5 ms·

I agree that this should be a possibility, while I think the odds that millions of law enforcement officers and criminal justice faculty would spontaneously con

by weberc2 10y ago

I agree that this should be a possibility, while I think the odds that millions of law enforcement officers and criminal justice faculty would spontaneously conspire against a particular race, I also think it's more likely than some genetic predisposition toward crime (i.e., the first option).

zepto 10y ago
Nobody is talking about a conspiracy - racism is about bias.
- weberc2 10y ago
  Fair enough. It would be unlikely that millions of police would be spontaneously biased against African Americans, particularly when you factor in that those officers most likely to use excessive force against African Americans are themselves African American.
  - zepto 10y ago
    Nobody is talking about the bias being spontaneous. It is chronic and cultural. Do you have anything to back up your claim that African American officers are more likely to use force against African Americans than white officers?
    - weberc2 10y ago
      > Nobody is talking about the bias being spontaneous. It is chronic and cultural. It's very counterintuitive that police officers around the country would have a homogeneous culture that diverges so strongly from the cultures of the diverse communities from which they come and in which they live and in which they work. It's necessarily "spontaneous" that police officers around the country coming from diverse backgrounds and living and working in diverse communities would spontaneously adopt a culture that biases them against one race in particular, especially when many of those officers are of that same race. > Do you have anything to back up your claim that African American officers are more likely to use force against African Americans than white officers? 2 separate analyses come to mind, but there are others (I don't have the time to dig up at the moment). As far as I know, this isn't disputed among criminologists. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjn9eeBvb_QAhXC5YMKHZOtB9cQFggbMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcrim.sas.upenn.edu%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2F2015-10.0_Ridgeway_PoliceShooting.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEe1S9nKU0DAy-TrX09xkmhGC82Tw&sig2=-FnORX3SIHEm_RlZPBtP-Q&bvm=bv.139782543,d.amc https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... https://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdf https://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdf
      - zepto 10y ago
        There is nothing counterintuitive or spontaneous about police culture being homogeneous and very different from the surrounding communities. A simple google search will dismiss this notification instantly. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=police%20culture%20and%20behavior https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=police%20culture... Secondly you imply that police diversity somehow matches community diversity, when this is manifestly untrue, particularly in places where it is asserted that discrimination is active. Take Ferguson Missouri, 67.4 percent of the city’s 21,000 residents are black, and 29.3 percent are white. What is the makeup of the police department? 50 white officers, and 4 African American officers. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/17/andrea-mitchell/ferguson-police-department-has-50-white-officers-t/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/17/... The facts do not bear out your conjecture.
        weberc2 10y ago
        1. Your Google search doesn't "dismiss" anything. 2. I made no such implication; only that police come from and work in diverse communities. This means it should be surprising that police from all over and in all places would spontaneously converge on a single, hateful culture. The facts may not bear out to my conjecture, but you've done nothing to demonstrate this.
        zepto 10y ago
        My google search shows that there is an abundance of research into problems with the police culture. That is firmly established. Your second claim is false. See my reference to the diversity of the ferguson police department. You are simply shown to be wrong on this count. Also, nobody has said anything about convergence on a single hateful culture, and nowhere is there anything that requires a biased culture of policing to have occurred spontaneously. That is simply a straw man.
