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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 wa

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 5y 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 5y 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.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    > It's not philosophical, it's the law. All of these are considered crimes in all jurisdictions I know of in the USA: theft/burglary/robbery, violence or threat thereof, and reckless endangerment. If you commit one of those acts, you have definitionally committed a crime, even if you are not convicted in a court of law. > dismisses the overwhelmingly higher rates of arrests for non whites as not being a systemic racism issue I encourage you to re-read what I wrote, because that isn't what I said. My post raises a question of causality. There are several common proposals for why arrest rates for blacks are disproportionately high: 1. Police are racist, so they arrest black people at higher rates than other people, regardless of criminality. 2. Criminal law is written specifically to target black people. 3. Black people, due to systemic racism elsewhere in society, end up committing more acts-that-are-legally-defined-as-crimes, and this eventually leads to a greater number of arrests. 4. Actual racist ideology, which is generally vile and I will not repeat it here. The reality is probably a combination of explanations 1-3, and there is surely mutual causality among them. Any serious attempt to understand the problem must attempt to disentangle these explanations from each other. > assumes that white people commit fewer crimes with no data to back it up I said that we specifically don't have good data, but it's not safe to assume that all demographics commit crimes at the same rate. See above. > Sorry but that is gaslighting and victim blaming. Tell the parent of a black teenager to not be overly fixated on police reform. This is a bad faith misrepresentation of what I wrote. If anything, the media getting stuff kinda-wrong but still raising awareness is a net positive. Also it should be obvious that police reform is necessary, and obviously people will care the most about the issues that affect them personally. Moreover, nothing ever seems to get done without single-minded people focusing intently on a single problem. We need people working on all aspects of the racism issue, including racism in policing and law. But you simply cannot look at the arrest numbers and assume that the discrepancy is definitely and entirely because of police racism. It would be fallacious to do so, and if you intend to put forth policy based on data then you should try to avoid logical fallacies in the process.
throwawayboise 5y ago
The police do get to decide on probable cause that a crime has been committed. That's not enough for punishment, but it is enough for arrest and investigation.
kar5pt 5y ago
It seems like a completely different argument to me. He's not arguing that committing crimes (or being involved in events that may be legally deemed crimes after the fact) means that someone _deserves_ to have force used on them. He's saying that it makes sense that police would be more likely to use force against people who are more frequently involved in said events.
- stadium 5y ago
  > it makes sense that police would be more likely to use force against people who are more frequently involved in said events Hence the systemic racism problem in a nutshell. It only makes sense through the lense of human bias and racism. Are those "people" really more frequently involved in said events, or are they more frequently policed?

OJFord 5y 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 5y 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.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  > It's not philosophical, it's the law. All of these are considered crimes in all jurisdictions I know of in the USA: theft/burglary/robbery, violence or threat thereof, and reckless endangerment. If you commit one of those acts, you have definitionally committed a crime, even if you are not convicted in a court of law. > dismisses the overwhelmingly higher rates of arrests for non whites as not being a systemic racism issue I encourage you to re-read what I wrote, because that isn't what I said. My post raises a question of causality. There are several common proposals for why arrest rates for blacks are disproportionately high: 1. Police are racist, so they arrest black people at higher rates than other people, regardless of criminality. 2. Criminal law is written specifically to target black people. 3. Black people, due to systemic racism elsewhere in society, end up committing more acts-that-are-legally-defined-as-crimes, and this eventually leads to a greater number of arrests. 4. Actual racist ideology, which is generally vile and I will not repeat it here. The reality is probably a combination of explanations 1-3, and there is surely mutual causality among them. Any serious attempt to understand the problem must attempt to disentangle these explanations from each other. > assumes that white people commit fewer crimes with no data to back it up I said that we specifically don't have good data, but it's not safe to assume that all demographics commit crimes at the same rate. See above. > Sorry but that is gaslighting and victim blaming. Tell the parent of a black teenager to not be overly fixated on police reform. This is a bad faith misrepresentation of what I wrote. If anything, the media getting stuff kinda-wrong but still raising awareness is a net positive. Also it should be obvious that police reform is necessary, and obviously people will care the most about the issues that affect them personally. Moreover, nothing ever seems to get done without single-minded people focusing intently on a single problem. We need people working on all aspects of the racism issue, including racism in policing and law. But you simply cannot look at the arrest numbers and assume that the discrepancy is definitely and entirely because of police racism. It would be fallacious to do so, and if you intend to put forth policy based on data then you should try to avoid logical fallacies in the process.

throwawayboise 5y ago

The police do get to decide on probable cause that a crime has been committed. That's not enough for punishment, but it is enough for arrest and investigation.

kar5pt 5y ago

It seems like a completely different argument to me. He's not arguing that committing crimes (or being involved in events that may be legally deemed crimes after the fact) means that someone _deserves_ to have force used on them. He's saying that it makes sense that police would be more likely to use force against people who are more frequently involved in said events.

stadium 5y ago
> it makes sense that police would be more likely to use force against people who are more frequently involved in said events Hence the systemic racism problem in a nutshell. It only makes sense through the lense of human bias and racism. Are those "people" really more frequently involved in said events, or are they more frequently policed?