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Comment by akud | Hacker News Reader

> the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average

What they really need to do is factor in the probability of encounters with police gI've race. That is, we want to know, out of all encounters with police, are they more likely to be fatal if the victim is black?

Without factoring in the rate of police encounters, the conclusion could just be indicating that black people are more likely to encounter the police, which is a problem in itself but is slightly different. That would point more to socioeconomic factors determining the rate of policing in neighborhoods, rather than police racism.

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A study from the NYT addresses this, and finds that if arrest rates is a good proxy for police interactions (a reasonable assumption) the data supports the theory that the reason black people are more likely to be killed by police is because they are more likely to interact with police:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-...:

> This in turn suggests that removing police racial bias will have little effect on the killing rate. Suppose each arrest creates an equal risk of shooting for both African-Americans and whites. In that case, with the current arrest rate, 28.9 percent of all those killed by police officers would still be African-American. This is only slightly smaller than the 31.8 percent of killings we actually see, and it is much greater than the 13.2 percent level of African-Americans in the overall population.

But there could be a racial bias that causes police to be more likely to stop black Americans.

Could be is an understatement in certain places in the US

Perhaps it has something to do with the crime rate in the black community being through the roof.

Perhaps it has something to do with them being stopped more and thus arrested more.

They could normalize for reported crime rates and compare --but take into account tendency to overreport as well as underreport crime by some groups (ie undocumented/illegal status).

Blacks commit higher rates of murder, rape, and other violent crime. These are crimes that you're caught for afterword and don't have to do with a single interaction with police. FBI crime statistics show many types of crime broken down by race. Despite being a minority, blacks commit the majority of murders, and black-on-white crime is higher than white-on-black, for example.

One resource is: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/...

This table shows that blacks are responsible for more than 50% of all murders in 2015, and a greater absolute number than white-committed murders. Blacks make up around 10-12% of the population, so the rate at which they commit this crime is far higher than whites.

It's likely that there are also biases in how police interact with blacks and whites. However it's hard to say with certainty what magnitude of effect there is. I find it hard to believe that the entirety of the difference in these statistics is due to bias.

Blacks are convicted of committing higher rates of murder, rape, and other violent crime. Considering that nearly 40% of homicides go unsolved, it's entirely possible that the actual rate is much different.

You're deep in conspiracy-theory territory. No one seriously disputes that the actual black violent crime rate is much much higher than the white violent crime rate. This is accepted fact. Unfortunately, this kind of conspiratorial fact-free thinking has been embraced by movements like BLM and their supporters.

To expect equal outcomes is absurd. The black and white communities in the US have very different histories and cultures. Their economic conditions are also wildly different. The different crime rates and outcomes are completely consistent with this.

And yes, for some crimes, blacks probably get caught at a higher rate. Black neighborhoods tend to be high-crime areas, so they tend to have greater police presence. This is totally rational policing. Liberty City in Miami needs a strong police presence to protect the inhabitants. The super ritzy and quiet parts of Coral Gables don't. Guess where you're more likely to get picked up for a low level stuff like speeding, smoking weed, or loitering? And who's more likely to get caught? The white guy selling drugs to his buddies at school or from home, or the black guy selling drugs on the corner? Different communities, different dynamics, different outcomes.

Really?

Given that the vast majority of violence is white-on-white or black-on-black, are you seriously suggesting that the police are spending _more_ of their time and resources investigating murders of blacks than of whites?

The vast majority of the unsolved murders are inner-city, where often the police don't care who kills whom. The vast majority of the murders in the suburbs, in otherwise peaceful neighborhoods, get tons of police attention.

So no, I think it is is exceedingly unlikely that the actual homicide rate skews more white than the statistics show.

And to carry forward your good point -- black people are committing more murders, but also being killed by murderers more often, as well as growing up in neighborhoods where murders happen and losing family members -- etc. Communities with more criminals have more victims as well. To pretend like it's not the case is to turn your back on the large number of victims, who deserve better regardless of the race of the perpetrator.

you've got it wrong. Investigators do so much work to help these families. No cop wants a murderer to walk, that's why they get into the job in the first place. If you haven't talked to police before, especially investigation units, you need to recognize your assumptions are wrong.

Perhaps I didn't get across what I was trying to say. My point was that legally, it's going to be easier for the courts to convict a poor person with a public defender on murder/non-neglient manslaughter charges than a rich person with an expensive lawyer.

What would be interesting to see is the rate at which charged persons of certain socioeconomic tiers successfully defended their case, or were able to plead down to a lesser charge if they were originally charged with homicide.

There are almost twice as many white people living in poverty in the USA than black people. Why would we assume that white people who commit murder will be rich and can afford an expensive lawyer, while the black people who commit murder will be poor?

It's true that more black people live in poverty than white people per capita, but it's also true that crime is not evenly distributed across all people per capita, and has a connection with poverty level. My point is that there are more white people living in poverty, and they commit crimes at lower rates per capita and also total than black people.

I don't have data for all of these arguments handy, but here's one resource on poverty levels by race and region: http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/poverty-rate-by-raceeth...

Also note that controlling for poverty does not eliminate the effect where blacks commit more crime than whites:

http://www.udel.edu/soc/faculty/parker/SOCI836_S08_files/McN...

> > As a means to assess these possibilities, I estimate separate regression equations for the black and white block groups in Atlanta. [...] Consistent with previous research, percent black retains a strong, significant effect on violent crime net of the effects of other controls. [...] Although this finding appears to provide partial support for the racial invariance assumption, the fact remains that for a large proportion of the black neighborhoods, the effect of disadvantage on violence is weaker than is the effect evident among all of the white neighborhoods in the analysis

We could speculate that lots of things might be true, but if we're going to approach this topic scientifically, we should analyze data that we have, and not simply posit hypothetical after hypothetical. E.g. speculation like: "maybe all the unsolved murders are committed by whites"or "maybe white defendants are getting off when blacks aren't" -- a fine train of thought to explore and validate with data, but it's just speculation unless/until there are data and evidence to back it up.

