successfully isolated from poverty growing up. This means that you're understanding of poverty will lack nuance. If you're one kind of person, you'll think its just bad parenting and bad culture. If you're another kind of person, you'll think it's external causes from racism, bad schools, etc. The fact of the matter is that most people I've encountered who actually grew up in and around poverty understand that Coates portrayal is heavily biased towards the "external" causes, as opposed to the other forms of literature heavily biased towards the "it's their fault they are poor." Why is this? Because there isn't really a market for the nuanced truth: It's a mix of both. I grew up in an extremely poor county with about 50% white/black, and most of both were poor. I went to the same schools, and watched some of my friends go down one path, while most went down the other, very bad path. The problem is people like you, whose parents did what I'm doing with my kids (keeping them away from these failing schools and bad neighborhoods), have no clue what's going on and are limited in your information to the two extremes of WHY this is happening. Why did two of the extremely smart, black male friends of mine growing up go down such extremely different paths? They both were poor, both highly intelligent, but one decided he wanted to fit in with the overly masculine cultural norms in black youth culture, while the other went down the path of escaping the trap of poverty by getting financial aid and going to a great public university. Their paths diverged in 8th grade. What book out there explains this, and if it exists, is there a market for it? Probably not.
bpchaps 10y ago
This matches my experiences in Chicago. A FOIA request got me all of Chicago's parking ticket data from Jan 2009 to March 2016 and I did some quick awk commands to find the most ticketed spots. I found some pretty interesting ones and even went to one of the spots to figure out why so many tickets happen in these spots - it's mostly just from signage issues and bad parking meters that let you pay after parking hours. In particular, a three car-length spot received 2.2 million dollars and a LOT of tows. I called and emailed the alderman office that would handle that spot and got zero results. Tried contacting media outlets, etc, but nobody wants to help out in fixing the spot. Hell, I even posted on reddit and got downvoted for "trying to help dumb people". It's incredibly frustrating that it's seemingly impossible to get anything done in any large city as an individual who just wants to help out.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  I seem to recall a news story similar to this out of Chicago in the past year or so. Hot spots for fines and stuff. Keep kicking that story around, someone will eventually pick up on it.
- dpweb 10y ago
  This is interesting. Maybe blog on this and some media may pick it up? Getting it into the local Chicago media would get some attention from officials.
  - bpchaps 10y ago
    I'm going to take a long break from this project, I think. Working with the data has been fun and all and has probably been the biggest learning experience of anything I've ever done... but doing it all on my own has been pretty stressful, especially after trying really, really hard to get some attention through conventional ways. It's really disheartening to have next to zero traction from the city and the local "open gov hack" groups. Many journalists and tech folks who want to help out have their own goals, but I've been finding more and more that their goals are (at the risk of the obvious) largely attention seeking, so "unsexy" stories don't get much attention. It's a very strange dynamic where so many folk are interested in visualization of data over actually solving problems. I really don't get it. Taking a break from this sort of work will be nice.
simbalion 10y ago
If law-enforcement is for-profit and a necessary piece of the budgeted income, doesn't that demand that laws be broken? If the city is going to in the red unless it meets ticket quotas, then aren't people who break the law providing a service to the government? For-profit prisons create similar problems. It becomes in the best interest of those profiting from these systems to encourage systemic crime. The problem was exposed years ago in the media, why hasn't it been dealt with? I think this is evidence that the people running those local governments are insane. Would a rational minded person ever support such a system? It doesn't take a genius to look at the long term consequences and think "Maybe this plan needs adjustment."
- brbsix 10y ago
  Law enforcement in the U.S. is almost exclusively served by public agencies, so I'm not really sure what you mean when you bring up for-profit. They certainly aren't for-profit in any traditional sense (i.e. engaging in voluntary trade of goods/services in an open market). They're only "for-profit" in the same sense as mafia, in the same sense as government, in that they use violence (or the threat of it) in order to sustain themselves. For an interesting perspective on private prisons, you should see what Gary Johnson has to say on the matter based on his experience as Governor of New Mexico: http://govgaryjohnson.tumblr.com/post/139039414105/private-prisons http://govgaryjohnson.tumblr.com/post/139039414105/private-p... If you want to see some serious influence (for the worse), take a look at the prison guard and law enforcement unions. At least the private organizations are accountable, liable. They aren't bestowed with any magical priviledges or powers. Deals can be renegotiated, people can be fired, competitors can be pursued. Who knows what we could achieve under private (wholly volunatary) policing. Organizations could actually compete on budget, effectiveness, community-fit, supplemental charity services. Don't like the service? Hire someone else.
known 10y ago
Let Black Police/Judge deal with Black Suspects; http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...
joe_the_user 10y ago
OK, Reading the article and looking at their chart[1], something stood out to me. The 38 municipalities they list appear to be extreme outliers with another 100 municipalities looking like relative outliers. It appears that if you remove those cities, trends would look quite different. For example, it actually appears that the median reliance on fine of high-percentage African American cities is lower than average. Basically, it looks like most of the action is in a few place. Thus, it seems like Federal Government should be investigating those 38 or 100 city governments, just as they investigated Ferguson's government. [1] http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png
vivekd 10y ago
