4 ms·

This is a comparative statement. The US has an order of magnitude more of this activity than other countries (of similar wealth and government type).

by themeek 11y ago

alexqgb 11y ago
When adjusting for population, the ratio of police shootings in America to those in Britain is about 70:1. (55 shootings in 24 years in a country w/ ~57 million people vs. 59 shootings in 24 days (Jan. 2015) in a country with ~318 million people). So yes, Americans are vastly more tolerant of police violence (to say nothing of stratospheric incarceration levels) than the British - mainly because black people are so disproportionally targeted in this country. Indeed, among America's more reactionary elements, the unrestrained use-of-force and incarceration policies behind these figures are vehemently defended, as they provide an effective way to enforce a racially-determined class structure, even in the absence of the Jim Crow laws that performed this role until the late 1960s. However, none of this would be acceptable if the police were equally harsh with everyone. Indiscriminate oppression is much harder sustain in the U.S. In that regard, we're quite different from the UK, where the "if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide" attitude is far more prevalent (it's a fixture in comment sections of British news sites, whereas American sites see it crop up far less frequently). The fact that mass surveillance doesn't easily square with the more "acceptable" (read: racist) forms of police abuse in America is why Americans are far more unified in their opposition to it.
- themeek 11y ago
  Thank you for the insightful comment. I found your thesis about the racist nature of police abuse interesting, especially how you tie it to mass surveillance. I think you are probably right that this plays a large role in which communities and majorities will support or excuse this behavior. I don't want to draw it too far, though. We should recognize that Muslim Americans get far more surveillance - more targeted surveillance - for merely being Muslim or having Muslim community respect. It's also true that people can and are fooled into believing and supporting principles, spurred by things like nationalism or political party identity, that actively harm or target their own minority groups. This caveat I don't think invalidates your misgivings, which I think are good. If mass incarcernation and police abuse were as widely practiced on the wealthy or the majority there would be far more outcry.
  - alexqgb 11y ago
    That's a good point about Muslim Americans. And the American authorities were savvy enough to know that if they wanted to install a system of mass surveillance, the could limit push-back by selling the effort in racially coded terms that would appeal to the reactionary right. In the ensuing "debate" about surveillance, the government could spin clear violations of the 4th Amendment into "a compromise that balances liberty and security." A note to foreign readers of HN: In America, "terrorism" is an ethnically coded term. Mass shootings by white people - a depressingly frequent occurrence - are almost always described in other terms. In the rare cases where this dodge becomes impossible to pull off (e.g., the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh), the attack will be described as an act of "domestic" terrorism, thereby preserving the clear ethnic subtext that is carried by the unmodified term. The notable exception to this rule is made for environmental activists, who are branded "eco-terrorists", or left-leaning people protesting economic injustices (e.g., Occupy Wall Street). In these cases, the deliberate use of a term with a strongly xenophobic component is a thinly veiled accusation of treason, which is a line of attack long-favored by the more belligerent critics of the American left (e.g., Joseph McCarthy, who provides the canonical example).
    - themeek 11y ago
      Another really nice contribution. Well phrased. In the McVeigh case the FBI pronounced (and media reverberated) that the OK City bombings were a Muslim terrorist attack until it was shown, in fact, to be definitively not the case. The language used to describe McVeigh's crimes and intentions was then continually watered down.
      - alexqgb 11y ago
        Yeah, the mask really doesn't have very far to slip.
      - A_COMPUTER 11y ago
        I remember that, do you remember that OKC was only a couple years after Osama bin Laden tried to bomb the World Trade Center and was during a time which Al Qaeda was attacking US-affiliates overseas on a regular basis?
- rconti 11y ago
  Sure, but considering we have something like 29x as many fatal shootings per capita in the US versus the UK, arguably, the police here show relative restraint -- not in the sense that the police shootings are a direct response to civilian shootings, but rather that police shootings are a comparatively small percentage over the overall shootings. I'm not trying to say any of this is good, but my point is that it's incorrect to believe that it's "relatively common for the police to shoot a fleeing suspect".
  - themeek 11y ago
    Do you mean that the US and UK compare favoratively when measuring "fatal police shootings per generic fatal shooting per capita"?
  - alexqgb 11y ago
    The only thing you can determine by comparing the rates of non-police shootings between the US and the UK is that effective gun control really is effective, and that the "if guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns" argument is demonstrably bullshit. I mean, it's true in an absolutely literal sense, in that having a gun makes you an outlaw, but it's wildly misleading in suggesting that the unarmed population will be subjected to a significant population of outlaws that has - somehow - managed to remain heavily armed. To hear the NRA tell it, the law is simply a suggestion, meaning that people who choose to ignore it can do so with impunity. As places like England and Australia have demonstrated, this is absolutely not the case.
  - Retric 11y ago
    70x is a lot larger than 29x. If anything the real difference is police are more likely to be armed in the US are are given a free pass when they shoot someone. Generally paperwork and a token investigation is the only major issue. PS: The safety argument falls flat as truck driving is a significantly more dangerious job in the US. And driving is also the most dangerous part of a cops job.