Whoa whoa, it's not that police don't care who kills somebody. That's way off. Problem is in many cities, snitches don't just get stitches, they get killed along with whoever might be living with them. ASK homicide detectives or better yet watch one of the hundreds of episodes of 'The First 48' and you'll see that investigators get very little help in these tight knit urban communities.

Thank god we have a system that it's really hard to convict innocent people. You know, a unanimous vote of a jury of your peers is required to convict and all.

I genuinely thought this comment was sarcasm, until I read your other comments.

I think it's reasonable to remember that Blacks (and especially young Black men) commit proportionally more violent crimes; it is also useful to remember that black people in general are much more likely to be the victims of crime. The latter point is a much more reasonable way to view the experience of being black in America -- constantly in danger of crime, and then being treated like a criminal by the people who are supposed to protect you from crime.

The police -- and I do believe that the vast majority are well intentioned -- too often think that aggressive tactics are the answer, because the way to reduce crime must be to catch more criminals, right? So, when a police officer is assigned to a rough area with lots of crime, he tends to treat the citizens like criminals instead of victims. Maybe not everyone is treated this way -- but young, poor, black men certainly are in many cases, especially when they're involved in petty criminal activity like selling bootleg CDs that leads to tense interactions with police.

It's a really tough problem, and I don't have a good idea about what could be done to solve it -- but local governments are failing these communities, and we should demand something better from our leadership.

The leadership that's failing them most is the leadership of the black community. They're laser focused on selling a victimhood narrative that reduces all problems to racism and oppression by the white man. Meanwhile, black children are raised in single-parent homes in record numbers, are joining gangs due to poor parental supervision, and very often grow up in an environment that frowns upon success as some kind of racial betrayal ("acting white"). Blacks who speak out about the social and cultural problems within the black community are labeled Uncle Toms and ignored (see Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas, for example).

Second to that is the leadership and elite of the country, that accepts this victimhood narrative out of misinformation, political correctness, and political expedience. There's no better way to get 90% of a population to vote for you than to convince them that the other side is the mortal enemy that hates them for the color of their skin and wants to keep them down.

It's much easier to sell such a narrative when the entire history of your country backs it up. When a close advisor of a previous President admits they started the war on drugs to target hippies and negroes, for example.

Oh, that same president was strongly anti-abortion except in extreme circumstances. His example of such a case when abortion was warranted? Mixed-race babies.

He also reset the fundamental strategy one of your political parties for the last few decades to appealing to racists with "the southern strategy". Which Trump, with his flirting with white supremacist groups continues to this day.

Believe what you want. Even if everything you say is true, which I seriously doubt, it doesn't change the fact that victimhood politics is the road to continued ruin.

Unfortunately it is true:

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-r...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1058326...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy

Why shouldn't a victim acknowledge the reality of being targeted? What other groups do you expect to follow this bizarre recommendation?

Thus is a nice historical overview that ties a lot of this stuff together:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/is-ameri...

I don't buy that America is a substantially racist country today. I especially don't buy that racism is even in the top-ten list of problems facing black people.

History sucks. It landed my grandparents in America, having fled Cuba, with the clothes on their backs. They had built lives for themselves and had it all pulled from under them. Somehow, the Cuban-American community has done phenomenally well for itself. Definitely not by blaming the past for their lot and demanding nebulous reparations.

"In order to provide aid to recently arrived Cuban immigrants, the United States Congress passed the Cuban Adjustment Act in 1966. The Cuban Refugee Program provided more than $1.3 billion of direct financial assistance. They also were eligible for public assistance, Medicare, free English courses, scholarships, and low-interest college loans." says wikipedia. Seems like they were lucky to be on the right side of a political battle to me.

You realize that's all dwarfed by the welfare state that we now have for everyone, right?

It's also not the root of the Cuban-American community's success. The earliest waves of migrants were almost all from the middle and upper class. They did correspondingly well in their new home. Wealth is not really a number in your bank account, it's the knowledge and virtues that guide of the process of producing value.

If you took everyone in America's money away and started over, the resulting classes would look a lot like today's. Culture is almost everything.

This is only true in the case of murder. Other violent crime is much closer.

There could be, but why do you assume this is do to racial bias as opposed to the unfortunate fact that black people are more likely to commit violent crime? I assume that arrest rates should be a good proxy for police interaction, this is a logical assumption - if you disagree then you should give a reason of why your assumption is better, not just say that the assumption "could" be wrong. The unfortunate truth is that black people are more likely to commit violent crime in the US. To show racial bias you have to show that police are disproportionately targeting blacks relative to the rate of crime, if you make the false assumption that the rate of crime is equal between black people and white people then your conclusions will be wrong.

http://www.amren.com/news/2015/07/new-doj-statistics-on-race...

Even for something like traffic stops, you need to study whether or not black people are more likely to get pulled over because they are black or because they are more likely to be young and therefore more likely to speed. It isn't enough to just say that black people are disproportionately stopped, you have to show that the rate of speeding is the same to show bias.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/21/nyregion/study-suggests-ra...

> To show racial bias you have to show that police are disproportionately targeting blacks relative to the rate of crime, if you make the false assumption that the rate of crime is equal between black people and white people then your conclusions will be wrong.

> Even for something like traffic stops, you need to study whether or not black people are more likely to get pulled over because they are black or because they are more likely to be young and therefore more likely to speed. It isn't enough to just say that black people are disproportionately stopped, you have to show that the rate of speeding is the same to show bias.

http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/janfeb-2014/driving-wh...