Wouldn't the solution to this problem be simple. So you have black individuals being disproportionately charged under the law - so why not include an extra set of inquries in court for black individuals to ensure that they are not being unfairly discriminated against. We can just have the judge ask 1. During sentencing, does the sentence we are imposing on this man/woman markedly deviate from the sentence imposed on similar offenders in similar circumstances who come from different racial backgrounds. 2. Initially - would a reasonable person, giving rise to the circumstances have cause to believe that the defendant would not have been subject to scrutiny were he of a different race (and allow defense counsel to bring in statistical evidence to try and prove this.) All we are trying to do here is to prevent differential treatment under the law, which seems like a very easy problem to fix.
- bmelton 10y ago
  I suspect that will work as effectively as it currently does when a judge gets involved in a police shooting to the back of an unarmed civilian... which is to say, kangaroo court oversight, at best. The courts are far too often lenient when they needn't be because the officers and the judiciary are ostensibly on "the same side", ergo a broad degree of latitude is afforded the police that would otherwise be reserved for the ruling class for infractions that would almost certainly land either of us in prison.
grkvlt 10y ago
http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png This graph really doesn't seem to support their hypothesis AT ALL - the correlation looks really weak, and they give no strength statistics for it at all. Of the municipalities with the lowest revenue from fines, all of those with the highest percentages (from 80% up to around 100%) of African Americans are represented. On the other hand, in the scattering of municipalities with high revenue from fines (say, over 20%) the percentage of African Americans is anything from less than 5% to 80% with no clear pattern. I'm not convinced...
- Ntrails 10y ago
  Agreed, although http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image04.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image04.png is more indicative of a pattern. I think it would be interesting to look at the ethnic distribution of the police force vs that of local population, in case it offers a stronger signal? One needs the data to do it though and I can't see a link to a clean download.
  - sinxoveretothex 10y ago
    Based on what's shown in the other graph, there are a few cities that are extreme outliers (such as Stone Mountain and Clarkston). Doing an average on such data won't show a trend so much as it will reflect on how much these outliers sway the average. It's like proving that everybody got rich in a town overnight since the average income shot up while Bill Gates came for a visit.
- joe_the_user 10y ago
  The one pattern is at least some of the 38-100 outlier cities are quite likely engaging in a pattern of something akin to racketeering and should be thoroughly investigated. Further, states need to put limits on cities leaning on fine-income in the way that they earlier put limits on speed-traps, since these places seem to basically operate on similar principles.
- ars 10y ago
  100% agreed. Rotate the image to the left (i.e. swap the X and Y axis). And you can clearly see that the larger the black population the less they rely on fines. There are some outliers, and those should be stopped.
obs_guard 10y ago
> Lies, damned lies, and statistics I'm surprised no one has mentioned the lack of statistical significance, std deviation, p-values, etc. Opinions are great and charts are fun but I don't really know that the conclusion is justified outside of Ferguson and other specific municipalities.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
Where can I watch the flag feed?
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  OK, we are told to watch what gets flagged, but no one can say how to do it? In fact, the question gets censored? The API readme does not contain the word 'flag'.
  - kelukelugames 10y ago
    Go figure. :) I wonder how many devs work on HN. There are a number of features on my wishlist.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      I don't think any do. pg seems to have abandoned this a long time ago, but it still hobbles along. The uptime seems to be better than it was awhile ago though. Cloudflare supposedly takes a lot of the pressure off it.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - krapp 10y ago
      kogir and dang are the only two I'm aware of, there may be more but I doubt there are many more. I think their general policy regarding feature requests is to ignore them and hope they go away.
      - dang 10y ago
        You never seem to pass up an opportunity to slag us, usually with statements that are factually wrong. Nick (kogir) left to work on a startup over a year ago. As for features, come back in a few days and review what you said here.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
Tptacek has literally called for people to die based on how they voted on a comment and dang said to stop discussing it. I believe the comment still exists.
- tptacek 10y ago
  I would like to see that comment, too. I bet it's amazing.
- DanBC 10y ago
  Your inability to find it is telling. Here's one comment from tptacek that includes the words "vote" and "die". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2404136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2404136 It's still live, which is a criteria you included. It got upvotes, and there's no dang reply, so I'm not sure if it's the comment you meant. I'm not able to find any other comment that fits your description. Can you? > The blub setter/getter comment really is the archetypical "dumb comment", isn't it? Nicely done. > Users should live or die by their votes on that comment. If you vote up the blub comment, you should personally get the downvotes for it too. Upvotes should expose you to the karmic downside of superficial comments. > Especially because the really good comments, the ones most deserving of upvotes, don't seem to get a lot of downvotes; watch the scores on a 'patio11 comment closely sometime to see an example. I quoted the full thing because context. But it's really obvious that he's not talking about actually killing actual people. (Unlike some other HN users.)
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    Would flag this if I could. My 'inability'? You have not even asked. Search my history if you want to find it. Otherwise I'll bring it to you at my leisure.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      You're the one making the claim, you should be the one to support it with a link.