This is a comparative statement. The US has an order of magnitude more of this activity than other countries (of similar wealth and government type).

by themeek 11y ago

This is a comparative statement. The US has an order of magnitude more of this activity than other countries (of similar wealth and government type).

alexqgb 11y ago

When adjusting for population, the ratio of police shootings in America to those in Britain is about 70:1. (55 shootings in 24 years in a country w/ ~57 million people vs. 59 shootings in 24 days (Jan. 2015) in a country with ~318 million people). So yes, Americans are vastly more tolerant of police violence (to say nothing of stratospheric incarceration levels) than the British - mainly because black people are so disproportionally targeted in this country. Indeed, among America's more reactionary elements, the unrestrained use-of-force and incarceration policies behind these figures are vehemently defended, as they provide an effective way to enforce a racially-determined class structure, even in the absence of the Jim Crow laws that performed this role until the late 1960s. However, none of this would be acceptable if the police were equally harsh with everyone. Indiscriminate oppression is much harder sustain in the U.S. In that regard, we're quite different from the UK, where the "if you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to hide" attitude is far more prevalent (it's a fixture in comment sections of British news sites, whereas American sites see it crop up far less frequently). The fact that mass surveillance doesn't easily square with the more "acceptable" (read: racist) forms of police abuse in America is why Americans are far more unified in their opposition to it.

themeek 11y ago
Thank you for the insightful comment. I found your thesis about the racist nature of police abuse interesting, especially how you tie it to mass surveillance. I think you are probably right that this plays a large role in which communities and majorities will support or excuse this behavior. I don't want to draw it too far, though. We should recognize that Muslim Americans get far more surveillance - more targeted surveillance - for merely being Muslim or having Muslim community respect. It's also true that people can and are fooled into believing and supporting principles, spurred by things like nationalism or political party identity, that actively harm or target their own minority groups. This caveat I don't think invalidates your misgivings, which I think are good. If mass incarcernation and police abuse were as widely practiced on the wealthy or the majority there would be far more outcry.
- alexqgb 11y ago
  That's a good point about Muslim Americans. And the American authorities were savvy enough to know that if they wanted to install a system of mass surveillance, the could limit push-back by selling the effort in racially coded terms that would appeal to the reactionary right. In the ensuing "debate" about surveillance, the government could spin clear violations of the 4th Amendment into "a compromise that balances liberty and security." A note to foreign readers of HN: In America, "terrorism" is an ethnically coded term. Mass shootings by white people - a depressingly frequent occurrence - are almost always described in other terms. In the rare cases where this dodge becomes impossible to pull off (e.g., the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh), the attack will be described as an act of "domestic" terrorism, thereby preserving the clear ethnic subtext that is carried by the unmodified term. The notable exception to this rule is made for environmental activists, who are branded "eco-terrorists", or left-leaning people protesting economic injustices (e.g., Occupy Wall Street). In these cases, the deliberate use of a term with a strongly xenophobic component is a thinly veiled accusation of treason, which is a line of attack long-favored by the more belligerent critics of the American left (e.g., Joseph McCarthy, who provides the canonical example).
  - themeek 11y ago
    Another really nice contribution. Well phrased. In the McVeigh case the FBI pronounced (and media reverberated) that the OK City bombings were a Muslim terrorist attack until it was shown, in fact, to be definitively not the case. The language used to describe McVeigh's crimes and intentions was then continually watered down.
    - alexqgb 11y ago
      Yeah, the mask really doesn't have very far to slip.
    - A_COMPUTER 11y ago
      I remember that, do you remember that OKC was only a couple years after Osama bin Laden tried to bomb the World Trade Center and was during a time which Al Qaeda was attacking US-affiliates overseas on a regular basis?
rconti 11y ago
Sure, but considering we have something like 29x as many fatal shootings per capita in the US versus the UK, arguably, the police here show relative restraint -- not in the sense that the police shootings are a direct response to civilian shootings, but rather that police shootings are a comparatively small percentage over the overall shootings. I'm not trying to say any of this is good, but my point is that it's incorrect to believe that it's "relatively common for the police to shoot a fleeing suspect".
- themeek 11y ago
  Do you mean that the US and UK compare favoratively when measuring "fatal police shootings per generic fatal shooting per capita"?
- alexqgb 11y ago
  The only thing you can determine by comparing the rates of non-police shootings between the US and the UK is that effective gun control really is effective, and that the "if guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns" argument is demonstrably bullshit. I mean, it's true in an absolutely literal sense, in that having a gun makes you an outlaw, but it's wildly misleading in suggesting that the unarmed population will be subjected to a significant population of outlaws that has - somehow - managed to remain heavily armed. To hear the NRA tell it, the law is simply a suggestion, meaning that people who choose to ignore it can do so with impunity. As places like England and Australia have demonstrated, this is absolutely not the case.
- Retric 11y ago
  70x is a lot larger than 29x. If anything the real difference is police are more likely to be armed in the US are are given a free pass when they shoot someone. Generally paperwork and a token investigation is the only major issue. PS: The safety argument falls flat as truck driving is a significantly more dangerious job in the US. And driving is also the most dangerous part of a cops job.