> The key influence on who is stopped in traffic safety stops is how you drive; in investigatory stops it is who you are, and being black is the leading influence. In traffic safety stops, being black has no influence: African Americans are not significantly more likely than whites to be stopped for clear traffic safety law violations. But in investigatory stops, a black man age twenty-five or younger has a 28 percent chance of being stopped for an investigatory reason over the course of a year; a similar young white man has a 12.5 percent chance, and a similar young white woman has only a 7 percent chance. And this is after taking into account other possible influences on being stopped, like how you drive. Police focus investigatory stops on younger people, and so as people grow older they are less likely to be stopped in this way. But a black man must reach fifty—well into the graying years—before his risk of an investigatory stop drops below that of a white man under age twenty-five. Overall, black drivers are nearly three times more likely than whites to be subjected to investigatory stops.

> Being black is also the leading influence on how far police officers pursue their inquisition in investigatory stops. In these stops, full-blown vehicle searches are relatively common. After taking into account other possible influences, black drivers in our survey were five times more likely than whites to be subjected to searches in investigatory stops. Searches are remarkably rare in traffic safety stops, and the driver’s race has no influence on whether the driver is searched in these stops.

Fyi, investigatory stops means the cop pulls you over for reasons that don't involve a traffic violation.

Could you edit your post to make it clearer where you are quoting a user and where you are quoting something else?

Sorry didn't notice this in time, edit window closed.

Wait, what do you mean black people are more likely to be pulled over, not because they're black, but because they're more likely to be young and hence more likely to speed? Which stat are you using, young black drivers as a proportion of all black drivers? Youn black drivers as a proportion of all drivers? And assuming we can assume all young drivers, regardless of race, are more likely to speed (unless you say otherwise), are the patterns of being pulled over amongst young black drivers similar to the patterns for young white/other race drivers?

"Wait, what do you mean black people are more likely to be pulled over, not because they're black, but because they're more likely to be young and hence more likely to speed?"

Speeding or not speeding - African Americans are significantly more likely to be involved in all crimes - according to arrest and conviction data.

I think there is probably some bias, for sure, but bias can't quite explain it all away. Neither can income or education. Even normalizing for those, there is still more violence within African American communities.

It's obviously a complex problem, god forbid I don't have the answer, but the more politically fearless research we can do the better.

A study of the likelihood of being shot while interacting with police, as opposed to a study of just the likelihood of being shot given race - is really not very helpful in this situation.

> African Americans are significantly more likely to be involved in all crimes - according to arrest and conviction data.

And according to studies in criminal behavior, African Americans are not any more likely to be committing crimes than other races. They're just more likely to be arrested by police and convicted for behavior than other races. If you don't believe me, you can look into marijuana use and possession arrests between the different races.

You're Wrong. And murder rates tell you that. MJ posession and murder are two different things. Per capita, blacks murder more than whites. AND in other countries, blacks also commit more than their "fair share" of crime including murders. Fortunately the United States still keeps the data on this. Canada is so bad now they purposely scrubbed racial information.

You're wrong, and it's because you're cherry picking yet again. Murder is highly race-on-race, and because blacks have a smaller percentage of the population, they only appear to be higher per capita [1].

Of course, since your last comment seems to hint at confirmation bias, I'm sure you'll dismiss any real statistical analysis as "scrubbing".

[1] http://qz.com/556988/here-are-four-charts-on-race-and-murder...

Ask any well-compensated black person who drives a reasonably expensive car how often they've been pulled over. The answer won't surprise me, but it might surprise you.

I'm a reasonably well compensated white person, and you might be surprised at how often I get pulled over. I don't get shot because I keep my hands on the steering wheel and I don't make any sudden movements.

If we're going to go with anecdotal data here, I had an A/B test experience in St. Louis some years ago.

As a white intern, I was pulled over for a speeding ticket on the commute to work and just given a ticket. That same morning a cop pulls over a black intern for speeding on the same route, but before giving him the ticket he pulls the intern out of the car and pats him down on the side of the car.

In hindsight we should have compared the tickets to see if it was the same officer, but we were both wearing boring business casual attire.

Yeah, but when you show me a video of a man getting shot by the police and you want me to show some sympathy, he better not be obviously resisting arrest. It's the "clean hands" principle. I feel bad, but I feel bad that nobody's there teaching these guys how to deal with cops in a civil manner that keeps you alive. Instead, we're just stirring the pot.

> nobody's there teaching these guys how to deal with cops in a civil manner that keeps you alive

Blaming the victim? Really?

That's what the protest in Dallas was about. That Philando Castile, an African american, was politely complying with police and was still shot and killed in his car with his fiance and her daughter.

It's interesting that you get to choose which victim I'm blaming. I didn't get to see the part of the video where Philando Castile got shot for doing nothing, so I can't really say that he was doing nothing. As silly as that last sentence sounds, it is you who is calling me the victim blamer in the absence of facts, strangely, while we are talking about bias.

If you re-read the comment, you'll see that I didn't choose anyone, and only referred to current issues. You know, these "facts" that you're eluding to that are absent from the conversation.

What is interesting is that you're choosing to deflect by accusing me of not knowing the "facts", even after you admitted to not knowing them (which qualifies as psychological projection). Perhaps you'd like to share these "facts" that justify your racially-based victim blaming instead?

If you re-read the comment, I wasn't talking about Castile: "he better not be obviously resisting arrest" - Alton Sterling. So, you can call me a victim blamer, erroneously. You can say it's racially based, erroneously. But you're the one with reading comprehension issues, Bud.

You might also want to note, that I'm clearly not blaming the victim. You yourself quoted it, "nobody's there teaching these guys how to deal with cops in a civil manner that keeps you alive". I'm not saying that Castile was to blame. I'm saying society needs to teach people to not do IDIOTIC things in front of police. And since this happens to people of all races, you saying it's racially based is completely baseless.

Sure, sure - just link which comment you were specifically referring to Alton Sterling and I'll re-read that. Otherwise you're psychologically projecting "reading comprehension issues" again, Micah.

You seem to be confused about what blaming the victim is, or you're intentionally trying to redefine it as "no, I was blaming society". It's interesting, because you're still trying to grasp the assertion that it's the behavior of the victim at fault for the the cops killing them.