The only source of revenue for government operations should be tax revenue, voted on by taxpayers. Anything else should redistributed back to the taxpayers as a credit. Same thing with civil asset forfeiture: The government needs to be held to a high standard in collecting revenue, so there isn't even an appearance of being selfish. I've lived in a few areas, and the 'black part of town' is always some rundown ghetto compared to the rest. They talk differently, and can talk back more aggressively than the others. It's the only race that seems have its own unintegrated subculture: Someone who's Asian, Jewish, or Mexican after 1 or 2 generations might have distinct friends in a friend graph, but if you meet them on the street they're just another person. Even visiting foreigners stand out less than black people in the United States. If I were a police officer interested in fining people, I'd head to the rundown parts of the city where the "broken window theory" says more crimes will be committed. And there seems to be more black people there. So I'd probably end up fining more black people than not. My guess is that whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture. That is, a black person who cannot be easily distinguished over the telephone would be statistically similar to the population as a whole. In particular, they wouldn't be fined as much. I would also guess that black children adopted by middle-class white families don't have this problem.

eevilspock 10y ago
Sounds like you're putting the blame on black people. I recommend you read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisis Coates.
- GrinningFool 10y ago
  I leaned towards reading it as blaming the culture that rewards the behaviors that lead to trouble. Only "leaning" because the strongest support of it is the idea presented of moving a black child to a middle-class American family - that child will still be black, but he contends (rightly or wrongly) that the same issues would not be present. At least to me, this suggest it's perception of a culture under discussion - a culture that is concomitantly dominated by black members. Could just be I'm being to generous in my reading though :)
  - ams6110 10y ago
    Exactly, it's not skin color it's culture and behavior.
    - runako 10y ago
      How does an armed police officer evaluate the culture of a person moving past in a vehicle, so that they know who comes from a bad culture and thus is okay to target?
      - flukus 10y ago
        By knowing the region they're working in.
    - natrius 10y ago
      How many unarmed black people have to be gunned down by their own government before skin color makes a difference? I am beyond despair. A society that systematically oppresses black people still thinks skin color is irrelevant. There is no hope.
  - lukeschlather 10y ago
    The thing is, the data clearly show that police are using skin color as a signal in deciding who to pull over, and furthermore the data show quite clearly that skin color does not correlate with illegal behavior. So even in your "charitable reading" the premise is faulty. Black culture is no more criminal than white culture. For example, black people who are stopped and searched are less likely than white people to have drugs. (This doesn't mean that black people are less likely to have drugs, just that police are more likely to stop black people without probable cause.) [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffi...
pessimizer 10y ago
"My guess is that whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture. That is, a black person who cannot be easily distinguished over the telephone would be statistically similar to the population as a whole. In particular, they wouldn't be fined as much." What?
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  I'm describing a scientific experiment that goes something like this: 1. Collect N voice samples from N people, and ask M people to classify whether each sample is 'black' or 'not black'. Don't tell the N people exactly how the rest of the experiment is being run, to avoid people intentionally trying to sound different. 2. Define a 'black index' for each of the N people that is the percentage of M people who voted "Sounds like a black person" over (the average percentage of "Sounds like a black person" for the N candidates as a whole). The denominator is said to be the "baseline" percentage. 3. I predict that the black index is positively correlated with frequency-of-fines. I'll further predict that white people with a higher black index are fined more than black people with a lower black index.
  - JumpCrisscross 10y ago
    Something like this was done with resumes from black- versus nonblack-sounding names [1]: "Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity. The 50 percent gap in callback rates is statistically very significant...a white name yields as many more callbacks as an additional eight years of experience. Race, the authors add, also affects the reward to having a better resume. Whites with higher quality resumes received 30 percent more callbacks than whites with lower quality resumes. But the positive impact of a better resume for those with Africa-American names was much smaller." [1] http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html
    - 10y ago
Shivetya 10y ago
It is easy pickings for cops in many poor areas, driving older vehicles, having obvious damage, and worse a light out, its a freebie to the cops. Best of all, there is a good chance of no license, suspended license, drugs, or alcohol. I am curious about studies of outlying areas, how much of their revenue is also disproportionately from minorities or do you just need to be poor? The saddest part its not just fines that bury inner city poor, but all those little costs government imposes on people through fees and similar. I do love your idea that all fines and confiscations must be refunded to the population as a whole. However I figure some communities might latch onto the local interstate for a boost.
kamau 10y ago
Typical racist.
- scelerat 10y ago
  Care to address the parent's postulates, rather than calling names?
  - unclebucknasty 10y ago
    It's so bad on so many levels that it is actually difficult to respond. Literally don't know where to begin or end. But, your parent summed it up nicely. It's not just name-calling. It's a concise description of the thinking and attitudes that would produce such a misguided comment: pure racism.
  - lkrubner 10y ago
    kamau is not calling anyone a name, they are correctly categorizing the parent post. The parent post is typical of the type of post that is written by racists. That is not name calling, that is the act of categorizing. If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid.
    - flukus 10y ago
      So if an argument is used by racists everyone else that uses it is racist, no matter how sound the argument is? | If you give me a box full of cats and squid, and I pull out a creature that only has 4 legs, and I say "Typical cat" I'm not insulting the cat, I'm simply correctly separating it from the squid. Now try it by changing squid to white and cat to black and see if you still think it's a good argument.
    - hueving 10y ago
      Whether referring to the post or the poster, the comment is vapid.
  - kamau 10y ago
yardie 10y ago
