5 ms·

Check the demographics, white people make up only about one third of the population in Newark.

elil17 6y ago
Arresting at a hire rate means in comparison to the demographics of the city. In 2020, 50% of Newark residents were Black but 80% of arrests were of Black people. 80% of victims of police use of force were Black. A third of the city is white but only 4% of police use of force victims are white. [1] [1]: https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/07/newark-must-do-more-to-stop-racial-disparities-in-policing-opinion.html https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/07/newark-must-do-more-to-st...
- param 6y ago
  And do we know why this disparity exists?
  - bananabiscuit 6y ago
    I’d assume it’s some combination of the cops being racist, or actual differences in crime rates among demographics. I see no reason to conclude it has to be one or the other, not sure if there’s any actual way to determine how much each cause contributes though.
    - erikerikson 6y ago
      One might add inherited circumstances that are predictive of outcomes.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      ...cops being racist... This is vague and leads to confusion. We shouldn't imagine we can learn anything simply by judging the characters of individual officers. If our laws and police practices are racist, the beliefs and actions of the officers themselves won't matter. Of course, there are racist officers, just as there are racist judges, legislators, grocers, veterinarians, etc. I doubt that Newark has a high concentration of racist police officers relative to the rest of the nation, however.
    - nerdponx 6y ago
      This distinction is critically important and is almost never even mentioned in popular media discussions of police racism. Yes, policing and criminal justice in America fucking sucks (especially if you have dark skin) and needs major reform no matter what. But I don't want to start seeing ghosts where none exist, and chasing after them instead of focusing on other problems. Edit: I explained this better in a different comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925138
    - bbulkow 6y ago
      A disparity that high is unlikely to be rate of crime. It is hard to study rate of crime, obvious reasons, but when you slice drug use by race, blacks use more, when you investigate drug contraband found per traffic stop, the is not a high racial bias. I tend to believe the crime rates aren't effected much by race, it seems really unlikely a difference that high is race.
- bananabiscuit 6y ago
  I see. My mistake.
- nerdponx 6y ago
  The problem with all this data is that it doesn't inform us of who is actually committing crimes. If we are overly fixated on racism by the police and confuse correlation with causation, we might entirely miss other structural/systemic factors that might be leading (or forcing) black people to criminal behavior more often than white people. I am aware of some research that tries to estimate propensity to actually commit crimes using victim surveys instead of police data, but I see so many conflicting results from different academic fields that I don't feel like I can form an opinion. All I know is that measuring disparities in arrests is not enough and cannot possibly be enough to distinguish police racism specifically from other racial disparities.
  - stadium 6y ago
    The police don't get to decide who committed a crime, the judicial system does. Yours is the same argument that George Floyd deserved what he got because he was a criminal. Being arrested or frisked by police does not a criminal make. Conviction does. It's a duck.
    - OJFord 6y ago
      It seems oddly philosophical to suggest that a crime hasn't been committed until its would-be committor has been convicted... Regardless of what you want to call it in the time between the event later deemed criminal, and the sentencing, surely you see that that's what GP was referring to? That there may be differences in demography of 'who is involved in these events'.
      - stadium 6y ago
        It's not philosophical, it's the law. And GP dismisses the overwhelmingly higher rates of arrests for non whites as not being a systemic racism issue and assumes that white people commit fewer crimes with no data to back it up. > If we are overly fixated Sorry but that is gaslighting and victim blaming. Tell the parent of a black teenager to not be overly fixated on police reform.
- burlesona 6y ago
  How closely do the arrest numbers match poverty numbers?
- OJFord 6y ago
  It doesn't mean anything without specifying the denominator, they could've meant per unit time, population, or crime. Now that you've specified though, the only remaining wiggle room is 'who is actually committing the crimes'. 80% arrests being black people is 'fine' if 80% of 'arrestable crime'[^] is committed by the black population; it just points to something other than policing needing improvement. Education perhaps, or welfare. [^] by this I just mean that not all convicted crime involves an arrest, and maybe there are demographic differences in the types of crimes committed
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  Won't there always be racial disparities in policing outside of the police's control if different socio-economic classes commit crimes at different rates, and different races are differently distributed among the socio-economic classes?
imwillofficial 6y ago
Never let the facts get in the way of a good narrative. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- commentingbadly 6y ago
  Is there a Goodwin's Law for citing FBI statistics yet? Why doesn't the FBI calculate this by income? And just so you know, probably about 50% of people that read you citing the FBI statistics will think you are a hardcore racist. I'm not calling you a racist, but I'm letting you know how hard everyone rolls their eyes when you post something like this. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/despite-being-only-13-percent-of-the-population https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/despite-being-only-13-percent...