Another anecdotal story: I'm white, and been pulled over plenty. Never thought much of it. I lived in a mostly white nice neighborhood.

I was riding with a black friend, and when he was pulled over in the same town, it was a drastically different experience. He was pulled over for no reason, and ultimately got a ticket for "possible possession of drugs". We were told to leave the car, separated, and spent ~1 hour being drilled with questions.

A very eye-opening experience.

what on earth is 'possible possession of drugs'?

It's a lie he's telling. That's what that is.

Great question! It was thrown out of court in the end, but the cop really didn't have any reason to pull us over, and despite searching the whole car, he couldn't find any drugs. He had to write a ticket for something though, I guess.

I love speeding ticket anecdotes!

I’m white, and live in CO. I was traveling the day before Thanksgiving and traveled through South Fork, CO (which is at the bottom of a mtn. pass). I was just following the car in front of me (at a 200m distance), doing ~40mph. Apparently, the speed limit drops to 35mph for a short stretch in the ‘business district.' I saw him in my rear-view, pulled over, and he pulled-up beside me. He rolled down his window and told me to follow him because he had someone else to ticket (I was clocked at 43mph he said). He gave us both tickets that were $100/ no points if paid quickly, it’s a total racket.

Also, I’ve been pulled over ~15 times in the last 20 years (mostly in Boulder), and I’ve never left my hands on the wheel. I immediately go to my glove box and get my registration/insurance, then grab my license. By the time the cop gets to my window, I just hand over all 3 documents at once.

One time, I was doing 90mph through Denver at 4am for a Crispy Creme run as the designated driver. On I-25, I think the speed limit there was 55-60mph. He gave me a warning.

Those are some super cool stories that you just enthusiastically listed. Thanks.

Do any of these involve anyone other than just you? You know, that offer a comparison and are relevant to the discussion?

It seems that you are questioning the relevance of my contribution. I believe the relevance is that in mostly-white CO these 'rules' that everybody seems to parrot about dealing with cops don't apply. I don't have to leave my hands on the steering wheel. So, my (perhaps erroneous) conclusion has been that when there is little racial diversity, these problems don't seem as prevalent.

Edit: Just to be clear, I do not appreciate the antagonistic tone in your comment.

>my (perhaps erroneous) conclusion has been that when there is little racial diversity, these problems don't seem as prevalent.

Even then you would need to have a cop-experience involving other races, in areas of "little racial diversity" to make this conclusion -i.e. Your black friend and you (white) were treated no differently than the other times you were pulled over alone.

Your stories really only involve you, which is weird that you think they're relevant.

The "rules" often cited aren't because there will be a problem in most cases if you don't follow them. Instead, its because they will be problem in a very small (much <1%) of cases if you don't follow them, and the potential cost is very high.

(I'm not -- at least, not exclusively, or in general perception -- white, have lived in parts of CA with lots of diversity, and have often failed to follow the "rules" without problem -- and don't think any of that is unexpected even with the "rules" being valid.)

Exactly, I'm in fucking Canada and I always look at the officer and get their go ahead before opening the glove box, reaching into my pocket.

I'm also the kind of person who gets into debates with cops out why I was stopped, etc. I'm by no means 'compliant' essentially refusing everything I'm not obligated to do.

>The unfortunate truth is that black people are more likely to commit violent crime in the US.

It doesn't make much sense to cite the proportion of black people convicted of a crime by US law enforcement as evidence refuting the claim that the US law enforcement's interaction with people changes according to their race. The proportion of black people convicted of [category] crimes could be high for many reasons, including actually higher incidence of such crimes among blacks, racial prejudices at various points along the legal path of alleged criminals, and any combination of those or other factors.

You're right - it could be. But we don't like to make assumptions since we're having a rational scientific discussion. BTW, since the proportion of convictions is so high, it is going to require some pretty good explaining. Not some, off the cuff, hand-wavy, un-falsifiable, muh prejudice. Since our justice system is built on principles like "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", you better have a whole pile of evidence that people are getting convicted erroneously here.

hm, but it isn't built on those principles and not practiced in any consistency throughout the myriad of jurisdictions in the united states

the district attorneys and prosecutors have discretion on what facts [of the case] are relevant, have discretion on what crime to levy which influences the burden of proof, have discretion on what recommended sentence to pursue, and the judges have discretion on pursuing that sentence or not

That's all interesting, except you have to realize that DA are motivated by convictions. Convictions are hard because it requires a unanimous vote from a jury of your peers. So, yes, they exercise their discretion on what facts are relevant and which cases to pursue. But they do not drop cases because its a white guy and keep them because its a black guy as you are insinuating. At most, race is going to be a minor factor when compared with the gravity of the crime and the likelihood of conviction.

I was not insinuating anything.

My statements are purposely written to be read independent of the context in this thread to avoid your exact rebuttal. Maybe you were expecting someone else to reply to you.

Continuing, there is a saying that "prosecutors can get a jury to convict a ham sandwich", although more applicable in civil asset forfeiture proceedings that happen to involve a jury. They can give incorrect instructions, they can give arbitrary instructions, they can create any number of constraints for the jury to consider, and they also screen jury members out for various reasons such as a potential juror's affinity for jury nullification.

This allows for greater success in their conviction rate, especially in the idea of the complacent juror.

> there is a saying that "prosecutors can get a jury to convict a ham sandwich

The quote is that a good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. The meaning is entirely different from your interpretation.

Good point

Having read enough appeals cases I will maintain what I mentioned about what prosecutors have discretion over.

> But they do not drop cases because its a white guy and keep them because its a black guy as you are insinuating.

Actual studies of plea bargaining have shown that there are racial biases in what prosecutors offer in deals between black and white defendants [0]. It seems unlikely that the same bias would not also be reflected in decisions to charge in the first place.

