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Biking while Black: Racial bias in Oakland policing (2019)
- abneg 5y agoNobody gives a shit
- j_walter 5y agoLies, damn lies, and statistics...
- WarOnPrivacy 5y agoWhy is this article flagged?
- stefan_ 5y agoMaybe it has something to do with the fact that right now 4 of 5 comments categorically deny the existence of racial bias in policing?
- WarOnPrivacy 5y agoYour truth is a dismal one.
- google234123 5y agoAnd the other side has the same view on racial differences in crime.
- codeecan 5y agoOr maybe its because this article is full of nonsense like ".. more policing in those beats, they argue, because that’s where the crime’s happening. There’s a logical problem with this argument, because more crime will always be found where more policing is done." You could put 1 million police in the Hamptons and theres zero chance they find more crime than 1000 police in Compton.
- burnished 5y agoEhh, thats sort of the point though, you'd find more crimes in the Hamptons because we're all living in a constant state of breaking some law or another.
- rodgerd 5y agoThe racists are triggered.
- TheAdamAndChe 5y agoIt's a contentious political issue with a baity title.
- bigyikes 5y agoYes, for better or worse, the issue is political. If you agree with that, then this post is against the Hacker News guidelines: > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Either way, it’s hard to imagine this generating the type of thoughtful conversation Hacker News is known for. I hope to be proven wrong.
- vaidhy 5y agoAll issues are political. However, this article is not an opinion piece, but a nice set of analysis based on public data. You can comment/criticize the analysis, bring out counterfactuals, point to other analysis etc.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MikeUt 5y ago> Another possible explanation is that Blacks are more likely to be criminals, and these stops represent police getting bad guys off the street. [..] City-wide, 68% of no-arrest stops city-wide were of Blacks, the same proportion as arrest stops, which means that Blacks were no more likely to be criminals than others who were stopped. If, despite being stopped more often, the stop is equally likely to result in an arrest (I'm assuming that's what "no more likely to be criminals than others who were stopped" means, since if they were less likely, the author would surely mention it), doesn't that support this explanation? Of course there are problems with this, since an arrest itself is up to the cop's possibly biased judgement. Which brings me back to > There is more policing in those beats, they argue, because that’s where the crime’s happening. There’s a logical problem with this argument, because more crime will always be found where more policing is done. But leaving that aside How quickly he moves on! But there is a solution: look at crimes not affected by over-policing, such as homicide, or look at victimization surveys [1], that don't involve the police. Finding the results is left as an exercise for the reader. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Crime_Victimization_Survey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Crime_Victimization_S...
- nraynaud 5y agoWe have the same thing in France, Corsica has the most homicides per capita, but the police is focused on the suburbs of Paris and the borders.
- tomnipotent 5y ago> the stop is equally likely to result in an arrest A study of California police data found that "when the police search black, Latino and Native American people, they are less likely to find drugs, weapons or other contraband compared to when they search white people." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/02/california-police-black-stops-force https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/02/california-p...
- MikeUt 5y agoI.e. a different study in a different location.
- spoonjim 5y ago> OPD justifies this spatial disparity with crime rates. There is more policing in those beats, they argue, because that’s where the crime’s happening. There’s a logical problem with this argument, because more crime will always be found where more policing is done. Is this true? Will you find white murderous gangbangers if you stop and frisk enough people in Piedmont?
- slownews45 5y ago"An unbiased sample would be clustered around the dotted line: a beat whose population is about 40% Black would have about 40% of its police stops be of Blacks". Is this the case? In terms of murders I think it was something like 30 - 1 in terms of per capita likelihood of a suspect being black vs asian for example. Adding in gender / age it got even worse - ie, very few asian women gunning down folks on the street. I couldn't find good stats on this based on a quick look, but it might be worth it to evaluate if there are different rates of murder by race / age / gender when doing these types of articles -> I wouldn't be surprised if their WAS racial bias, but it would be helpful to have a bit more context perhaps.
