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> 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

• 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.