the 'black part of town' is always some rundown ghetto compared to the rest. Yes, that is the case with redlining, disinvestment, and lets not even get started with them being treated as a nonentity. Interstates and highways were built over and through predominantly black/minority neighbourhoods. White neighbourhoods did not want them because property values, black neighbourhoods weren't even asked. It's the only race that seems have its own unintegrated subculture It's so unintegrated white America can't stop adopting it. Rock and Roll was black. Today, you wouldn't be able to tell. If I were a police officer interested in fining people, I'd head to the rundown parts of the city where the "broken window theory" says more crimes will be committed. And there seems to be more black people there. So I'd probably end up fining more black people than not. If all you do is look for black criminals, yes that is exactly what you will find. whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture. ¿Wait, what!? black children adopted by middle-class white families don't have this problem. Oh, they find out soon enough, when being pulled over for "XXXXing while black" the police aren't concerned with who raised you, just the colour of your skin.
natrius 10y ago
Newsflash: a distinct accent and unassimilated culture is a pretty predictable result of government-enforced segregation, a policy which still has not ended. Voluntary segregation on top of that makes it worse. Single-family zoning is explicit segregation, yet it's popular across America. You can only build the most expensive kind of home in those neighborhoods. A majority of white families live in that type of home. A minority of black families do. Surprise! Segregated neighborhoods! We culturally define "good schools" not as schools that increase a child's chances of success relative to other schools, but as schools that rich white people attend. We buy homes in segregated neighborhoods so we can send our kids to segregated schools, and we fight against cheaper housing options like apartments because they will make our schools less segregated and reduce our property values as a result. Surprise! Segregation! Wealthy selfish people use our governments as weapons against black families, yet it's their fault that there's an unintegrated subculture. God bless America, a nation that will never allow black families to thrive.
- astronautjones 10y ago
  This is a stellar response. I'm kind of appalled at some of these replies, but as was noted earlier today it's nice to have a forum where differing views are espoused (even if some are broadly ignorant)
- Snargorf 10y ago
  Everything you described is simply ways that rich people avoid living around poor people. Yes, it generally excludes blacks, but that's incidental and only because blacks tend to be poor. On the flipside, these policies keep out poor whites as much as poor blacks, for the exact same reasons. Rich black basketball players, musicians, doctors and politicians have no problem living in mostly-white neighborhoods. Of course, rich Asians also have no trouble living in white neighborhoods, because there are no racial segregation policies. I find it amazing how you attribute the simple dynamics of people sorting themselves by wealth, which have been very strong in all urban societies everywhere ever, and make them out as though they're some sort of racial targeting system. e.g. 19th century Paris was almost all white French and had the same wealth clustering patterns for the same fundamental reasons.
50CNT 10y ago
My hunch is that "what gives black people a 'back accent'" is continued segregation into the "black part of town". Not legal segregation (at least not anymore), but unbroken feedback loops that keep them there. As a non-politically tinged example, look at black expats in China. They dis-proportionally go into the entertainment industry. Why is that? They usually come over as students (Sino-African friendship and all). Now most Caucasian foreign students find jobs as English teachers. However, many Chinese parents want white teachers as a bragging token, so most schools will not hire black English teachers. With the easiest option out, most of the circle of black friends you'd acquire as a black foreign student partying is involved in the entertainment industry, and suddenly you're a promoter too. There's a barrier to entry in that example (for English teaching), and a self-perpetuating feedback loop (if you have predominantly black friends in China, your network is mostly in entertainment or leaves after finishing their studies). Now back to Compton. Worse barriers to entry, and most of your network has shot someone. What color is your parachute?
infosample 10y ago
Crime statistics for black people are high, therefore black people are criminals. Same argument rehashed since the 1860's - https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-Americans/dp/0385722702/ https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-A...
- steveeq1 10y ago
  Straw man.
ilaksh 10y ago
Congratulations, you just defined prejudice and racism, in case a few people in this thread weren't sure what it was.
infosample 10y ago
"I've lived in a few areas ..." - anecdotal. "can talk back more aggressively than the others" - opinion. "only race that seems have" - opinion. "If I were a police officer" - I'm glad you aren't. "I'd probably end up fining more black people" - clearly. "My guess is that whatever gives black people a 'black accent' or voice is also what's responsible for the fining and bad subculture." - history is recorded so you don't have to guess. To fine someone for an accent is discrimination and illegal. "they wouldn't be fined as much" - evidence please. "I would also guess ..." - guessing is the basis of discrimination. Rather than guess, I recommend researching for facts, ask why, make sure your facts are right, repeat. Bonus points for optimism, empathy, and assuming others want the same from life as you.
- themartorana 10y ago
  "...is discrimination and illegal..." Ain't that exactly what TFA is about, though? Doesn't seem to matter when the people in charge of upholding the law flagrantly break it themselves.
sbov 10y ago
Your guess is probably wrong. My wife had a black friend in a small town (~5k) without many black people. There weren't enough to have a "black part" of town but her friend was still constantly pulled over by the police. Driving while black might sound like a joke but it isn't.
marchenko 10y ago
"Visiting foreigners" stand out less than blacks (to whites) because America defines "black" as "Other". The racial division in America is often described as black v. white, and sometimes as white v. nonwhite, but is best described as black v. nonblack. Every other ethnicity has a chance, however slim, to sue for entry to whiteness. Attempts to compare the experience African Americans to other ethnicities are complicated because these groups are not similarly situated with respect to racial bias.
infosample 10y ago
> "Asian, Jewish, or Mexican after 1 or 2 generations ..." African-American's after 1 or 2 generations were slaves, after 15 generations were still slaves, after 20 generations didn't have rights, after 23 generations are over-policed and incarcerated at rates unprecedented in developed countries. Maybe there is a difference between descendants of slavery and those who came to America voluntarily, with every legal protection, and without the assumptions that come with a 'black accent' or being from a 'black part of town'. The Broken Window Theory will find crime in places with broken windows. Like going through your innocent looking girlfriend's phone - surveil, search, stop and frisk any neighborhood and you will find what you are looking for. Please keep in mind what won't show up in crime statistics because they weren't illegal: Kidnapping 12.5 million Africans, enslaving them, raping them, taking their children, hanging them, burning their homes, terrorizing them, denying their right to language/religion/reading/home ownership/voting/education/use the same classroom, swimming pool, water fountain, bus seat, restaurant, hotel as white people, and being forced to live in the "'black part of town' is always some rundown ghetto compared to the rest" otherwise known as segregation. The solution isn't adoption by middle-class white families but by treating black people fairly before the law tells you to do so. Voluntary segregation is a two-way street. When black people move to white neighborhoods, white people don't have to move.