[0] https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSumma...: "Studies that assess the effects of race find that blacks are less likely to receive a reduced charge compared with whites (Farnworth and Teske, 1995; Johnson, 2003; Kellough and Wortley, 2002; Ulmer and Bradley, 2006). Additionally, one study found that blacks are also less likely to receive the benefits of shorter or reduced sentences as a result of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion during plea bargaining (Johnson, 2003)."

The fact that there are racial biases in what prosecutors offer between black and white is misleading at best. It simply follows from the facts that we already have: blacks are convicted more often. If blacks are convicted more often, they have longer rap sheets on average. You are unlikely to get a better plea deal if you have a history of committing crime.

Now, if they had gone and showed that first time offenders, for example, had shown a racial bias between blacks and whites, you'd have me impressed.

In effect, you are going back to the original argument, that it's just systemic racism. Unfortunately, you have not provided any falsifiable evidence that this is true.

I don't think the convictions rates indicate anything contrary to the alleged systemic racism here. The claim that was made in my undergrad criminal justice classes (so taken with appropriate grain of salt with that context) was "white people who commit petty crimes are less likely to end up in court at all, and for larger crimes you are more likely to be convicted if you've been previously convicted for petty crimes, leading to higher rates of conviction for both petty and major crimes" not at all "large scale cases of black people in court for crimes who are actually innocent".

Pragmatically, criminal convictions of all individuals, race notwithstanding, requires a unanimous jury verdict. In those jurisdictions with high concentration of blacks, which is where the preponderance of black crime takes place, juries would be highly likely to include black members whose assent is required for conviction of a black defendant.

On that basis, non-black bias against blacks would not account for population rates of convictions in those localities, at least insofar as post-arrest procedures are concerned.

Conceivably other factors could be implicated in conviction rates, e.g., possible higher rates of plea bargaining among black defendants. Still, if the difference in crime rates (based on convictions) is great enough, non-jury convictions wouldn't explain it.

> Pragmatically, criminal convictions of all individuals, race notwithstanding, requires a unanimous jury verdict.

No, pragmatically the vast majority of criminal convictions are the result of plea bargains, with no jury involved; the calculus that goes into agreeing to a plea bargain certainly includes the expectations regarding a jury verdict, but it also includes the cost of pre-trial confinement and other factors.

> In those jurisdictions with high concentration of blacks, which is where the preponderance of black crime takes place, juries would be highly likely to include black members whose assent is required for conviction of a black defendant.

It may be more likely that this is the case, but its not guaranteed. Particularly given that jury pools are not guaranteed to be representative (typically, they are determined by means like voter registration and drivers licenses, which may not be consistent in participation across races.)

> On that basis, bias against blacks would not account for population rates of convictions in those localities, at least insofar as post-arrest procedures are concerned.

You seem to be saying that jury pool considerations would prevent racial bias in post-arrest conviction rates; while that's wrong for post-charge rates for the reasons stated earlier in this comment, its even more wrong for post-arrest rates because it ignores prosecutorial bias, which introduces potential post-arrest bias in the rates of criminal charges being pursued for like conduct.

> Still, if the difference in crime rates (based on convictions) is great enough, non-jury convictions wouldn't explain it.

Upwards of 90% of US criminal cases (not just convictions, but all cases; the share of convictions -- since all plea bargains are convictions -- is even higher than the share of cases) are resolved by plea bargains [0]. There's virtually no level of disparity in total convictions that could be explained by disparity in the plea bargaining process, which is overwhelmingly how criminal convictions are arrived at.

[0] https://www.bja.gov/Publications/PleaBargainingResearchSumma...

I think that your points about biases in arrest and prosecution being more problematic than I considered are likely correct. I knew plea bargains were common, though the rate you cite is high but not implausible. If there is significant plea bargain rate disparity among racial/ethnic groups it might affect conclusions about impact of racial biases.

While juries are not uniformly populated, in predominantly black communities I'd expect at least some jurors will be black. When there is a jury trial, a requirement for unanimous decision gives any juror "veto" power over a guilty verdict, which in principle mitigates racial bias against a black defendant.

Many years ago when I lived in Washington, DC, blacks were by far the majority. In that environment, racial bias against black residents should logically be minimal in all phases of the criminal justice process. It's not the sort of question I've researched, but someone experienced in that domain should tackle it if the question is still unanswered. In any case, if bias is detected in such a community seems there's a serious problem of a different kind.

"It doesn't make much sense to cite the proportion of black people convicted of a crime by US law enforcement as evidence refuting the claim that the US law enforcement's interaction with people changes according to their race. "

It actually does.

The rate of violent crime among African Americans is massively disproportionate. There's no way any kind of racial bias on the part of police could account for it.

A major study done in the late 2000's actually showed that while African Americans did receive more punishment for similar crimes - once 'criminal history' was taken into consideration, the difference evaporated.

Given that there is a massive difference in 'recorded convictions' (which is arguably biased because of 'racist cops') and numerous attempts to study the prevalence of racism in the system - it's pretty safe to assume that there's no way on earth that 'racist cops' are why there is why African Americans are about 700% more likely to commit violent crimes than others.

It's a sad situation, surely, but it's important to keep the facts in check.

About 50% of violent crime in America is committed by African American men, though they are only about 7% of the population (about 13% including women). This is quite radically high and it's not even explained by poverty.

The sheer size of the discrepancy between ethnic groups is unsettling.

I wish I had answers.

Think about the impact of an arrest though. If one group is getting arrested at a higher rate and thus likely to be convicted of some type of offense, they could be more likely to later reoffend given they now have a conviction on their record and are less likely to be able to find a reasonable job. It is a vicious spiral. A while back, there was a police shooting at a traffic stop (the guy sped off) and it turned out he had been arrested 21 times. I have zero evidence, but my feeling is that the same types of infractions folks in one community are pulled over for are glossed over in others (missing front license plate, tail light out), which starts the vicious cycle.

What about using the proportion of black assailants as reported by the victims? Would that be relatively free of bias?

> What about using the proportion of black assailants as reported by the victims? Would that be relatively free of bias?

