4 ms·

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 t

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.
- tamana 10y ago
  A distinction without a difference. White people in USA spent 200 years intentonally creating a correlatio n between skin color and poverty, and then spent 50 years crying "correlarion is not causation"
  - eevilspock 10y ago
    fragile white down-votes.
  - kelukelugames 10y ago
    Let's post some citations. 1) MLK jr. on turning working class whites against freed blacks. http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_address_at_the_conclusion_of_selma_march/ http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentse... 2) Eleanor Rooselvet gets involved when Southern states give New Deal money disproportionally to whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt#Civil_rights_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt#Civil_rights...
- LnxPrgr3 10y ago
  Apologies if I'm missing your point (it's not clear who you meant to reply to), but the article went through that analysis and determined that there's no income correlation, but an obvious correlation by racial makeup. That actually surprised me: I expected racially biased policing to be confirmed, but I also expected evidence of bias against poor people. (Though targeting them seems like a terrible way to increase revenue.) Edit: since they're analyzing cities relying on revenue from fines, this makes sense. You can fine poor people all you want, but if you end up jailing them when they stop even showing up to court, they're now a cost and not a source of revenue. Though there are businesses that somehow make money through fees on payment plans that only exist because they're for fines people can't afford to pay.

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.

tamana 10y ago
A distinction without a difference. White people in USA spent 200 years intentonally creating a correlatio n between skin color and poverty, and then spent 50 years crying "correlarion is not causation"
- eevilspock 10y ago
  fragile white down-votes.
- kelukelugames 10y ago
  Let's post some citations. 1) MLK jr. on turning working class whites against freed blacks. http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_address_at_the_conclusion_of_selma_march/ http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentse... 2) Eleanor Rooselvet gets involved when Southern states give New Deal money disproportionally to whites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt#Civil_rights_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt#Civil_rights...
LnxPrgr3 10y ago
Apologies if I'm missing your point (it's not clear who you meant to reply to), but the article went through that analysis and determined that there's no income correlation, but an obvious correlation by racial makeup. That actually surprised me: I expected racially biased policing to be confirmed, but I also expected evidence of bias against poor people. (Though targeting them seems like a terrible way to increase revenue.) Edit: since they're analyzing cities relying on revenue from fines, this makes sense. You can fine poor people all you want, but if you end up jailing them when they stop even showing up to court, they're now a cost and not a source of revenue. Though there are businesses that somehow make money through fees on payment plans that only exist because they're for fines people can't afford to pay.