What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work

[SummerMadness]

What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work

As protests have spread around the globe, the pressure is on police departments and politicians, particularly in the United States, to do something — from reforming law-enforcement tactics to defunding or even abolishing police departments.

And although researchers are encouraged by the momentum for change, some are also concerned that, without ample evidence to support new policies, leaders might miss the mark. Many have been arguing for years about the need for better data on the use of force by the police in the United States, and for rigorous studies that test interventions such as training on how to de-escalate tense interactions or mandating the use of body-worn cameras by officers. Those data and studies have begun to materialize, spurred by protests in 2014 after the deadly shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and the death by chokehold of Eric Garner in New York City.

 

[zippy2006]

According to the data there is no link. There is actually an anti-link. Believe it or not, blacks are less likely to be subject to police bias in gun-related deaths than most other groups.

On Racial Bias in Police Shootings

 

[SummerMadness]

According to the data there is no link. There is actually an anti-link. Believe it or not, blacks are less likely to be subject to police bias in gun-related deaths than most other groups.

On Racial Bias in Police Shootings

The link you just posted is a white supremacist website. Enjoy reading about the evils of the Jews...

 

[disciple Clint]

What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work

Same old flawed statistics that fail to consider: Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that blacks were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 biggest counties in the country, despite only comprising roughly 15 percent of the population in these counties. Let’s start with the question of fatal violence. Last year, according to the Washington Post’s tally, just 16 unarmed black men, out of a population of more than 20 million, were killed by the police. Data shows that 93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by other blacks.
5 Statistics You Need To Know About Cops Killing Blacks
Police Violence against Black Men Is Rare: Here’s What the Data Actually Say | National Review
7 Statistics You Need To Know About Black-On-Black Crime

 

[Radagast]

The link you just posted is a white supremacist website.

When you describe all your opponents as "white supremacists," the phrase no longer has any meaning.

However, the relevant article is from PNAS, which is a well-respected journal: Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings

Article summary: There is widespread concern about racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings and that these disparities reflect discrimination by White officers. Existing databases of fatal shootings lack information about officers, and past analytic approaches have made it difficult to assess the contributions of factors like crime. We create a comprehensive database of officers involved in fatal shootings during 2015 and predict victim race from civilian, officer, and county characteristics. We find no evidence of anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparities across shootings, and White officers are not more likely to shoot minority civilians than non-White officers. Instead, race-specific crime strongly predicts civilian race. This suggests that increasing diversity among officers by itself is unlikely to reduce racial disparity in police shootings.

 

[SummerMadness]

Same old flawed statistics that fail to consider: Bureau of Justice Statistics reveal that blacks were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 biggest counties in the country, despite only comprising roughly 15 percent of the population in these counties. Let’s start with the question of fatal violence. Last year, according to the Washington Post’s tally, just 16 unarmed black men, out of a population of more than 20 million, were killed by the police. Data shows that 93 percent of black homicide victims are killed by other blacks.
5 Statistics You Need To Know About Cops Killing Blacks
Police Violence against Black Men Is Rare: Here’s What the Data Actually Say | National Review
7 Statistics You Need To Know About Black-On-Black Crime

Most crime is intraracial, pointing out that black people killing other black people is somehow worse or different from "white-on-white" crime is a racist argument. Intraracial crime among black people is not special compared to intraracial crime by white people. Crimes committed by citizens is not relevant to this discussion.

 

[SummerMadness]

When you describe all your opponents as "white supremacists," the phrase no longer has any meaning.

When you post links from a website that references on the manipulative evils of Jewish people and how horrible Black people are, the source of information is evident. It's textbook white supremacist garbage. You can keep your "all your opponents" straw man, thank you.

 

[zippy2006]

When you post links from a website that references on the manipulative evils of Jewish people and how horrible Black people are, the source of information is evident. It's textbook white supremacist garbage. You can keep your "all your opponents" straw man, thank you.

Even if your evasion were true--which it is not--it wouldn't amount to anything more than an ad hominem fallacy. Statistics from the CDC, FBI, sociology, and academic journals don't magically lose their force when they are provided by someone you dislike.

 

[SummerMadness]

Even if your evasion were true--which it is not--it wouldn't amount to anything more than an ad hominem fallacy. Statistics from the CDC, FBI, sociology, and academic journals don't magically lose their force when they are provided by someone you dislike.

Misinterpreting statistics, making misleading points and attempting to argue Jews and Blacks are evil is the usual MO of white supremacists.

 

[zippy2006]

Misinterpreting statistics, making misleading points and attempting to argue Jews and Blacks are evil is the usual MO of white supremacists.

