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Police brutality is a real issue. It's less clear that racial bias in policing is a statistically significant issue, however, when accounting for obvious things

Police brutality is a real issue. It's less clear that racial bias in policing is a statistically significant issue, however, when accounting for obvious things. If someone has numbers that tell a different story I am all ears. Here are mine when I attempted to find it for myself: black arrests (all crimes) a year: 2.2 million white arrests (all crimes) a year: 5.6 million https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/table-43 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-... black deaths by police: 4.5 per 100k white deaths by police: 1.5 per 100k https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793 USA black population: 13% USA white population: 75% Given a black committing an average black crime, and a white committing an avg white crime, the black person is 16% more likely to die in a police altercation. Whether or not this is statistical error or a real difference is harder to tell, but this difference is not nearly as large as most media outlets lead people to believe. Again, If someone has numbers that tell a different story I am all ears

e40 6y ago
The NYC stop-and-frisk numbers should be considered. https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data
danharaj 6y ago
Laws are disproportionately overenforced on black communities. Your numbers are collected after a large amount of the bias is already baked in and collected by the people perpetrating the bias. Maybe that didn't occur to you. You're just asking questions right?
- leereeves 6y ago
  How do the numbers shake out if we consider only homicides, where selective enforcement should be less of a factor?
  - manfredo 6y ago
    This is the report for homicides (a different table from the one in the root comment that tracks arrests): https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Furthermore, this data is from reports not arrests. So selective enforcement is not a factor.
    - leereeves 6y ago
      The post above cites "arrests (all crimes) a year", not reports.
- randyrand 6y ago
  I welcome more data that has less sampling bias, but without some attempt to quantify the amount of sampling bias here we don’t know if it has a big impact on this data.
  - danharaj 6y ago
    It is on you if you don't take the testimony of hundreds of thousands of black people that they're terrorized by the police as evidence of possible police brutality. Does that sound absurd? Is it as absurd as presuming the police would incriminate themselves with the data they create? All evidence you can gather will be indirect. You make your judgment based on which you consider relevant.
  - vharuck 6y ago
    It's presupposing a negligible effect of racial bias on arrest data. That's a very good reason to not use it in showing a negligible effect of racial bias on another scenario involving police. I'm struggling to think of a better example of a circular argument.
- deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago
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awinder 6y ago
Wait, what’s your math here? Black deaths by police are 4.5/100k and white is 1.5, that’s a 3x or 300% difference.
- elmomle 6y ago
  I think it's "30%" (it's not). If p (pct population) is scaled to units of "people", and m as crimes/year and k as (deaths in custody) / (100k people), we want to compare the magnitudes of p * (k / m) for the two groups. Plugging the numbers in as cited, and putting the African American cohort over the White cohort, we get 1.3, i.e. "30%" increase in probability of dying during a police interaction if black. But as has already been pointed out, it's way more than 30%. The numbers given in the original comment hide the real impact of the bias, since "arrest" was implicitly being treated as a fair event (which it isn't; as just one example, blacks in particular are many times more likely to be subject to a traffic stop than whites, while they tend to have contraband on their possession less often [1][2][3][4]). Moreover, this isn't just about deaths in police custody. This is about inhumane and repressive policing practices that perpetuate a longstanding effort to deprive blacks of meaningful political power [5]. It is both foolish and cruel to see an entire population struggling and assume it's because they are bad people. [1] https://sfdistrictattorney.org/sites/default/files/Document/BRP_report.pdf https://sfdistrictattorney.org/sites/default/files/Document/... [2] https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Final_Report_Executive_Summary_4_13_16-1.pdf https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Fina... [3] https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/traffic-stop-data-shows-persistent-patterns-racial-bias-according-new-report https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/traffic-stop-data-... [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traff... [5] See Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow
golemiprague 6y ago
What type of crimes? There is a difference between the ongoing killings in Chicago and tax evasion. Also what is the difference is stats between African American and African immigrants? I am afraid that if all those factors will be taken into account we will see that the police kills more white than black with no reason. In a side note, I can't stand Obama's wishy washy talking, it is useless and doesn't solve anything while making people feel good as if something is done. Nobody is courageous enough to tackle the actual problem which is the way the African Americans behave. Slavery is not an excuse, people around the world had to endure worst situations since slavery has been abolished and they don't use it as an excuse for violence and disorder. The reason the police in the US is so violent towards everyone is because of the African American community being so violent and disorderly that they leave no choice to the cops and make it worst for everyone. They should fix their own communities and the way they treat others before whinging about racism.
chishaku 6y ago
For all the budding data scientists out there, can you describe your general methodology in more detail? Here’s my summary: 1. Pick a complex issue. “racial bias” in policing 2. Pick a (single) year. / Ignore history. 2017 3. Pick a metric, any metric. “deaths by police” 4. Write conclusion to match your preconceived notions. 5. Congrats, you’re now “data-driven”.
nitwit005 6y ago
I'll warn that there really isn't any good data when it comes to use of force. The police departments haven't been required to report it to any national body. That link you have for deaths by police mentions using both official and unofficial sources, and having to fill in missing data. The FBI has been making some efforts on the issue, but it's quire recent: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-announces-the-official-launch-of-the-national-use-of-force-data-collection https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-announc...
AnHonestComment 6y ago
Looking at murder, the statistics tell a different story — blacks are 13% of the population but over 50% of the murder arrests, while whites are 75% of the population but under 50% of murder arrests. If times the police use force are correlated to violent crime, then it’s unclear that blacks are over represented in deaths by police — they may actually be safer than whites, once controlling for the distribution of crimes they’re arrested for. One problem I’ve had in this analysis is that the ~60/1000 deaths per year that aren’t justified (fortunately) aren’t enough to do an analysis on that subset. Of course, 60 deaths is tragic — but 60 wrongful deaths among 8+ million arrests may not be the problem the media portrays it as. You’re an order of magnitude less like to wrongfully die from police while being arrested than you are to die from a car crash this year. Overall, police are safer than many things in society. 60/8M // 30k/320M = 8%

e40 6y ago

The NYC stop-and-frisk numbers should be considered. https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data https://www.nyclu.org/en/stop-and-frisk-data

danharaj 6y ago

Laws are disproportionately overenforced on black communities. Your numbers are collected after a large amount of the bias is already baked in and collected by the people perpetrating the bias. Maybe that didn't occur to you. You're just asking questions right?

leereeves 6y ago
How do the numbers shake out if we consider only homicides, where selective enforcement should be less of a factor?
- manfredo 6y ago
  This is the report for homicides (a different table from the one in the root comment that tracks arrests): https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-... Furthermore, this data is from reports not arrests. So selective enforcement is not a factor.
  - leereeves 6y ago
    The post above cites "arrests (all crimes) a year", not reports.
randyrand 6y ago
I welcome more data that has less sampling bias, but without some attempt to quantify the amount of sampling bias here we don’t know if it has a big impact on this data.
- danharaj 6y ago
  It is on you if you don't take the testimony of hundreds of thousands of black people that they're terrorized by the police as evidence of possible police brutality. Does that sound absurd? Is it as absurd as presuming the police would incriminate themselves with the data they create? All evidence you can gather will be indirect. You make your judgment based on which you consider relevant.
- vharuck 6y ago
  It's presupposing a negligible effect of racial bias on arrest data. That's a very good reason to not use it in showing a negligible effect of racial bias on another scenario involving police. I'm struggling to think of a better example of a circular argument.
deleted 6y ago
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deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

awinder 6y ago

Wait, what’s your math here? Black deaths by police are 4.5/100k and white is 1.5, that’s a 3x or 300% difference.

elmomle 6y ago
I think it's "30%" (it's not). If p (pct population) is scaled to units of "people", and m as crimes/year and k as (deaths in custody) / (100k people), we want to compare the magnitudes of p * (k / m) for the two groups. Plugging the numbers in as cited, and putting the African American cohort over the White cohort, we get 1.3, i.e. "30%" increase in probability of dying during a police interaction if black. But as has already been pointed out, it's way more than 30%. The numbers given in the original comment hide the real impact of the bias, since "arrest" was implicitly being treated as a fair event (which it isn't; as just one example, blacks in particular are many times more likely to be subject to a traffic stop than whites, while they tend to have contraband on their possession less often [1][2][3][4]). Moreover, this isn't just about deaths in police custody. This is about inhumane and repressive policing practices that perpetuate a longstanding effort to deprive blacks of meaningful political power [5]. It is both foolish and cruel to see an entire population struggling and assume it's because they are bad people. [1] https://sfdistrictattorney.org/sites/default/files/Document/BRP_report.pdf https://sfdistrictattorney.org/sites/default/files/Document/... [2] https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Final_Report_Executive_Summary_4_13_16-1.pdf https://chicagopatf.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/PATF_Fina... [3] https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/traffic-stop-data-shows-persistent-patterns-racial-bias-according-new-report https://www.aclu-il.org/en/press-releases/traffic-stop-data-... [4] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traffic-stops-driving-black.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/us/racial-disparity-traff... [5] See Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow

golemiprague 6y ago

What type of crimes? There is a difference between the ongoing killings in Chicago and tax evasion. Also what is the difference is stats between African American and African immigrants? I am afraid that if all those factors will be taken into account we will see that the police kills more white than black with no reason. In a side note, I can't stand Obama's wishy washy talking, it is useless and doesn't solve anything while making people feel good as if something is done. Nobody is courageous enough to tackle the actual problem which is the way the African Americans behave. Slavery is not an excuse, people around the world had to endure worst situations since slavery has been abolished and they don't use it as an excuse for violence and disorder. The reason the police in the US is so violent towards everyone is because of the African American community being so violent and disorderly that they leave no choice to the cops and make it worst for everyone. They should fix their own communities and the way they treat others before whinging about racism.

chishaku 6y ago

For all the budding data scientists out there, can you describe your general methodology in more detail? Here’s my summary: 1. Pick a complex issue. “racial bias” in policing 2. Pick a (single) year. / Ignore history. 2017 3. Pick a metric, any metric. “deaths by police” 4. Write conclusion to match your preconceived notions. 5. Congrats, you’re now “data-driven”.

nitwit005 6y ago

I'll warn that there really isn't any good data when it comes to use of force. The police departments haven't been required to report it to any national body. That link you have for deaths by police mentions using both official and unofficial sources, and having to fill in missing data. The FBI has been making some efforts on the issue, but it's quire recent: https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-announces-the-official-launch-of-the-national-use-of-force-data-collection https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-announc...

AnHonestComment 6y ago

Looking at murder, the statistics tell a different story — blacks are 13% of the population but over 50% of the murder arrests, while whites are 75% of the population but under 50% of murder arrests. If times the police use force are correlated to violent crime, then it’s unclear that blacks are over represented in deaths by police — they may actually be safer than whites, once controlling for the distribution of crimes they’re arrested for. One problem I’ve had in this analysis is that the ~60/1000 deaths per year that aren’t justified (fortunately) aren’t enough to do an analysis on that subset. Of course, 60 deaths is tragic — but 60 wrongful deaths among 8+ million arrests may not be the problem the media portrays it as. You’re an order of magnitude less like to wrongfully die from police while being arrested than you are to die from a car crash this year. Overall, police are safer than many things in society. 60/8M // 30k/320M = 8%