- athenot 5y ago> In terms of murders I think it was something like 30 - 1 in terms of per capita likelihood of a suspect being black vs asian for example. Suspect perhaps, but not convicted offender. And therein lies the bias & prejudice. This table shows Race, Sex, and Ethnicity of Victim by Race, Sex, and Ethnicity of Offender, 2019 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-6.xls https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-... One thing that stands out is that more often than not, the offender and the victim are the same race. And overall numbers are similar between white and African American.
- rastapasta42 5y ago>And overall numbers are similar between white and African American. Am I reading this wrong? 3,299 total murders committed by whites when they make up 76% of population, vs 2,906 by Black or AA when they make up 13.4% of population? I'm getting the population estimates from here: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045219
- shadilay 5y agoFor government statistics it should be noted that 'white' often includes hispanics and arabs.
- trident5000 5y agoThis is absurd. Ive lived in 3 large metro areas. Rarely do you see a white person riding a low seated trick bike. Thats who they're stopping. And yes, many of them are a-holes engaging in a-hole behavior (though not all of them).
- iaw 5y agoCould you elaborate your point?
- trident5000 5y agoThey're not stopping people on citi bikes going to work or central park (of any race). They're stopping younger men on trick bikes who can be dickheads and tend to be non-white in my observation (for whatever reason, cultural idk). Thats why theres a difference in the rates.
- leephillips 5y agoHow do you know this is what they’re doing, and that it accounts for the numbers? And would they be stopping them merely for riding a certain type of bike, or for doing...what exactly? I mean if it were illegal to be “kind of” a “dickhead” I would have been busted a long time ago.
- trident5000 5y agoI lived in nyc for 11 years and now live in a different city. The story is the same. First week I get here I see a group of thuggish kids on bikes talking shit to people as they go by. They're kids getting into trouble. And thats who the police are stopping. I dont have a spreadsheet for you Im just telling you my experience.
- leephillips 5y agoI don’t see the connection between your comment and the race issue, unless “thuggish” is your word for “black”.
- endisneigh 5y agoI'm not sure what you should call this phenomenon, but it basically goes like this: - There are plenty of laws that you may or may not be aware of whose enforcement is disparate across the population, or perhaps not enforced at all. For example, in Texas it's actually illegal to turn without using your turn signal at least 100 feet before the turn [^1]. There are similar laws that exist in California. If you've ever driven in Texas for even an hour within the city or suburbs you'll know this law is rarely enforced, even when police are present. Given the lack of enforcement, the (illegal) behavior is normalized. However, despite the normalization the behavior itself is still illegal. Now here comes the tricky part - since everyone is engaging in illegal behavior, the police, if desired, could focus on any group and trivially reprimand them for their (technically) illegal behavior. This enforcement will be reflected in the demographic likelihood of breaking this particular rule which will reinforce the very focusing on certain demographics. Recursive, if you will. Unfortunately despite being aware of this I'm not sure what the solution would be, other than mass-surveillance. Ultimately you would need to know (1) the rate at which groups are breaking the rule absolutely, (2) the rate of which enforcement is overlooked and (3) finally the rate at which enforcement occurs. We only have but a small piece of the puzzle here. As long as this paradox exists police will have plausible deniability backed by their very own (misleading) stats. In my opinion this is the main driver of seemingly racist law enforcement. That is, selective enforcement. ^1 - https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.545.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/TN/htm/TN.545.htm
- akerl_ 5y agoAnother solution might be repealing laws that are clearly not important enough to enforce uniformly across demographics.
- menzoic 5y ago> Homicide stats are immune to discretionary bias Discretionary bias is still possible if you attempt to correlate the race stastics with the racial group as a whole while ignoring other factors such as social and economic status. For example the majoriry of murders that occur during a robbery are commited by poor people. A group made up of mostly middle/upper class citizens would mostly exclude those type of murder cases. Gang violence is another big driver of murder and also closely correlated to socioeconomic status. The middle class and up don't join gangs and therefore aren't part of organizations where murder is part of operations. The discretion is on if you choose to rely on a correlation without looking at the actual causation to make conclusions.