outis 10y ago

> It seems unlikely that the connection between fines and large African American populations—a connection that cannot be explained by poverty—is the result of African Americans across the United States committing more finable offenses. I'm not sure why that seems unlikely. African Americans commit a disproportionately large amount of violent crimes. It seems reasonable to expect that they also commit a larger amount of misdemeanors and minor infractions. It would be far more surprising if they had a higher propensity to break the law, but only when the violation is serious and the penalty heavy.

cassieramen 10y ago
They give some data to back up that statement. > Although African Americans and Whites report smoking marijuana at the same rates, African Americans are 3.7 times more likely get arrested for marijuana possession. > An analysis of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 6.6% of White people between the ages of 12 and 25 have sold drugs compared to 5.0% of Blacks. Yet Black people are 3.6 times more likely get arrested for selling drugs.
- flukus 10y ago
  How many of those are arrested in high crime areas? What is the arrest rate like in comparison to poor white areas? The discrepancy may be explainable simply by the police presence in the area.
  - alsetmusic 10y ago
    > The discrepancy may be explainable simply by the police presence in the area. I'd take it one step further: I live in a medium to medium class neighborhood with a few lower priced apartments dotted throughout. One is actually next door to me. I had to call 911 last weekend when a bbq at the apt building next to me was close to violence. I listened through an open window as one calm male tried to disuade his friend from starting a fight as the latter ranted for 45 minutes in the street sometime after midnight. I heard male number one mention an open arrest warrant as an attempt to reason with male number two that violence was not going to end well. Male number two repeatedly dismissed this and periodically became hysterical with anger. Between my initial call to 911 and the time when police arrived, I heard a new voice arrive, alerting the hostile guy that he (male number three) had called his cousin for backup and reminding everyone that his cousin is a Crip (a west coast gang, for those who are unfamiliar). I made a second 911 call to update the officers that the situation appeared to be escalating. So, what I'm driving towards is the additional possibility that this type of behavior sticks out terribly in a quiet neighborhood where most residents have families and go to sleep by 10pm. The likelihood of someone notifying authorities is probably greater than in a high crime area because this is an extremely rare occurrence here. Edit: yes, I live in a predominantly white neighborhood and the bbq attendees were all black, but that seemed less relevant until I remembered that someone is likely to ask.

cassieramen 10y ago

Great analysis! I'd be interested to see an analysis of the demographics of the police departments in cities with a high percentage of revenue coming from fines. It might also be interesting to look at the historical demographics of that city. I wonder if a city "in transition" (either becoming more or less diverse) is more fine happy as the dominant population loses or gains power.

adrr 10y ago
That would be interesting. Also voter turned out as another dimension to go along the same line of thinking. I am going to take a guess that a local government that preys on its citizens has low voter turn out either by apathy or disenfranchisement or maybe a combo of both. Wonder if exit polls track race which would be another helpful bit of information.

flareback 10y ago

What I didn't see in the article is the percentage of fines that come from each race. If Ferguson MO is 65% black then it would make sense that roughly 65% of the fines come from blacks, but if 80% comes from the black population then that would show a racial bias.

yardie 10y ago
Read the FBI report. It's way past 80%, citations are 90%, arrests are 95% from 2011 to 2013, African Americans accounted for 95% of Manner of Walking in Roadway charges, and 94% of all Failure to Comply charges.
- ams6110 10y ago
  Well? Were they walking in roadways, and not moving to the sidewalk when instructed to do so?
  - zepto 10y ago
    Were they instructed to do so as frequently as white people?
  - ceejayoz 10y ago
    Those sound like good candidates for arbitrary, hard to defend, catch-all offenses for "I don't like you and am going to charge you with something."
  - yardie 10y ago
    I don't know, spend 30 minutes and read the frigging report, like I did. Maybe it will have the exact answer you are looking for.
Houshalter 10y ago
Not necessarily. It could be that, say, poor people are more likely to get fined. If more black people are poor, then it could look like discrimination against blacks, when it's just discrimination against the poor.