Oh? I wonder what would you make of someone who outright lies about the content of an article?

 

[disciple Clint]

Most crime is intraracial, pointing out that black people killing other black people is somehow worse or different from "white-on-white" crime is a racist argument. Intraracial crime among black people is not special compared to intraracial crime by white people. Crimes committed by citizens is not relevant to this discussion.

avoiding and misrepresenting the facts is relevant to this discussion. The problem for BLM is that the facts do not support their argument. So if the argument fails play the race card nothing new there either.

 

[SummerMadness]

avoiding and misrepresenting the facts is relevant to this discussion. The problem for BLM is that the facts do not support their argument. So if the argument fails play the race card nothing new there either.

Black-on-black crime is a racist argument and a distraction from the focus of Black Lives Matter, which is police reform.

 

[disciple Clint]

Black-on-black crime is a racist argument and a distraction from the focus of Black Lives Matter, which is police reform.

The victim scenario has been highly overused. Try a real argument with real facts.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

When you post links from a website that references on the manipulative evils of Jewish people and how horrible Black people are, the source of information is evident. It's textbook white supremacist garbage. You can keep your "all your opponents" straw man, thank you.

The link is to PNAS. If you don't know what PNAS is, it's the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. If you don't know what that is, it's a peer-reviewed scientific journal. If you don't know what a peer-reviewed scientific journal is, it means it's a journal that only accepts manuscripts for publication that have been thoroughly assessed for robust science using reliable data, by other experts (peers), within the same field of research. The authors are typically professors or post-doctoral researchers working at universities. The current editor of PNAS is May Berenbaum, a professor at the University of Illinois. The authors of the paper are five people, the primary author is at the University of Maryland, and the other four at Michigan State University.

If you are still unconvinced I suggest you check the websites below.

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - Wikipedia

The lesson here is to always look carefully at other people's evidence before dismissing it out of hand, and don't shoot the messenger (in this case, a website posting a link to a reliable source) just because you don't like the message and it doesn't fit the agenda you are pushing.

 

[Radagast]

Never mind (@JustSomeBloke said it better).

 

[SummerMadness]

The link is to PNAS. If you don't know what PNAS is, it's the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. If you don't know what that is, it's a peer-reviewed scientific journal. If you don't know what a peer-reviewed scientific journal is, it means it's a journal that only accepts manuscripts for publication that have been thoroughly assessed for robust science using reliable data, by other experts (peers), within the same field of research. The authors are typically professors or post-doctoral researchers working at universities. The current editor of PNAS is May Berenbaum, a professor at the University of Illinois. The authors of the paper are five people, the primary author is at the University of Maryland, and the other four at Michigan State University.

If you are still unconvinced I suggest you check the websites below.

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America - Wikipedia

The lesson here is to always look carefully at other people's evidence before dismissing it out of hand, and don't shoot the messenger (in this case, a website posting a link to a reliable source) just because you don't like the message and it doesn't fit the agenda you are pushing.

I've published in PNAS.

The published data is not the same as the racist ramblings of the website posted.

 

[disciple Clint]

Never mind (@JustSomeBloke said it better).

Yes he provided quite an education I am thinking, good for him. I dont know about anyone else but I am reaching the limit of my tolerance with people who invoke racism as an excuse for their failing arguments being counter and defeated by unbiased facts.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

The published data is not the same as the racist ramblings of the website posted.

In what way do you think the published data is different to the 'racist ramblings' on the webpage posted? Looking quickly through the webpage, to me it reads a little like a review paper on the topic of whether there is racial bias present when police shoot a suspect. I can't comment on the completeness of the review, and whether any relevant published material has been excluded, as it's not my area of interest. However, the author does include one paper that they say is often cited by people opposed to his assessment, and explains why they think it is unreliable, so it's clearly not a 100% cherry-picked survey of the available literature. If there are other publications that you think should be part of that literature review, then perhaps you could share them with us, or comment below the line on the webpage.

I did have a quick look at some of the other material on the same website, and I'd say quite a bit of it is controversial by mainstream right-on, PC standards, although on the topic of Jews, the author does state in the very first paragraph that 'nothing in this post should be taken as an attempt to justify mistreating anyone simply because they are Jewish'. I will have another look later, but for the moment I'm taking that website mostly as someone just trying to explain some of the social and socio-economic observations that they have made, and who is slightly irked by the lack of intelligent, informed, rational scientific debate. It appears to be anonymous, which given the controversial topics is not too surprising, so I think it's someone's outlet for commenting on issues that they can't mention freely elsewhere. And I suspect that the writer is an academic, as they clearly have access to a wide range of research literature, and typically it is only universities that have subscriptions to academic journals. Those without subscriptions would have to pay for unrestricted access, or buy access to individual journal articles, and neither of those options is cheap (although sometimes authors pay a large one off fee to the publisher to make their work open access, in the hope of gaining more citations).

