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I don't think it's fair to call anti-Black bias in the legal system a false belief/conspiracy. Given a Black suspect and a white suspect, do you believe investi

by Ukv 2y ago

I don't think it's fair to call anti-Black bias in the legal system a false belief/conspiracy. Given a Black suspect and a white suspect, do you believe investigators/prosecutors: A. Have a uniform prior between the two suspects; or B. Have a prior weighted to some degree towards the Black suspect being the perpetrator, up to or equal to the ratio of offending rates between the two races? Your evidence is consistent with case B, but many would consider that to be (and experience it as) bias. It means that if you're a Black person, you're more likely to be falsely accused of a crime, more likely to be subject to searches, and receive harsher sentences for the same crime[0]; you're seen as more likely to be a criminal for factors outside of your control. Alternatively, you could consider if a college specifically discriminated against students from low-income backgrounds. You could say it's "logical" for the college to use that metric because low-income students on average do worse academically. Maybe the extent of their discrimination is even slightly closer to uniform than it would be if basing it solely on the relevant background rates. But the result of this discrimination to any extent would be that, if you're a low-income student, you would now have to score higher in tests/etc. than other students in order to overcome the prejudice against your background. In both cases it's also largely self-reinforcing, with the discrimination contributing to the factors it's based on. There's then the argument that we should not just aim for case A (uniform prior, "race blind") but have "positive discrimination", meaning that, for instance, low-income students could be chosen in admissions even if scoring lower than students from higher-income backgrounds, as an attempt to actively correct those factors. [0]: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2017/20171114_Demographics.pdf https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...

like_any_other 2y ago
> I don't think it's fair to call anti-Black bias in the legal system a false belief/conspiracy Let me re-phrase that then to the main cause of Black over-representation in prison being bias. Because yes, one can always find some bias, but does it contribute to 1-10% of the outcome, or 80-90%? Although one could argue that the bias goes in the other direction - i.e. that Blacks are favored by the legal system, since, estimating based on fraction of homicide perpetrators (56%), they are under-represented in prison at 32%. Of course this is just that - an estimation, and it could be simply that they genuinely commit fewer other crimes. But it is impossible to come to any consensus on those, since those figures are easier to fudge. In your place I would choose a different example than college admissions, however, because, at least for the Ivy League, whites are the most under-represented group by a significant margin, despite doing comparatively well in tests: https://archive.org/details/ivy_league https://archive.org/details/ivy_league
- Ukv 2y ago
  > Let me re-phrase that then to the main cause of Black over-representation in prison being bias. Because yes, one can always find some bias, but does it contribute to 1-10% of the outcome, or 80-90%? I think the answer is "depends on how deep you look". Black Americans largely being the disadvantaged underclass stems from slavery and segregation (not genetic differences) for instance, with identity/culture being formed around those circumstances too. > Although one could argue that the bias goes in the other direction - i.e. that Blacks are favored by the legal system, since, estimating based on fraction of homicide perpetrators (56%), they are under-represented in prison at 32%. Of course this is just that - an estimation, and it could be simply that they genuinely commit fewer other crimes. 1. As you hedged, it does indeed appear that it's higher for homicides than other crimes (and there are comparatively very few homicides). In 2023 the average for arrests across all crimes was 30%[0]. 2. I'm not sure whether or not you're seeing the main point I'm trying to convey. The "proportional" prisoner count you take as the neutral unbiased point would mean that a Black person would be by default more suspected of being a criminal, more likely to be searched, more likely to falsely arrested, receive harsher sentences for the same crime, etc. - which is what many experience as bias. It's a bit of an unintuitive statistical fact about maximizing predictive accuracy. > In your place I would choose a different example than college admissions, however, because, at least for the Ivy League, whites are the most under-represented group by a significant margin, despite doing comparatively well in tests: The purpose of the hypothetical was to show how something like "asking for parent's income on admission form, then treating low-income as a negative factor" would be obviously unjust, and how instead even discriminating in the opposite direction (with the neutral point being uniform/blind, not proportional) could arguably be justifiable. College admissions seems a good example for this because it's where affirmative action has been practiced and hotly debated - I don't deny its existence. [0]: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/# https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#

by Ukv 2y ago

like_any_other 2y ago

> I don't think it's fair to call anti-Black bias in the legal system a false belief/conspiracy Let me re-phrase that then to the main cause of Black over-representation in prison being bias. Because yes, one can always find some bias, but does it contribute to 1-10% of the outcome, or 80-90%? Although one could argue that the bias goes in the other direction - i.e. that Blacks are favored by the legal system, since, estimating based on fraction of homicide perpetrators (56%), they are under-represented in prison at 32%. Of course this is just that - an estimation, and it could be simply that they genuinely commit fewer other crimes. But it is impossible to come to any consensus on those, since those figures are easier to fudge. In your place I would choose a different example than college admissions, however, because, at least for the Ivy League, whites are the most under-represented group by a significant margin, despite doing comparatively well in tests: https://archive.org/details/ivy_league https://archive.org/details/ivy_league

Ukv 2y ago
> Let me re-phrase that then to the main cause of Black over-representation in prison being bias. Because yes, one can always find some bias, but does it contribute to 1-10% of the outcome, or 80-90%? I think the answer is "depends on how deep you look". Black Americans largely being the disadvantaged underclass stems from slavery and segregation (not genetic differences) for instance, with identity/culture being formed around those circumstances too. > Although one could argue that the bias goes in the other direction - i.e. that Blacks are favored by the legal system, since, estimating based on fraction of homicide perpetrators (56%), they are under-represented in prison at 32%. Of course this is just that - an estimation, and it could be simply that they genuinely commit fewer other crimes. 1. As you hedged, it does indeed appear that it's higher for homicides than other crimes (and there are comparatively very few homicides). In 2023 the average for arrests across all crimes was 30%[0]. 2. I'm not sure whether or not you're seeing the main point I'm trying to convey. The "proportional" prisoner count you take as the neutral unbiased point would mean that a Black person would be by default more suspected of being a criminal, more likely to be searched, more likely to falsely arrested, receive harsher sentences for the same crime, etc. - which is what many experience as bias. It's a bit of an unintuitive statistical fact about maximizing predictive accuracy. > In your place I would choose a different example than college admissions, however, because, at least for the Ivy League, whites are the most under-represented group by a significant margin, despite doing comparatively well in tests: The purpose of the hypothetical was to show how something like "asking for parent's income on admission form, then treating low-income as a negative factor" would be obviously unjust, and how instead even discriminating in the opposite direction (with the neutral point being uniform/blind, not proportional) could arguably be justifiable. College admissions seems a good example for this because it's where affirmative action has been practiced and hotly debated - I don't deny its existence. [0]: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/# https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#