noonespecial 10y ago

The Finance Director wanted the police to generate more revenues from fines If you've already criminalized so much of daily life that there's an essentially unlimited amount of "criminals" to go out and fine whenever you need a little extra cash, you've ceased to be "law enforcement" at all and have simply implemented a brutally regressive tax scheme, Sheriff of Nottingham style.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
superuser2 10y ago
That's pretty much what speed limits are.
- brian-armstrong 10y ago
  I don't think that's a fair comparison, no. A car is a multiton killing machine if used improperly. Speeding is substantially more dangerous than jaywalking, and it moves the risk to other people.
  - mcbits 10y ago
    Speeding is a chicken-and-egg problem due to the culture of driving 10-15 over whatever the speed limit is. It's generally safe (weather permitting) because the speed limits are low enough to offset it, but it creates an atmosphere where police can pick and choose who to pull over. If the speed limits were raised to a level where speeders were genuinely unsafe without a major attitude adjustment among drivers, the roads would be considerably more dangerous.
    - gambiting 10y ago
      To offer one example - in Poland, the motorway limit is very high, 140km/h(90mph), highest in Europe I believe if we ignore the unrestricted sections of the Autobahn. That leads to two things: 1) most people actually drive slightly below the limit, since vast majority of cars are not comfortable cruisers at 90mph, sure you can get to 90mph in your 1.4 Polo but it will be very loud inside and uncomfortable. 2) Even less people drive significantly above the speed limit, so the police does not see patrolling motorways as worth their time - even if you were doing an otherwise crazy 120mph(200kmh) the largest ticket they could give you would be like ~$100 and a few points on your licence(you need 21 to lose it). So it's not worth their time. As a result, when I drive there I don't have to worry about constantly being 5-10mph over the limit, since 90mph is fast enough. Setting the speed limit on a 4-5 lane highway to 50mph like in some places in the States is just asking for trouble,and I'm sure it's an excellent source of revenue for the local law enforcement.

jomamaxx 10y ago

As a Candian in Cali, I too, was fined rather large amounts for minor (though admittedly consistent) traffic violations. I suggest this is mostly a problem with how law enforcement works across the board in America. Also - going to see a 'judge' for a minor traffic ticket? That's crazy. In Canada, you get a ticket, you pay it, done. And there aren't crazy traps everywhere etc.. That African Americans happen to occupy the lower tier of the economic stratum (not saying this is right), means they are much more likely to be thrown by any disbursement of these fines: 'not showing to court' for tiny offenses can be worse than the offence itself. Perhaps it's exasperated by racism, but it's more of a general problem.

twblalock 10y ago
You don't generally need to see a judge unless you want to challenge the ticket. Most tickets in California can be paid online or by mail. It differs by county.
- astronautjones 10y ago
  in Atlanta, you have to go either way - the judge decides your penalty. it's ridiculous and a complete waste of time
  - bmelton 10y ago
    But then they get to tack on "court costs" as increased fines.
tamana 10y ago
Do you why AfricanAmericans- "happen" to occupy the lower tier? 200 years of slavery, lynching, redlining, forced unemployment, and segregation, and then letting the cycle of poverty run on autopilot.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  "Do you why AfricanAmericans- "happen" to occupy the lower tier? 200 years of slavery, lynching, redlining, forced unemployment, and segregation, and then letting the cycle of poverty run on autopilot." Yes, dude, I'm well aware of American history, thanks for the deep insight. Also, it's much more complicated than 'slavery and oppression'.

mc32 10y ago

What if police were funded at the state level and all revenues from fines went to the central gov't? Ration of officers per 1,000 people would be distributed where they are statistically needed more --that way you avoid wealthy areas with cops who sit around pulling over out of towners because they have little else to do and locales that need a police force to deal with the crime can have more officers to police the locale. Bonus, one pension one authority to negotiate contracts, etc.

fiatmoney 10y ago
That is a recipe for centralized power unaccountable to the population they are theoretically protecting.
- mc32 10y ago
  Well, from what I gather here, decentralized power isn't faring vary fairly for at least some of the pop. The current decentralization is resulting in abuse an lack of accountability. I'm sure we could devise community oversight over the state police force. At least the police could have less variance and without the pressure to raise funds from citing locals, provide a fairer police force.
- anentropic 10y ago
  no, it's not
- infinite8s 10y ago
  That's only true because of the minimal participation of the population in state level elections/politics.
paulstovell 10y ago
In Australia police are funded at the state level, and most fines go to the state, but parking fines etc. go to the local councils. The benefit is that you get more consistency between police training across the state and pooled resources. Certainly I think the police are more trusted here.

MajorLOL 10y ago

>White neighbourhoods did not want them because property values, black neighbourhoods weren't even asked. Selective memory? Keystone XL pipeline didn't care about color of property owners when using things like eminent domain. US Fed runs highways through while farmland. Your deceptive when you imply that its blacks only. >It's so unintegrated white America can't stop adopting it. Entertainment, not lifestyle. >If all you do is look for black criminals, yes that is exactly what you will find. Or if all you are doing is looking for a troubled part of town, that's exactly what you will find. >¿Wait, what!? Acting offended doesn't negate his point. The "black accent" is lazy, low lexical density, hyper masculine and caustic. It's the core of a culture, communication. Be white, get pulled over and talk like you normally would to the officer. Get pulled over again and adopt the lingo and "snap on a fuckin' racist ass pig trin' to hol' you down tho'" and let me know how it goes. His point is strong - act like an animal, get treated like an animal. "Oh, they find out soon enough, when being pulled over for "XXXXing while black"" Ok while we are making stuff up - I guess whites will find out soon enough that they are racist for "XXXXing while white". Nobody's concerned with a white males problems, hes probably privileged anyway so fuck him, right?

jessaustin 10y ago
News flash: your man Obama saved you from that evil pipeline, so it isn't actually an example that supports your argument. (Too bad for all of us who live near a train track. [0]) And yes, if they could have pieced together a route entirely through Indian reservations and Muslim farms, they would have. Although I think you may underestimate the difference between losing one's home and [EDIT, thanks Joe:] getting a pipe buried under one's field. [0] http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2016/06/oregon_oil_train_derailment_is.html http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2...
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  I've had a pipeline under my (rural) property for 40 years. No problems yet. Been planted in corn for 20 of those years - so I didn't even lose a strip. Never know it was there except for the boundary markers in the fenceline.