I've published in PNAS.

I'm pleased to hear that, as it means you must know how the process of publishing academic research works. Although it does have the effect of making your responses seem all the more bizarre and inexplicable.

If you've been involved in research and publishing your work, you should know that the whole point of publishing is to disseminate information, so that others can digest it, and respond if they wish. Responses can be by a letter to the editor (which they may publish), contacting the primary author directly, publishing research on the same topic that supports or contradicts, or building on the research by carrying out further research to try and address areas that are still unclear or subject to dispute. It can be a slow process, and occasionally disputes and rivalries between academics who support different theories and explanations can rage for years, or even decades, until something almost totally irrefutable is published, and becomes generally accepted to the extent that it becomes text book knowledge.

Compare that with your response, which is to simply shout 'racist' when someone cites peer-reviewed research, and seems like a form of argumentum ad hominem to me. If you feel strongly about the published material, the right thing to do would be to read the paper thoroughly, then contact the authors to request their data and any details of their method that you would like to know. Or if you feel that the author of that webpage has plagiarised or misrepresented the published literature, then explain how so.

As an aside, I think I can already guess the way things may be heading with this particular area of research. We may reach the point where every claim made by Black Lives Matter achieves sacred cow status, and there will be zero tolerance of anyone who questions any of those claims. I say that because I consider politics and scientific research to be somewhat uncomfortable bedfellows, and when the tipping point is reached the political tail starts wagging the scientific dog.

What that means in practical terms is that most professors with an interest in and history of researching that area will foresee the tsunami of hate that will ensue if they publish their work, and the possibility of being hauled before the dean and defunded or fired. They will decide that it's not a hill worth dying on, sacrifice part of their academic freedom, and focus on some other, less controversial, area of research. I can think of at least two areas of social science research that are regarded as totally off limits, and I suspect this area may eventually follow.

If that happens, it will be a victory for BLM, but a rather hollow one. Large numbers of people living in Democrat-run cities will continue to live in sub-optimal conditions, because, let's face it, the Democrats have been responsible for running those areas for a long time, including policing, and they are still sub-optimal places to live. And if they are foolish enough to defund policing, the downward spiral will intensify as corporations move out, jobs disappear, and shops for essentials such as food become ever more sparse.

Lastly, I can think of some issues where there definitely is evidence that BAME people are subject to racism and prejudice, and experience genuine difficulties, I'm just not convinced that racially biased police shootings is one of those areas.

Apologies to @Radagast for jumping in earlier. I need to learn to exercise restraint.

 

[SummerMadness]

In what way do you think the published data is different to the 'racist ramblings' on the webpage posted? Looking quickly through the webpage, to me it reads a little like a review paper on the topic of whether there is racial bias present when police shoot a suspect. I can't comment on the completeness of the review, and whether any relevant published material has been excluded, as it's not my area of interest. However, the author does include one paper that they say is often cited by people opposed to his assessment, and explains why they think it is unreliable, so it's clearly not a 100% cherry-picked survey of the available literature. If there are other publications that you think should be part of that literature review, then perhaps you could share them with us, or comment below the line on the webpage.

The published data is published data, the website itself is cherry-picked data to make an false point. You may subscribe to the musings of a person talking about Jews influencing politics, arguing race = intelligence garbage, as well as making false arguments about the attention given to the killings of Justine Damond and Daniel Shaver, by all means, enjoy. But that has nothing to do with this topic.

An aside, citing peer-reviewed research doesn't mean anything. I've reviewed and rejected numerous manuscripts that cite peer-reviewed articles, citing an article doesn't make your writing more valid.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

The published data is published data, the website itself is cherry-picked data to make an false point. You may subscribe to the musings of a person talking about Jews influencing politics, arguing race = intelligence garbage, as well as making false arguments about the attention given to the killings of Justine Damond and Daniel Shaver, by all means, enjoy. But that has nothing to do with this topic.

An aside, citing peer-reviewed research doesn't mean anything. I've reviewed and rejected numerous manuscripts that cite peer-reviewed articles, citing an article doesn't make your writing more valid.

Your responses have so little substance, I think the most likely explanation is that you are desperately trying to bluff your way out of the corner you painted yourself into.