        weberc2 10y ago
        > My google search shows that there is an abundance of research into problems with the police culture. That is firmly established. It only demonstrates that there are a lot of search terms that match those criteria. Without diving into each source, we don't know what's even relevant to this conversation (we have no idea how "police culture" is defined in each of these sources, for example). > Your second claim is false. See my reference to the diversity of the ferguson police department. You are simply shown to be wrong on this count. I saw your reference to the diversity of the ferguson police department, but it has no bearing to my statement. Pointing out the racial disparity between the Ferguson PD and the community it serves does not disprove the notion that police come from diverse communities, nor that police serve diverse communities. It merely proves that in Ferguson, the racial composition of the police don't match that of the surrounding community. > Also, nobody has said anything about convergence on a single hateful culture, and nowhere is there anything that requires a biased culture of policing to have occurred spontaneously. That is simply a straw man. Unless you're proposing that police bias is organized (e.g., conferences about how to better oppress black Americans), then it is necessarily spontaneous if it exists at all. If you want to make a compelling case that racial disparities in criminal justice are principally caused by racist police, you had better at least provide a good explanation for how such a diverse occupation might become racist (in particular because the officers most likely to abuse force are themselves minorities). In particular, it is well-documented that African Americans commit more crime per capita than other American racial groups, so your case must sufficiently explain why these data are inaccurate or how to better interpret them.
Retric 10y ago
Now, this is his first offence, but a young man is found high on PCB walking down the street hitting cars with a baseball bat. It takes five cops and a significant struggle to arrest him. Having read that, what would you assume is race and economic background is? After criminal proceedings he was sentenced to community service. Now, what would you assume is race and economic background is? PS: Bias is insidious and really hard to control for.
- weberc2 10y ago
  I wouldn't make assumptions, but I don't understand your point.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Sounds like you are just avoiding uncomfortable questions. However, most people will make assumption on race and class from things like PCP even though zero information about that in my example.
    - weberc2 10y ago
      No, I just don't understand your question. Do you want me to make a crappy guess based on the crappy data you provided? If so, I don't understand why... Judging by subthreads, you just want to say "Ha! Your crappy guess was wrong!". If you want me to pretend that I'm somehow involved in the processing of this case, but I'm restricted to only the crappy data provided, I wouldn't "assume" anything--I would say I don't have enough information to establish any individual's guilt much less sentence them.
      - Retric 10y ago
        > Do you want me to make a crappy guess based on the crappy data you provided? No, I had zero problem with your response (assuming it was genuine). As I said, it sounds like you are avoiding the question, however avoiding making those associations is the correct response. Anyway, I was not asking if you thought they where guilty or anything. This was a friend of mine and he had zero problem admitting what happened.
dang 10y ago
There are so many places where this thread took a dismal turn that I suppose it's hopeless to even try pruning it, but since this is one of those places, we detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13005641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13005641 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