captain_crabs 10y ago

For all the people in this thread who don't feel like they have solid ground to stand on one way or another (more specifically, other me's, middle class white dudes who are bothered by this but don't even know how to start approaching the situation), this book is single-handedly the best resource I've ever come across - "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/0812993543 https://www.amazon.com/Between-World-Me-Ta-Nehisi-Coates/dp/... Give it a read/listen. It's incredible how many things will click into place, how drastically different you'll perceive the world before and after.

spraak 10y ago
Thanks, this is a great suggestion
deleted 10y ago
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JPKab 10y ago
I think the "middle class white dudes" issue is this: Unless you (like me) had parents who had some bad things happen to them financially, if you're parents knew what they were doing and had some form of means, you were probably successfully isolated from poverty growing up. This means that you're understanding of poverty will lack nuance. If you're one kind of person, you'll think its just bad parenting and bad culture. If you're another kind of person, you'll think it's external causes from racism, bad schools, etc. The fact of the matter is that most people I've encountered who actually grew up in and around poverty understand that Coates portrayal is heavily biased towards the "external" causes, as opposed to the other forms of literature heavily biased towards the "it's their fault they are poor." Why is this? Because there isn't really a market for the nuanced truth: It's a mix of both. I grew up in an extremely poor county with about 50% white/black, and most of both were poor. I went to the same schools, and watched some of my friends go down one path, while most went down the other, very bad path. The problem is people like you, whose parents did what I'm doing with my kids (keeping them away from these failing schools and bad neighborhoods), have no clue what's going on and are limited in your information to the two extremes of WHY this is happening. Why did two of the extremely smart, black male friends of mine growing up go down such extremely different paths? They both were poor, both highly intelligent, but one decided he wanted to fit in with the overly masculine cultural norms in black youth culture, while the other went down the path of escaping the trap of poverty by getting financial aid and going to a great public university. Their paths diverged in 8th grade. What book out there explains this, and if it exists, is there a market for it? Probably not.

bpchaps 10y ago

This matches my experiences in Chicago. A FOIA request got me all of Chicago's parking ticket data from Jan 2009 to March 2016 and I did some quick awk commands to find the most ticketed spots. I found some pretty interesting ones and even went to one of the spots to figure out why so many tickets happen in these spots - it's mostly just from signage issues and bad parking meters that let you pay after parking hours. In particular, a three car-length spot received 2.2 million dollars and a LOT of tows. I called and emailed the alderman office that would handle that spot and got zero results. Tried contacting media outlets, etc, but nobody wants to help out in fixing the spot. Hell, I even posted on reddit and got downvoted for "trying to help dumb people". It's incredibly frustrating that it's seemingly impossible to get anything done in any large city as an individual who just wants to help out.

dredmorbius 10y ago
I seem to recall a news story similar to this out of Chicago in the past year or so. Hot spots for fines and stuff. Keep kicking that story around, someone will eventually pick up on it.
dpweb 10y ago
This is interesting. Maybe blog on this and some media may pick it up? Getting it into the local Chicago media would get some attention from officials.
- bpchaps 10y ago
  I'm going to take a long break from this project, I think. Working with the data has been fun and all and has probably been the biggest learning experience of anything I've ever done... but doing it all on my own has been pretty stressful, especially after trying really, really hard to get some attention through conventional ways. It's really disheartening to have next to zero traction from the city and the local "open gov hack" groups. Many journalists and tech folks who want to help out have their own goals, but I've been finding more and more that their goals are (at the risk of the obvious) largely attention seeking, so "unsexy" stories don't get much attention. It's a very strange dynamic where so many folk are interested in visualization of data over actually solving problems. I really don't get it. Taking a break from this sort of work will be nice.

simbalion 10y ago

If law-enforcement is for-profit and a necessary piece of the budgeted income, doesn't that demand that laws be broken? If the city is going to in the red unless it meets ticket quotas, then aren't people who break the law providing a service to the government? For-profit prisons create similar problems. It becomes in the best interest of those profiting from these systems to encourage systemic crime. The problem was exposed years ago in the media, why hasn't it been dealt with? I think this is evidence that the people running those local governments are insane. Would a rational minded person ever support such a system? It doesn't take a genius to look at the long term consequences and think "Maybe this plan needs adjustment."

brbsix 10y ago
Law enforcement in the U.S. is almost exclusively served by public agencies, so I'm not really sure what you mean when you bring up for-profit. They certainly aren't for-profit in any traditional sense (i.e. engaging in voluntary trade of goods/services in an open market). They're only "for-profit" in the same sense as mafia, in the same sense as government, in that they use violence (or the threat of it) in order to sustain themselves. For an interesting perspective on private prisons, you should see what Gary Johnson has to say on the matter based on his experience as Governor of New Mexico: http://govgaryjohnson.tumblr.com/post/139039414105/private-prisons http://govgaryjohnson.tumblr.com/post/139039414105/private-p... If you want to see some serious influence (for the worse), take a look at the prison guard and law enforcement unions. At least the private organizations are accountable, liable. They aren't bestowed with any magical priviledges or powers. Deals can be renegotiated, people can be fired, competitors can be pursued. Who knows what we could achieve under private (wholly volunatary) policing. Organizations could actually compete on budget, effectiveness, community-fit, supplemental charity services. Don't like the service? Hire someone else.

known 10y ago

Let Black Police/Judge deal with Black Suspects; http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/ http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...

