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> Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents, This is literally impossible. Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather d

> Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents, This is literally impossible. Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. If you hypothetically have fewer incidents and simultaneously higher percentage reporting of incidents when people are able to see if there's probable evidence supporting their complaints (i.e. the visible presence of a body camera), you could end up with a similar number of reports. This would be especially true when reported incident counts are percentagewise quite low relative to total encounters. I'm not saying that this is true or even likely. I'm saying that it sounds like they didn't actually learn what they are saying they learned, and if true then that cavalier lack of contemplation is very upsetting. > The primary outcomes of interest were documented uses of force and civilian complaints The DC/Baltimore area has had some recent high profile falsification of evidence accidentally caught on camera cases. I notice that it's not discussed. Maybe catching when police plant evidence is a legitimately worthwhile endeavor. Besides, we already know that gathering evidence of malpractice is irrelevant if no meaningful punishment ever results from it.

dpark 9y ago
> This is literally impossible. Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. This is unfair. You're complaining that they didn't do something that you admit is impossible. They measured essentially everything they could.
- BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
  I'm not upset about what they measured. I'm upset about what they claim they learned from it and about the kinds of causation-related lemmata they (erroneously) assert in the report.
  - dpark 9y ago
    Firstly, you're critiquing a study based on a journalist's write-up about it. Secondly, you're essentially making an epistemological argument. You could apply your core argument to almost anything and come up with the assertion that the research is invalid. "Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents" -> "Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. "Researchers observed bosons at 125GeV" -> "Researchers observed detections of bosons at 125GeV, which is factually rather different." This is merely a pedantic argument that things are not truly knowable. But whether the Higgs boson exists and whether body cameras reduce police violence are not unknowable questions. Even if we cannot directly measure, the indirect measures are meaningful to the questions. Now, if there's something else that the researchers should measure, then that would be useful criticism.
    - spurcell93 9y ago
      I agree... at some point, when analyzing a topic, we need to prune the decision tree leading to some tentative conclusions, even if some subtrees might not be 100% verifiably invalid. Our science is imperfect, reporting is imperfect, and very few (if any) complete-information scenarios exist.
    - jamesw6811 9y ago
      There is a pretty big difference in your two examples. Models of bosons behave in a predictable way. I can think of several likely reasons that reports of use-of-force incidents would not correlate directly with actual use-of-force. As a result, in a study or a journalistic write-up of said study, I wouldn't jump to the shorthand of "tracked use-of-force incidents" as opposed to "reports of use-of-force incidents". Just because something is the best way of measuring a quantity we currently have doesn't mean it is good enough to equate the measurement with the quantity in shorthand.
      - dpark 9y ago
        I think the examples track pretty well. You could say that body cameras somehow cause a rise and reporting that exactly offsets the reduction in violence, but that’s not even wild conjecture. It’s worse. It’s inventing factors to make the data fit, factors that are by definition not measurable. Whatever we measure, it’s possible to invent a factor that makes the measurement completely wrong. Scientists could similarly argue that there is another particle that only shows up when we measure that happens to look exactly like the Higgs boson in every way we can measure. But then everyone would call bullshit. Again, if there are better/other things to measure, that’s legitimate criticism. Simply inventing factors that make the valid measurements null and declaring it impossible to actually measure isn’t.
        BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
        Measure what you can measure. Claim what you can claim. Don't claim what you can't claim based on what you measured. We're not talking about counting photons here. We're talking about human selective self-reporting under different circumstances. Understand the chasm between those things.
- FabHK 9y ago
  I've been wondering about that. What if they gave a third group a prominently visible dummy body cam that did not record, and the police officer knew it, but to others it would look like there was a body cam? And possibly a fourth group a working body cam that was barely visible to others? With variations like these, one might be able to tease out more information about the causal relationships.
  - dpark 9y ago
    Yeah. I agree they could have done more to capture the factors here better. I wonder about the "dummy" body cam, though. I feel like that's an obvious group to include for the sake of teasing out contributing factors, but I also wonder if that would have gotten them sued. "You were supposed to be filming but somehow the footage is missing and now you claim it wasn't even a real camera?!"
    - dmurray 9y ago
      They don't get sued (successfully) for having body cams and actually destroying evidence when it suits them, so they should be pretty safe with not collecting it at all.
clouddrover 9y ago
> The DC/Baltimore area has had some recent high profile falsification of evidence accidentally caught on camera cases. Such as this one: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-camera-video-allegedly-shows-baltimore-police-plant-drugs-n784561 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-camera-video-alleg... They were only caught out because they forgot that the 30 seconds prior to turning the camera "on" would be included in the video.

dpark 9y ago

> This is literally impossible. Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. This is unfair. You're complaining that they didn't do something that you admit is impossible. They measured essentially everything they could.

BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
I'm not upset about what they measured. I'm upset about what they claim they learned from it and about the kinds of causation-related lemmata they (erroneously) assert in the report.
- dpark 9y ago
  Firstly, you're critiquing a study based on a journalist's write-up about it. Secondly, you're essentially making an epistemological argument. You could apply your core argument to almost anything and come up with the assertion that the research is invalid. "Researchers tracked use-of-force incidents" -> "Researchers tracked reports of use-of-force incidents, which is factually rather different. "Researchers observed bosons at 125GeV" -> "Researchers observed detections of bosons at 125GeV, which is factually rather different." This is merely a pedantic argument that things are not truly knowable. But whether the Higgs boson exists and whether body cameras reduce police violence are not unknowable questions. Even if we cannot directly measure, the indirect measures are meaningful to the questions. Now, if there's something else that the researchers should measure, then that would be useful criticism.
  - spurcell93 9y ago
    I agree... at some point, when analyzing a topic, we need to prune the decision tree leading to some tentative conclusions, even if some subtrees might not be 100% verifiably invalid. Our science is imperfect, reporting is imperfect, and very few (if any) complete-information scenarios exist.
  - jamesw6811 9y ago
    There is a pretty big difference in your two examples. Models of bosons behave in a predictable way. I can think of several likely reasons that reports of use-of-force incidents would not correlate directly with actual use-of-force. As a result, in a study or a journalistic write-up of said study, I wouldn't jump to the shorthand of "tracked use-of-force incidents" as opposed to "reports of use-of-force incidents". Just because something is the best way of measuring a quantity we currently have doesn't mean it is good enough to equate the measurement with the quantity in shorthand.
    - dpark 9y ago
      I think the examples track pretty well. You could say that body cameras somehow cause a rise and reporting that exactly offsets the reduction in violence, but that’s not even wild conjecture. It’s worse. It’s inventing factors to make the data fit, factors that are by definition not measurable. Whatever we measure, it’s possible to invent a factor that makes the measurement completely wrong. Scientists could similarly argue that there is another particle that only shows up when we measure that happens to look exactly like the Higgs boson in every way we can measure. But then everyone would call bullshit. Again, if there are better/other things to measure, that’s legitimate criticism. Simply inventing factors that make the valid measurements null and declaring it impossible to actually measure isn’t.
      - BugsJustFindMe 9y ago
        Measure what you can measure. Claim what you can claim. Don't claim what you can't claim based on what you measured. We're not talking about counting photons here. We're talking about human selective self-reporting under different circumstances. Understand the chasm between those things.
FabHK 9y ago
I've been wondering about that. What if they gave a third group a prominently visible dummy body cam that did not record, and the police officer knew it, but to others it would look like there was a body cam? And possibly a fourth group a working body cam that was barely visible to others? With variations like these, one might be able to tease out more information about the causal relationships.
- dpark 9y ago
  Yeah. I agree they could have done more to capture the factors here better. I wonder about the "dummy" body cam, though. I feel like that's an obvious group to include for the sake of teasing out contributing factors, but I also wonder if that would have gotten them sued. "You were supposed to be filming but somehow the footage is missing and now you claim it wasn't even a real camera?!"
  - dmurray 9y ago
    They don't get sued (successfully) for having body cams and actually destroying evidence when it suits them, so they should be pretty safe with not collecting it at all.

clouddrover 9y ago

> The DC/Baltimore area has had some recent high profile falsification of evidence accidentally caught on camera cases. Such as this one: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-camera-video-allegedly-shows-baltimore-police-plant-drugs-n784561 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/body-camera-video-alleg... They were only caught out because they forgot that the 30 seconds prior to turning the camera "on" would be included in the video.