No. There is considerable history of victims not only misidentifying the perpetrator, but even inventing the offense to smear someone because of racial bias, personal animus, or other reasons. To the extent that there is a systematic racial bias throughout society, you'd expect it to be reflected in such reports.

A "considerable history"? You've got nothing here. And you're gonna have to deal with it. Victim of crime survey data is an actual thing we have. You're trying to make it untrue because of your own bias.

why do you assume this is do to racial bias

Because this is America and there is a continuous history of racial bias since the country was founded. Or did you think that all went away with the 13th amendment? Or the 14th? Or maybe the 15th?

The Department of Justice has reports detailing racist enforcement in Ferguson http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/us/justice-department-find... and Newark http://time.com/3020180/newark-police/ and the New York Bar Association had a report on stop-and-frisk being a racist policy in NYC http://www2.nycbar.org/pdf/report/uploads/20072495-StopFrisk... [PDF] and a St. Louis police union is calling out racism in the department http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-black-union-st...

There is already evidence of bias with arrests for other crimes.

Marijuana possession accounts for 46% of all drug arrests. In terms of marijuana use, 14% of blacks and 12% of whites have used marijuana in the last year, yet blacks are 373% more likely to be arrested for possession. In some areas of the U.S., like Cook, IL, the bias gets as high as 720%. [1]

If police are racially biased with arrests for one set of criminal behavior, isn't it likely there is some bias towards other types of behavior too? Like in stopping cars?

[1] https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel...

"But there could be a racial bias that causes police to be more likely to stop black Americans."

Even if this is true (and it's probably true to some extent), by focusing on 'interactions only' we can isolate the degree to which cops may be racially biased in at least those incidents wherein there is interaction.

This would yield much more valuable results than the paper in the link.

The linked paper is almost useless because there is a very large divide in who cops interact with. So many factors there including police density, income, poverty, education etc..

We could further look at bias differences by studying areas of police encounters in predominantly poor areas with similar rates of crime but with different racial profiles.

> We could further look at bias differences by studying areas of police encounters in predominantly poor areas with similar rates of crime but with different racial profiles.

Or we could conduct simulations and put police officers through them, in which the only differences were race.

Its been found before that police are more likely to stop African Americans, so this may still be racial bias.

I have no doubt this is true, but I suggest the story is much more complicated than that.

I liked Trevor Noah's take on this: "This isn't a black problem, this is a US police problem. Why is the US police shooting people who are already subdued? Why are people getting shot in the back?"

To support his claim, he shows both a video of police killing black people and a video of police killing white people. Each time the perp was already on the ground and immobilized. Then shot.

At this point I'm terrified of ever interacting with the US police in any way for any reason.Starting to think it's time to vote with my feet and move to a different country again.

I don't know why you seem to be getting downvoted - this seems to me to be the most important question. Perhaps one of the downvoters can provide some explanation. In particular, why is it wrong (and, I assume, perceived as racist) to ask whether the problem can be described as "those in power are abusing that power"?

Ultimately, it can be traced back to the war on drugs, as can many of our societal ills.

> (and, I assume, perceived as racist)

Funnily Trevor Noah is both black and recently immigrated from South Africa. Doesn't get more african-american than that.

This statement doesn't make any sense to me?

A fair bit of his early stand up concerns the complexities of being a mixed race child in South Africa and then the extra layers of complexity that occur when transplanted into the US.

From watching that I think he'd disagree with your conclusion.

I don't understand why, when they do shoot, it's often five or more times. Why not just once or twice, then get out of the way?

Actually, if we assume that force really was appropriate, then what they're doing is correct.

Real life firearms are NOTHING like those on TV. First, your chances of actually hitting something from any non-trivial distance isn't that great. Even 10 yards is far from a sure hit, and just hitting doesn't necessarily count for much.

Second, the fact that the bad guy took a hit doesn't mean he's going down. In fact, he almost certainly will not. Anything less than a headshot destroying the brain (sorry to be graphic) may well have them still shooting back at you, even if the wound will ultimately prove fatal. Even severing the femoral artery or aorta isn't going to have the bad guy dropping in his tracks.

And in such a situation, your goal is to stop the threat. As you can see, ensuring that the treat is stopped requires a lot more than a double-tap.

In the St. Paul case he fired 5 rounds from just outside the window of the car. Literally just a couple feet away from the guy, not 10 yards. In the Baton Rouge case the guy was on the ground with the cops on top of him.

In the UK they manage to subdue dangerous suspects without unloading the entire clip.

Because they are carrying 9mm when they should be carrying .45

This is true, but a very, very small sub-set of people being shot. IIRC, greater than 80% of people shot by police have a weapon and are actively resisting.

Since the U.S. does not collect any statistics on police shootings, it's hard to see how you could know that.

Evidently from, "... news reports, public records, Internet databases, and original reporting"[1]

Going by their data, of the 258 Black people shot by police in 2015, 188 were armed with a deadly weapon, 20 with a vehicle, 5 wth a toy weapon, and 45 either unarmed or unknown.

If you accept toy weapons and vehicles as being armed, that is 82%, which is what I remember hearing.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

If you are terrified of ever interacting with the police, I would recommend that you go and meet some of them. The super majority of them are just normal people trying to do good for a community.

Your fear, I think, has far more to do with an availability bias of these relatively few stories getting plastered everywhere. You're much more likely to be killed in a gang or drug related shooting than you are by a cop.

While most of my interactions with police have been fine, I have been subject to, and been witness to, several that were less-than-professional.

- I've been hassled and cursed at by an officer.

- I've watched a friend who was doing nothing wrong be roughed up by an officer.

- I've had police give false evidence against me on a traffic citation.

- As a child being physically bullied, a friend and I went to a cop for help. When we told the cop that these other kids were trying to beat us up, the reply was "you'd better watch out, they'll probably hit you again".

So while it's true that not all cops are bad, my personal experience shows me that the bad seeds aren't all that rare.