- rvz 5y agoThey could try out the CHAZ/CHOP idea then? No police officers stopping you. No problem. A summer of love utopia without getting stopped over. Think about it. EDIT: Care to further elaborate what is exactly wrong with this idea? Surely the goal is to 'self-organize' yourself as a community without the involvement of the 'police', given that they complain of 'biased policing'. Might as well just set one up since it won't be the last time that this will happen again.
- fencepost 5y agoAnd now it's back! While comments are possible, updated data from 2019 shows changes (fewer overall stops) and limited improvement as noted in this October 2020 article https://bike-lab.org/2020/10/15/racially-biased-policing-in-oakland-updated-with-2019-data/ https://bike-lab.org/2020/10/15/racially-biased-policing-in-... Between the pandemic, George Floyd, etc any numbers for 2020 may bear no resemblance to anything from years before or after.
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- vaidhy 5y agoWhy is there so much hate on this thread? Is it hard to accept that blacks are discriminated against in US? Part of being intellectually curious is that data should be able to change your mind or have the opinion be reasonably falsifiable. If you want to find fault on the methodology in the OP, then comment/criticize the analysis. @athenot posted the stats for convicted crimes that shows blacks are not more likely than whites to do commit crimes.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> @athenot posted the stats for convicted crimes that shows blacks are not more likely than whites to do commit crimes. You might want to read the stats before describing them.
- CheezeIt 5y agoI have no doubt there’s racial bias, because the police are trying to catch gang members or other serial troublemakers with a weapon, drugs, or some other pretext to put them away. So they don’t just police a space more, they police it with the intent of creating stops. I am pretty sure that bias targets men. What would be interesting is to see how big the racial disparity is looking only at women.
- seph-reed 5y agoI couldn't find the data on what the stops were "for." Tbh, I don't even know what kind of things you can get stopped on a bike for except swerving around traffic, so it seems like a good thing to know about. Is there any data on what the "reasons" were for stopping these different bike riders?
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- ultimoo 5y agoI found this article difficult to understand. Though I was able to eventually follow along with the theme, perhaps a quick explainer of what a "beat" is? Hint: in police terminology, a beat is the territory that a police officer patrols. If you're not up to speed on the jargon, parsing graph titles like "Police beat resident population" become confusing (are we talking assault?). Also, a summary of the findings and assertions at the beginning would have been helpful. /rant
- Karrot_Kream 5y agoThe problem with highly-charged reporting like this is that anything other than carefully justified claims and technical jargon will immediately bring a torrent of complaints. Each group that has a conclusion without looking at the data will try to poke any hole in any aspect of the argument and staying dry and technical helps stave off this sort of criticism.
- ultimoo 5y agoThat's an interesting take and I hadn't considered how the subject matter is such that staying clear of summaries is the best recourse -- thanks. But perhaps there is a way to add the very TL;DR that would have been near the bottom of the article at the top. I usually have no trouble skimming and digesting the reporting on wsj and nyt.
- Karrot_Kream 5y agoI agree. Alternatively a glossary at the bottom with links would be nice to help readers without the jargon knowledge.
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- Aa9C4xPz43Gg7k6 5y agoAs a person living in Oakland: lots of homeless have sketchy (stolen?) bikes. I don't see that many sketchy white people on them. No one ever said that different populations in Oakland are comparable in the first place. Articles like this are usually written by wealthy liberals living in nice suburbs.
- Karrot_Kream 5y agoI sure hope the police have a better reason to stop you than a sketchy bike.
- fallingknife 5y agoThe charts seem to show that the police are biased in favor of Hispanics and Asians, and against blacks and whites. I wouldn't have expected that result. But of course the only thing the article focuses on is black people.