Arresting at a hire rate means in comparison to the demographics of the city. In 2020, 50% of Newark residents were Black but 80% of arrests were of Black people. 80% of victims of police use of force were Black. A third of the city is white but only 4% of police use of force victims are white. [1] [1]: https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/07/newark-must-do-more-to-stop-racial-disparities-in-policing-opinion.html https://www.nj.com/opinion/2020/07/newark-must-do-more-to-st...

param 6y ago
And do we know why this disparity exists?
- bananabiscuit 6y ago
  I’d assume it’s some combination of the cops being racist, or actual differences in crime rates among demographics. I see no reason to conclude it has to be one or the other, not sure if there’s any actual way to determine how much each cause contributes though.
  - erikerikson 6y ago
    One might add inherited circumstances that are predictive of outcomes.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    ...cops being racist... This is vague and leads to confusion. We shouldn't imagine we can learn anything simply by judging the characters of individual officers. If our laws and police practices are racist, the beliefs and actions of the officers themselves won't matter. Of course, there are racist officers, just as there are racist judges, legislators, grocers, veterinarians, etc. I doubt that Newark has a high concentration of racist police officers relative to the rest of the nation, however.
  - nerdponx 6y ago
    This distinction is critically important and is almost never even mentioned in popular media discussions of police racism. Yes, policing and criminal justice in America fucking sucks (especially if you have dark skin) and needs major reform no matter what. But I don't want to start seeing ghosts where none exist, and chasing after them instead of focusing on other problems. Edit: I explained this better in a different comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26925138
  - bbulkow 6y ago
    A disparity that high is unlikely to be rate of crime. It is hard to study rate of crime, obvious reasons, but when you slice drug use by race, blacks use more, when you investigate drug contraband found per traffic stop, the is not a high racial bias. I tend to believe the crime rates aren't effected much by race, it seems really unlikely a difference that high is race.
bananabiscuit 6y ago
I see. My mistake.
nerdponx 6y ago
The problem with all this data is that it doesn't inform us of who is actually committing crimes. If we are overly fixated on racism by the police and confuse correlation with causation, we might entirely miss other structural/systemic factors that might be leading (or forcing) black people to criminal behavior more often than white people. I am aware of some research that tries to estimate propensity to actually commit crimes using victim surveys instead of police data, but I see so many conflicting results from different academic fields that I don't feel like I can form an opinion. All I know is that measuring disparities in arrests is not enough and cannot possibly be enough to distinguish police racism specifically from other racial disparities.
- stadium 6y ago
  The police don't get to decide who committed a crime, the judicial system does. Yours is the same argument that George Floyd deserved what he got because he was a criminal. Being arrested or frisked by police does not a criminal make. Conviction does. It's a duck.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    It seems oddly philosophical to suggest that a crime hasn't been committed until its would-be committor has been convicted... Regardless of what you want to call it in the time between the event later deemed criminal, and the sentencing, surely you see that that's what GP was referring to? That there may be differences in demography of 'who is involved in these events'.
    - stadium 6y ago
      It's not philosophical, it's the law. And GP dismisses the overwhelmingly higher rates of arrests for non whites as not being a systemic racism issue and assumes that white people commit fewer crimes with no data to back it up. > If we are overly fixated Sorry but that is gaslighting and victim blaming. Tell the parent of a black teenager to not be overly fixated on police reform.
burlesona 6y ago
How closely do the arrest numbers match poverty numbers?
OJFord 6y ago
It doesn't mean anything without specifying the denominator, they could've meant per unit time, population, or crime. Now that you've specified though, the only remaining wiggle room is 'who is actually committing the crimes'. 80% arrests being black people is 'fine' if 80% of 'arrestable crime'[^] is committed by the black population; it just points to something other than policing needing improvement. Education perhaps, or welfare. [^] by this I just mean that not all convicted crime involves an arrest, and maybe there are demographic differences in the types of crimes committed
oh_sigh 6y ago
Won't there always be racial disparities in policing outside of the police's control if different socio-economic classes commit crimes at different rates, and different races are differently distributed among the socio-economic classes?

imwillofficial 6y ago

Never let the facts get in the way of a good narrative. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

commentingbadly 6y ago
Is there a Goodwin's Law for citing FBI statistics yet? Why doesn't the FBI calculate this by income? And just so you know, probably about 50% of people that read you citing the FBI statistics will think you are a hardcore racist. I'm not calling you a racist, but I'm letting you know how hard everyone rolls their eyes when you post something like this. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/despite-being-only-13-percent-of-the-population https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/despite-being-only-13-percent...