Terrified is probably a strong word and I'm sure media bias has a strong influence on my perception.

But I definitely don't feel safe about interacting with the police. From all the advice on how a cop is never your friend and you shouldn't talk to them, to all the deaths all over the internet ... how else am I supposed to feel?

I'm sure all of them are upstanding citizens and perfectly awesome when off duty. I'm sure most of them are amazing when on duty. But the overall climate and police procedures or whatever it is, sure make them seem thuggy. I believe a lot of it is because they have to be thuggy in order to stay safe.

But it doesn't make me feel safe.

I appreciate your honest perspective. The statistics indicate that you're much less likely to be assaulted by the police than ordinary citizens, whatever your race.

> I believe a lot of it is because they have to be thuggy in order to stay safe.

Perhaps then we should be focusing our attention on improving the environments they work in? For example, cracking down on violent crimes, perhaps especially those that target police?

What you are pointing out is that there seem to be a huge problem with the quality of the police force in at least parts of the USA. I might be naive, but I refuse to believe that the US is such a violent country that the number of people killed by the police is justified. What the US deserve is a police force that is better trained, less militaristic and skilled in deescalating confrontation. It might be a bit more expensive, but it should be worth it.

I'm not sure I agree with you - having a higher encounters rate need not be limited to simple neighborhood selection for policing (although there is likely bias there too) - rather simply choosing who to interact with may exhibit bias (e.g. is the police officer more likely to have an encounter with a black person even in a predominantly white neighborhood)?

I'd have to agree with the GP.

To your point, a bias in the encounter rate (assuming it exists) is a significant problem, and one that would need to be addressed. But it's also a distinct problem, and there's no reason to believe that the violence problem and the disproportionate-encounter problem would be amenable to the same solution.

Just to clarify... GP = GrandParent (comment) = akud's comment ?

Yes, sorry if I was cryptic.

No problem. I just haven't picked up on the local lingo yet. Thanks for verifying.

What are the numbers for being a policeman being shot by a black person? The PC crowd won't like those numbers but its higher than the reverse. We have a police violence problem but it is no where on the scale of the crime rate of one community whose statistics blow everything out of proportion.

We need a culture change. We need politicians not afraid of using the truth. Instead it benefits politicians to exploit the issue for political gain. The real crime is that political manipulation leads to more minorities deaths because they will not act on the real damage and instead go for the sensationalist side.

Are those statistics available?

Does the probability per-encounter increase?

I don't know the answer to those questions, but if the original bias comes from the elevated amount of interactions (rather than the percentage that ended in shootings) in the original case I would be surprised if it there was a statistically significant deviation here either.

Disclosure: I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I've seen some stats for racial breakdown of perpetrators firing on police - for example, for NYC 2011, it was 72% black, 67% hispanic - No white.

It's approximate 4:1. A police officer (of any race) is 4x more likely to be killed by a black person than a white person.

> There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates), meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates.

Can you ELI5 this sentence. I don't understand it despite staring at it for a while.

Well Timmy, an unarmed black person is more likely to be shot by the police then that of another skin color. Some people are saying this is because the crime rate for blacks is much higher, and it may indeed be higher. But what we see is that regardless of the crime rate, some counties are just more likely to shoot blacks then others. So one part of America might have a lower crime rate then another but is still more likely to have the police shoot an unarmed black person.

And why isn't prevalence of guns factored in as well?

Is your hypothesis that the prevalence of guns increases the likelihood that police will treat a situation as a possible armed conflict? They are comparing the ratios of armed suspects to unarmed suspects being shot by police, so perhaps they thought that was sufficient in factoring in the prevalence of guns.

If you can't back this up with evidence and sources then you just sound like a racist.

The fact that the officer believes the person he's dealing with is (more) likely to have a firearm can have an impact on the outcome of the interaction. The fact that the person doesn't have one doesn't mean the officer doesn't have to worry that they do, it just hasn't come into play yet.

I think we could answer that question with the data they have:

> County-level race-specific crime rates (1. aggravated assault, and 2. weapons possession)?

So they are categorizing weapons possession into race-specific crime rates.

> There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates (even race-specific crime rates)

Which is to say crimes related to weapons possession does not correlate with racial bias.

> They are comparing the ratios of armed suspects to unarmed suspects being shot by police, so perhaps they thought that was sufficient in factoring in the prevalence of guns.

I'm not seeing why ratio is important compared to magnitude. There is certainly a relationship between number of armed suspect shootings and number of unarmed suspect shootings but it is not clear what that relationship is. It can't be a constant, that just doesn't fit human threat response. Rather, I would expect that the higher the armed suspect shootings (numerator) in an area, the smaller the ratio, meaning that nonproportionately more unarmed suspects are shot as a direct result of a large number of armed suspect shootings. But if that's the case, that will increase the likelihood of unarmed suspect shootings without there being any necessary racial bias. A smaller ratio just reflects a larger denominator increase due to numerator.

If we have equal numerators for each race, but the denominator differs, than that seems like a clear indication of racial bias. But if the numerators are different at all, that potentially reflects an entirely different police interaction dynamic. The expectation that one race is more likely to be armed than another race is, strictly speaking, a racial bias but could also be a rational bias based on encounters rather than prejudice.

What are the numerators? This whole issue may be of course be misguided but I'm simply unable to find the actual numbers from the paper.

Probably because in the cases being discussed, it is the police who have the guns, not the citizens. I don't think even the most hardcore gun control zealots are advocating for the American police to give up their guns (at least not their sidearms, I suppose the military weapons are a subject of a different debate).

>* I don't think even the most hardcore gun control zealots are advocating for the American police to give up their guns*

Why not? This works great in other countries...

It does work great in the UK and Norway. Very, very few countries have unarmed police.

I'm Norwegian and I live in the UK, and while I think the US would have been in a much better place if the US had followed a similar policy a long time ago ("US conditions" is a standing term in Norwegian politics used to scare voters - almost nobody wants "US conditions" in almost any context), I still think the US would find it extremely hard to introduce such a policy now.

