4 ms·

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

by 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.

by grkvlt 10y ago

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.