joe_the_user 10y ago

OK, Reading the article and looking at their chart[1], something stood out to me. The 38 municipalities they list appear to be extreme outliers with another 100 municipalities looking like relative outliers. It appears that if you remove those cities, trends would look quite different. For example, it actually appears that the median reliance on fine of high-percentage African American cities is lower than average. Basically, it looks like most of the action is in a few place. Thus, it seems like Federal Government should be investigating those 38 or 100 city governments, just as they investigated Ferguson's government. [1] http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png

vivekd 10y ago

Wouldn't the solution to this problem be simple. So you have black individuals being disproportionately charged under the law - so why not include an extra set of inquries in court for black individuals to ensure that they are not being unfairly discriminated against. We can just have the judge ask 1. During sentencing, does the sentence we are imposing on this man/woman markedly deviate from the sentence imposed on similar offenders in similar circumstances who come from different racial backgrounds. 2. Initially - would a reasonable person, giving rise to the circumstances have cause to believe that the defendant would not have been subject to scrutiny were he of a different race (and allow defense counsel to bring in statistical evidence to try and prove this.) All we are trying to do here is to prevent differential treatment under the law, which seems like a very easy problem to fix.

bmelton 10y ago
I suspect that will work as effectively as it currently does when a judge gets involved in a police shooting to the back of an unarmed civilian... which is to say, kangaroo court oversight, at best. The courts are far too often lenient when they needn't be because the officers and the judiciary are ostensibly on "the same side", ergo a broad degree of latitude is afforded the police that would otherwise be reserved for the ruling class for infractions that would almost certainly land either of us in prison.

grkvlt 10y ago

http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image02.png This graph really doesn't seem to support their hypothesis AT ALL - the correlation looks really weak, and they give no strength statistics for it at all. Of the municipalities with the lowest revenue from fines, all of those with the highest percentages (from 80% up to around 100%) of African Americans are represented. On the other hand, in the scattering of municipalities with high revenue from fines (say, over 20%) the percentage of African Americans is anything from less than 5% to 80% with no clear pattern. I'm not convinced...

Ntrails 10y ago
Agreed, although http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image04.png http://pix-media.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/1190/image04.png is more indicative of a pattern. I think it would be interesting to look at the ethnic distribution of the police force vs that of local population, in case it offers a stronger signal? One needs the data to do it though and I can't see a link to a clean download.
- sinxoveretothex 10y ago
  Based on what's shown in the other graph, there are a few cities that are extreme outliers (such as Stone Mountain and Clarkston). Doing an average on such data won't show a trend so much as it will reflect on how much these outliers sway the average. It's like proving that everybody got rich in a town overnight since the average income shot up while Bill Gates came for a visit.
joe_the_user 10y ago
The one pattern is at least some of the 38-100 outlier cities are quite likely engaging in a pattern of something akin to racketeering and should be thoroughly investigated. Further, states need to put limits on cities leaning on fine-income in the way that they earlier put limits on speed-traps, since these places seem to basically operate on similar principles.
ars 10y ago
100% agreed. Rotate the image to the left (i.e. swap the X and Y axis). And you can clearly see that the larger the black population the less they rely on fines. There are some outliers, and those should be stopped.

obs_guard 10y ago

> Lies, damned lies, and statistics I'm surprised no one has mentioned the lack of statistical significance, std deviation, p-values, etc. Opinions are great and charts are fun but I don't really know that the conclusion is justified outside of Ferguson and other specific municipalities.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

Where can I watch the flag feed?

jsprogrammer 10y ago
OK, we are told to watch what gets flagged, but no one can say how to do it? In fact, the question gets censored? The API readme does not contain the word 'flag'.
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  Go figure. :) I wonder how many devs work on HN. There are a number of features on my wishlist.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    I don't think any do. pg seems to have abandoned this a long time ago, but it still hobbles along. The uptime seems to be better than it was awhile ago though. Cloudflare supposedly takes a lot of the pressure off it.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - krapp 10y ago
    kogir and dang are the only two I'm aware of, there may be more but I doubt there are many more. I think their general policy regarding feature requests is to ignore them and hope they go away.
    - dang 10y ago
      You never seem to pass up an opportunity to slag us, usually with statements that are factually wrong. Nick (kogir) left to work on a startup over a year ago. As for features, come back in a few days and review what you said here.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

Tptacek has literally called for people to die based on how they voted on a comment and dang said to stop discussing it. I believe the comment still exists.

tptacek 10y ago
I would like to see that comment, too. I bet it's amazing.
DanBC 10y ago
Your inability to find it is telling. Here's one comment from tptacek that includes the words "vote" and "die". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2404136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2404136 It's still live, which is a criteria you included. It got upvotes, and there's no dang reply, so I'm not sure if it's the comment you meant. I'm not able to find any other comment that fits your description. Can you? > The blub setter/getter comment really is the archetypical "dumb comment", isn't it? Nicely done. > Users should live or die by their votes on that comment. If you vote up the blub comment, you should personally get the downvotes for it too. Upvotes should expose you to the karmic downside of superficial comments. > Especially because the really good comments, the ones most deserving of upvotes, don't seem to get a lot of downvotes; watch the scores on a 'patio11 comment closely sometime to see an example. I quoted the full thing because context. But it's really obvious that he's not talking about actually killing actual people. (Unlike some other HN users.)
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Would flag this if I could. My 'inability'? You have not even asked. Search my history if you want to find it. Otherwise I'll bring it to you at my leisure.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    You're the one making the claim, you should be the one to support it with a link.