It works in Norway and the UK for a number of reasons:

* Low sentences for crimes without weapons combined with huge additional sentences if using a weapon. E.g. you could easily get 4-5 years for participation in a relatively serious robbery, but risk tacking on up to 10 extra for an armed robbery.

* Criminals rarely risk meeting armed resistance. Lots of people have weapons, but the weapons law requires weapons to be stored locked down in an inoperable state (so detach a part and lock it down in a different location).

* Criminals know very well that if they are reported to be likely to be armed, they will face a large manhunt with armed police, while if they don't carry a weapon anyone coming after them will be hunting them without firarms.

The problem with introducing this elsewhere is that you have an existing situation where criminals have a strong incentive to arms themselves, which in turn maintains a strong incentive for other people and police to be armed. Changing that around without the risk of a lot of harm in the process would be incredibly challenging.

'tptacek does just that here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12057079

Actually in both cases the citizens had guns. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/alton-st...

And I advocate for police not carying guns. They don't need them. No one else in society needs them during normal interactions. They should be reserved for the swat team and only used for that level of situation. A regular police officer's only job should be to give tickets and directions - and those interactions don't seem very dangerous.

Are you suggesting that there is a correlation between legal firearm ownership rates and a more aggressive police reaponse? I would think that the probability of an individual having an illegal firearm would be more of a driver of an aggressive response but that's hard to measure.

This is one of those "awkward statistical analysis" moments where the outcome of the analysis should be...well...as an analyst, i think, ridiculously obvious before its even carried out... if you have any familiarity with the topic/history/culture. But I also can respect its a topic that needs careful interpretation and isn't likely to go down well in everyday english.

So what we'd expect to see is:

1) A bias is present: any study based on american society at large that DOESN'T find a bias in its behaviours/outcomes involving the black community, in terms of either wealth, incarceration, shootings, education, employment, etc etc etc must be so off you'd be more likely to disregard the evidence collected rather than believe the study/conclusion.

2) This is because, not surprisingly, all those things are so highly correlated and historically caused.

3) While I respect that it MIGHT be an interesting question to study whether, controlling for all confounding cultural and obviously explanatory variables, police are more likely to shoot black people in america, and you might even find a very very very weak effect there explained by the low pay, the correlation between low pay/racism/education, and the tendency of police as a career to attract authoritarian personalities, this is in many ways a politically pointless conclusion, because I'd bet good money that you both need to have quite sophisticated statistical understanding to really "get" what such a study is saying, it would be a horrendously complicated statistical study to almost swamp any practical implications and raise very valid questions about its methodological valididty, and I think any effect you may find will likely be swamped statistically by all other factors of black bias in american society.

4) It does no practical good to be able to go up to black groups and say "No no no, its not that police are particularly biased against you because you're black and police are racists, its just that because the higher-order causes of racism and racial history in american society: i.e. you're poor, uneducated, encounter the police more often, commit more crimes, american historical wealth disparities and racial wealth disparities, americans are more likely to carry and be afraid of guns, etc, means that you're just more likely to encounter them and therefore they're more likely to shoot you...so just go home and chill."

That socioeconomic/historical/political factors are the main determinant of things here strikes me as both:

a) Statistically and historically obvious

b) Totally irrelevant to the actual question of whether institutional bias is outrageous/real/needs to be fixed/the reality of black experiences on the other side of that equation.

Another point is how do you factor out the possibility that blacks are significantly more likely to resist arrest and fight with the police officer in a manner that would justify a shooting such as grabbing at the officers' weapons, beating the cop with his own equipment, etc?

From the last time I checked into it, blacks where on the order of 10 times more likely to resist arrest than whites, and 4 times more likely to kill a cop.

And where did you get your "facts" from? Source?

These are not hidden facts. You can find them quite easily with simple queries...

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/African-Americans-cite...

"African Americans in San Francisco are cited for resisting arrest at a rate eight times greater than whites even when serious crimes are not involved, according to statistics drawn from court records."

Here is also a good overall source (but the author has a label on him).

http://www.colorofcrime.com/2016/03/the-color-of-crime-2016-...

You can be arrested for resisting arrest, without being charged with any other crime. If the entire crux of this debate is a systemic racial bias on the part of law enforcement, it stands to reason that you shouldn't use statistics from law enforcement to argue against law enforcement's bias, doesn't it?

The report explains why the law enforcement statistics are trustworthy, and specifically why arrest rates (especially for violent crimes) are likely to be particularly accurate. The report itself is very thorough.

The statistics quoted above do not relate to this particular case. Overgeneralizing much?

I wasn't overgeneralizing anything. I was responding to "you shouldn't use statistics from law enforcement..."

Except if you dig deeper into those stats, you'll see that something like 5% of the same cops account for over 40% of "resisting arrest" charges, and 15% account for ~75% of those cases [1]. So most of it seems to come down to the police and how they approach making arrests.

[1] http://project.wnyc.org/resisting/

Does that take into account the type of police officer making the arrest (patrol, traffic, detective, narcotics, transit, desk/administrative, etc) and also the deployment and arrest location?

If the same cops patrol the same demographic and the same high crime areas it would reason that the same cops (and same type of specific category) will be making the majority of the arrests. Which will skew the mentioned statistic to them.

Now you're reaching. Read the accompanying story for more information. This is a widely recognizing problem.

Alton Sterling was obviously resisting arrest - that's a fact.

Where did you get your fictitious fact from? Where is your evidence? Just making things up as usual right?

It's on the video, Bro. Watch the video. Even the most liberal talking heads admit that he was resisting arrest, as you can see if you watch the video. BTW, if you watch the video, you will note that he is resisting arrest. It's a key factor that watching the video will show that he is resisting arrest. In conclusion, Alton Sterling was resisting arrest. So, don't forget, Alton Sterling was resisting arrest.

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