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Then in that case, I suppose it all depends on who is doing the justification. Nearly every police shooting in America is "justified" — be it by a police revie

by 3JPLW 9y ago

Then in that case, I suppose it all depends on who is doing the justification. Nearly every police shooting in America is "justified" — be it by a police review board, a prosecutor, a grand jury, or a trial jury.

weberc2 9y ago
I agree, and unfortunately I don't have a good idea about how to audit the entire justice system. My gut says it's unlikely that an entire diverse industry is prejudiced against one particular racial group, and that thousands of laypeople are in on it. Hopefully we can get better data if it doesn't already exist.
- Hnrobert42 9y ago
  You think it unlikely that there is a systemic bias? Bearing in mind that systemic bias isn't usually the result of an overt plan or even hidden conspiracy but instead the simple average of the bias of all the parts of the system.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    Something like that. I guess I don't think bias is as responsible or pervasive as we're lead to believe. Frequently when we look at a disparity, I find myself thinking "Why didn't they check if X, Y, or Z were responsible instead of bias?". One example is the gender wage gap; we now know that women make less than men because they elect into different careers, because they have different priorities. Different groups have different distributions of any given behavior, and not all behaviors have the same outcome. This is all just a hunch, so I won't defend it too much; it just seems more plausible to me than the current "everyone is subconsciously biased against one racial group" theory.
    - mercer 9y ago
      I sort of see what you're getting at, but considering there's been a clear systemic bias against women and black people in our very recent past, and considering that it took a lot of effort (even a civil war, sort of, in the case of black people) to reduce these biases, I find it entirely reasonable to assume that they're still there, to a degree, and that we'll have to expend quite a bit of effort to reduce them further.
      - weberc2 9y ago
        Those were conscious biases though. Most people in our society try very hard to avoid even unconscious bias, often by being consciously biased against minority groups (this might range from small acts of kindness toward a minority group to nonprofits that serve minority groups to corporate inclusivity policies to government programs and affirmative action policies). Given all that, I have a hard time believing bias plays a large role in explaining disparities.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dTal 9y ago
  >My gut says it's unlikely that an entire diverse industry is prejudiced against one particular racial group, and that thousands of laypeople are in on it. Is that a general statement? Because the 20th century would like a word. If we really managed to eliminate institutional racism in the justice system, we should probably try and work out the date that occurred, and make it a national holiday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism

by 3JPLW 9y ago

weberc2 9y ago

I agree, and unfortunately I don't have a good idea about how to audit the entire justice system. My gut says it's unlikely that an entire diverse industry is prejudiced against one particular racial group, and that thousands of laypeople are in on it. Hopefully we can get better data if it doesn't already exist.

Hnrobert42 9y ago
You think it unlikely that there is a systemic bias? Bearing in mind that systemic bias isn't usually the result of an overt plan or even hidden conspiracy but instead the simple average of the bias of all the parts of the system.
- weberc2 9y ago
  Something like that. I guess I don't think bias is as responsible or pervasive as we're lead to believe. Frequently when we look at a disparity, I find myself thinking "Why didn't they check if X, Y, or Z were responsible instead of bias?". One example is the gender wage gap; we now know that women make less than men because they elect into different careers, because they have different priorities. Different groups have different distributions of any given behavior, and not all behaviors have the same outcome. This is all just a hunch, so I won't defend it too much; it just seems more plausible to me than the current "everyone is subconsciously biased against one racial group" theory.
  - mercer 9y ago
    I sort of see what you're getting at, but considering there's been a clear systemic bias against women and black people in our very recent past, and considering that it took a lot of effort (even a civil war, sort of, in the case of black people) to reduce these biases, I find it entirely reasonable to assume that they're still there, to a degree, and that we'll have to expend quite a bit of effort to reduce them further.
    - weberc2 9y ago
      Those were conscious biases though. Most people in our society try very hard to avoid even unconscious bias, often by being consciously biased against minority groups (this might range from small acts of kindness toward a minority group to nonprofits that serve minority groups to corporate inclusivity policies to government programs and affirmative action policies). Given all that, I have a hard time believing bias plays a large role in explaining disparities.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dTal 9y ago
>My gut says it's unlikely that an entire diverse industry is prejudiced against one particular racial group, and that thousands of laypeople are in on it. Is that a general statement? Because the 20th century would like a word. If we really managed to eliminate institutional racism in the justice system, we should probably try and work out the date that occurred, and make it a national holiday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism