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The car accident comparison has got to stop. It is meaningless. What point do you think that reference helps to clarify? I ask that curiously, not hostilely. I

by Fezzik 6y ago

The car accident comparison has got to stop. It is meaningless. What point do you think that reference helps to clarify? I ask that curiously, not hostilely. I fail to understand how it is helpful to compare the number of people shot and killed un/necessarily by police officers to those killed in car crashes. It seems like the goal is to attempt to diminish the severity of the problem of police killing people by finding a bigger number of people dying to a different cause... which is just silly. The two are not comparable problems and each requires completely different solutions. I think a helpful comparison is examining how in other first world countries the police kill almost nobody. Per capita, more people are killed by law enforcement in the US than in any other 1st world country by a huge margin. Edit: clarity

koolba 6y ago
> The car accident comparison has got to stop. It is meaningless. What point do you think that reference helps to clarify? I ask that curiously, not hostilely. I fail to understand how it is helpful to compare the number of people shot and killed un/necessarily by police officers to those killed in car crashes. It seems like the goal is to attempt to diminish the severity of the problem of police killing people by finding a bigger number of people dying to a different cause... which is just silly. The reference is to allow for comparison. Most people have no feeling for absolute statistics. Comparing something in relative terms to the numbers for something with which they have a daily experience, helps to provide context for the scale or severity of a problem. > The two are not comparable problems and each requires completely different solutions. Nobody said they require the same solution. The point is to grasp the scale of the problem. > I think a helpful comparison is examining how in other first world countries the police kill almost nobody. Per capita, more people are killed by law enforcement in the US than in any other 1st world country by a huge margin. You'll get little sympathy for people actively fighting back and resisting arrest. I think it's more relevant to look at the number of unarmed people killed by law enforcement: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-rac... In 2019 that was 28 people (9 black, 19 white). Again, that's in a country of 330,000,000 people. Yes, it is disproportionately black vs the general population. But there are other factors like income and housing density that come into play. And in absolute terms it's a very small number of the total population. Yes, we should be reducing that further but it's not a problem of police randomly killing blacks. And it's nowhere near the scale of other problems that are killing people or blacks specifically. Last year in Chicago alone, there were 349 black homicides.
- tomnipotent 6y ago
  This is such a bullshit argument, "Why, only a small percentage of police interactions end with a shooting, and most of them are armed!" And you link to a conservatives opinion piece, which isn't biased at all. US police kill 33.5 people per 10M, which is nearly 3x our closest neighbor (who has imported our policing strategies, unfortunately). Canada: 9.8 Australia: 8.5 Netherlands: 2.3 New Zealand: 2.0 Germany: 1.3 England: 0.5 Japan: 0.2 Iceland: 0 Norway: 0 There is NO excuse for how many people police murder every year, when most of the world has demonstrated it isn't necessary. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/
  - rbecker 6y ago
    One would expect the rate of police killings to be proportional to the homicide rate, since that is what is supposed to drive dangerous police encounters. Looking at police kills per 10M, divided by the homicide rate per 100k: Australia: 9.55 Egypt: 8.45 USA: 6.75 Canada: 5.57 Sweden: 5.56 Norway: 4.04 Netherlands: 3.90 New Zealand: 2.86 Germany: 1.37 Japan: 0.77 England: 0.42 So 41% less than the rate of Australia, 21% more than Canada and Sweden, 67% more than Norway, and 73% more than the Netherlands. Not great, but not terrible. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki... for countries not on prisonpolicy.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

by Fezzik 6y ago

koolba 6y ago

> The car accident comparison has got to stop. It is meaningless. What point do you think that reference helps to clarify? I ask that curiously, not hostilely. I fail to understand how it is helpful to compare the number of people shot and killed un/necessarily by police officers to those killed in car crashes. It seems like the goal is to attempt to diminish the severity of the problem of police killing people by finding a bigger number of people dying to a different cause... which is just silly. The reference is to allow for comparison. Most people have no feeling for absolute statistics. Comparing something in relative terms to the numbers for something with which they have a daily experience, helps to provide context for the scale or severity of a problem. > The two are not comparable problems and each requires completely different solutions. Nobody said they require the same solution. The point is to grasp the scale of the problem. > I think a helpful comparison is examining how in other first world countries the police kill almost nobody. Per capita, more people are killed by law enforcement in the US than in any other 1st world country by a huge margin. You'll get little sympathy for people actively fighting back and resisting arrest. I think it's more relevant to look at the number of unarmed people killed by law enforcement: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-rac... In 2019 that was 28 people (9 black, 19 white). Again, that's in a country of 330,000,000 people. Yes, it is disproportionately black vs the general population. But there are other factors like income and housing density that come into play. And in absolute terms it's a very small number of the total population. Yes, we should be reducing that further but it's not a problem of police randomly killing blacks. And it's nowhere near the scale of other problems that are killing people or blacks specifically. Last year in Chicago alone, there were 349 black homicides.

tomnipotent 6y ago
This is such a bullshit argument, "Why, only a small percentage of police interactions end with a shooting, and most of them are armed!" And you link to a conservatives opinion piece, which isn't biased at all. US police kill 33.5 people per 10M, which is nearly 3x our closest neighbor (who has imported our policing strategies, unfortunately). Canada: 9.8 Australia: 8.5 Netherlands: 2.3 New Zealand: 2.0 Germany: 1.3 England: 0.5 Japan: 0.2 Iceland: 0 Norway: 0 There is NO excuse for how many people police murder every year, when most of the world has demonstrated it isn't necessary. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/
- rbecker 6y ago
  One would expect the rate of police killings to be proportional to the homicide rate, since that is what is supposed to drive dangerous police encounters. Looking at police kills per 10M, divided by the homicide rate per 100k: Australia: 9.55 Egypt: 8.45 USA: 6.75 Canada: 5.57 Sweden: 5.56 Norway: 4.04 Netherlands: 3.90 New Zealand: 2.86 Germany: 1.37 Japan: 0.77 England: 0.42 So 41% less than the rate of Australia, 21% more than Canada and Sweden, 67% more than Norway, and 73% more than the Netherlands. Not great, but not terrible. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policekillings/ https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-ki... for countries not on prisonpolicy.org https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...