by weberc2 10y ago

zepto 10y ago

Nobody is talking about a conspiracy - racism is about bias.

weberc2 10y ago
Fair enough. It would be unlikely that millions of police would be spontaneously biased against African Americans, particularly when you factor in that those officers most likely to use excessive force against African Americans are themselves African American.
- zepto 10y ago
  Nobody is talking about the bias being spontaneous. It is chronic and cultural. Do you have anything to back up your claim that African American officers are more likely to use force against African Americans than white officers?
  - weberc2 10y ago
    > Nobody is talking about the bias being spontaneous. It is chronic and cultural. It's very counterintuitive that police officers around the country would have a homogeneous culture that diverges so strongly from the cultures of the diverse communities from which they come and in which they live and in which they work. It's necessarily "spontaneous" that police officers around the country coming from diverse backgrounds and living and working in diverse communities would spontaneously adopt a culture that biases them against one race in particular, especially when many of those officers are of that same race. > Do you have anything to back up your claim that African American officers are more likely to use force against African Americans than white officers? 2 separate analyses come to mind, but there are others (I don't have the time to dig up at the moment). As far as I know, this isn't disputed among criminologists. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjn9eeBvb_QAhXC5YMKHZOtB9cQFggbMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fcrim.sas.upenn.edu%2Fsystem%2Ffiles%2F2015-10.0_Ridgeway_PoliceShooting.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEe1S9nKU0DAy-TrX09xkmhGC82Tw&sig2=-FnORX3SIHEm_RlZPBtP-Q&bvm=bv.139782543,d.amc https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c... https://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdf https://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdf
    - zepto 10y ago
      There is nothing counterintuitive or spontaneous about police culture being homogeneous and very different from the surrounding communities. A simple google search will dismiss this notification instantly. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=police%20culture%20and%20behavior https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=police%20culture... Secondly you imply that police diversity somehow matches community diversity, when this is manifestly untrue, particularly in places where it is asserted that discrimination is active. Take Ferguson Missouri, 67.4 percent of the city’s 21,000 residents are black, and 29.3 percent are white. What is the makeup of the police department? 50 white officers, and 4 African American officers. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/17/andrea-mitchell/ferguson-police-department-has-50-white-officers-t/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/aug/17/... The facts do not bear out your conjecture.
      - weberc2 10y ago
        1. Your Google search doesn't "dismiss" anything. 2. I made no such implication; only that police come from and work in diverse communities. This means it should be surprising that police from all over and in all places would spontaneously converge on a single, hateful culture. The facts may not bear out to my conjecture, but you've done nothing to demonstrate this.
        zepto 10y ago
        My google search shows that there is an abundance of research into problems with the police culture. That is firmly established. Your second claim is false. See my reference to the diversity of the ferguson police department. You are simply shown to be wrong on this count. Also, nobody has said anything about convergence on a single hateful culture, and nowhere is there anything that requires a biased culture of policing to have occurred spontaneously. That is simply a straw man.
        weberc2 10y ago
        > My google search shows that there is an abundance of research into problems with the police culture. That is firmly established. It only demonstrates that there are a lot of search terms that match those criteria. Without diving into each source, we don't know what's even relevant to this conversation (we have no idea how "police culture" is defined in each of these sources, for example). > Your second claim is false. See my reference to the diversity of the ferguson police department. You are simply shown to be wrong on this count. I saw your reference to the diversity of the ferguson police department, but it has no bearing to my statement. Pointing out the racial disparity between the Ferguson PD and the community it serves does not disprove the notion that police come from diverse communities, nor that police serve diverse communities. It merely proves that in Ferguson, the racial composition of the police don't match that of the surrounding community. > Also, nobody has said anything about convergence on a single hateful culture, and nowhere is there anything that requires a biased culture of policing to have occurred spontaneously. That is simply a straw man. Unless you're proposing that police bias is organized (e.g., conferences about how to better oppress black Americans), then it is necessarily spontaneous if it exists at all. If you want to make a compelling case that racial disparities in criminal justice are principally caused by racist police, you had better at least provide a good explanation for how such a diverse occupation might become racist (in particular because the officers most likely to abuse force are themselves minorities). In particular, it is well-documented that African Americans commit more crime per capita than other American racial groups, so your case must sufficiently explain why these data are inaccurate or how to better interpret them.

Retric 10y ago

Now, this is his first offence, but a young man is found high on PCB walking down the street hitting cars with a baseball bat. It takes five cops and a significant struggle to arrest him. Having read that, what would you assume is race and economic background is? After criminal proceedings he was sentenced to community service. Now, what would you assume is race and economic background is? PS: Bias is insidious and really hard to control for.

weberc2 10y ago
I wouldn't make assumptions, but I don't understand your point.
- Retric 10y ago
  Sounds like you are just avoiding uncomfortable questions. However, most people will make assumption on race and class from things like PCP even though zero information about that in my example.
  - weberc2 10y ago
    No, I just don't understand your question. Do you want me to make a crappy guess based on the crappy data you provided? If so, I don't understand why... Judging by subthreads, you just want to say "Ha! Your crappy guess was wrong!". If you want me to pretend that I'm somehow involved in the processing of this case, but I'm restricted to only the crappy data provided, I wouldn't "assume" anything--I would say I don't have enough information to establish any individual's guilt much less sentence them.
    - Retric 10y ago
      > Do you want me to make a crappy guess based on the crappy data you provided? No, I had zero problem with your response (assuming it was genuine). As I said, it sounds like you are avoiding the question, however avoiding making those associations is the correct response. Anyway, I was not asking if you thought they where guilty or anything. This was a friend of mine and he had zero problem admitting what happened.

dang 10y ago

There are so many places where this thread took a dismal turn that I suppose it's hopeless to even try pruning it, but since this is one of those places, we detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13005641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13005641 and marked it off-topic.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]