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Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

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Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#211

Post by lovehashbrowns »

bagacrap wrote: post #207
lovehashbrowns wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is your response when it's coming from someone that did live in a bad neighborhood,like me? I grew up on the south side of Chicago, around the Back of the Yards area which was particularly bad in the 90s. I've been robbed at gun point and had to live avoiding alleys, avoid wearing certain colors of clothing, have had to grow up seeing dried blood on my walks to elementary school, etc. And I still say ACAB and…

is it (a)you don't think more people would be robbed at gunpoint without a police force around, or (b) you don't think it's a big deal to get robbed at gunpoint

It's C I think it's better to try and prevent people from thinking robbing someone at gunpoint is a viable idea.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#212

Post by Nasrudith »

pizza wrote: post #47
koheripbal wrote: post #2

This doesn't seem to make sense. By more accurately predicting where crimes will occur, the police departments can reduce the amount of patrols needed.

There is a contradiction in expecting an organization that enhances its capabilities to use its capabilities less. Not that predicting where crimes will occur is really a thing - more likely you are just predicting where a population is getting policed.

It holds on the assumption of preventative power from those capabilities. Communicable diseases are a good example of a context - if everyone was treated for say tuberculosis with increased capacity then the number of cases would stay down vs just 'stabilizing" the numbers. See nuclear weaponry for an example of declining use.

Deterrence and deescalation are where predictive policing could theoretically be useful but in practice it is often just bias laundering or reinforcing their tautologies. Looking at the "wrong side of the tracks" more and the arrest rates will climb there even if crime is actually lower there - let alone confounding variables. Like say the police being called in domestic disputes by witnesses in thin walled apartments and trailer parks but not in large fenced estates even if they are just as loud and violent because they weren't literally heard.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#213

Post by lovehashbrowns »

fearingreprisal wrote: post #209
lovehashbrowns wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what is your response when it's coming from someone that did live in a bad neighborhood,like me? I grew up on the south side of Chicago, around the Back of the Yards area which was particularly bad in the 90s. I've been robbed at gun point and had to live avoiding alleys, avoid wearing certain colors of clothing, have had to grow up seeing dried blood on my walks to elementary school, etc. And I still say ACAB and…

I can't account for why you think the way you do. I had an early life typical of some of these places. My area was not as bad as the one you describe FYI. I made so many mistakes in my own early life that really set me back, some of which could potentially be attributed to the nihilistic attitude of my surroundings. As a result I'm perhaps more sympathetic to the downtrodden people of these areas than you might belie…

I mean I'm glad you had your light bulb moment but that doesn't always happen, does it? Furthermore, the issue isn't that "they're not all going to be saved, no matter what you do," the issue is that society gives up on them before they even have a choice. E.g. their elementary school has its funding cut, their after-school programs are cut, they family is broken and/or abusive--why are you expecting a child to grow up and learn how to make the right decisions?

And as for making the right decisions--I have a few issues that have worked hand-in-hand to keep me from having a long and stable relationship. I know which bad decisions I've made in the past, I know as I making them that they're bad, yet here I am, single and at 31! It's something I'm still trying to work through. So having said that, I am not going to judge someone for their bad decisions if I can't always pick the right path myself. And I'm sure you're not always sticking to the right path, either. I mean, I'm sure there's a billionaire out that there could go through your life decisions and judge you for not having a fleet of yachts yet. It's easy to be like "don't do meth!" and then not do meth, but I don't know what those people are going through that they thought that meth was a good idea. I don't want them in jail for it, either. I think there are far better options.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#214

Post by rtkwe »

rayiner wrote: post #134
pizza wrote: post #81

The last 40 years of austerity politics in the US have starved the beast [0] so greatly that the only remaining public infrastructure that functions as it's intended to is policing. For example, in the city of LA, 53% of the city's unrestricted general fund budget went to the LAPD. For everything else, there are parallel infrastructures for the haves - private education, private healthcare, privatized transit, etc. I…

There is no austerity. Here is state-and-local spending as a percentage of GDP from 1970 to present: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/courses-images-archive-re... And here is GDP in 2010 dollars: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?location... State and local governments went from spending 10% of $23,000 per person to 15% of $55,000 per person. Per-person state and local spending went up by a factor…

> Subway ridership is up 75% since 1980. The capital budget during the 1980s averaged $3.4 billion annually in 2020 dollars: https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/rescue.pdf (fig. 5). The 2015-2019 capital program (5 years) averaged about $6.5 billion 2020 dollars. So a 90% increase in capital spending for a 75% increase in ridership. Punchline: MTA is so massively wasteful, that wasn't enough. The system deteriorated the whole time leading to catastrophic failure in the last few years.

Just because the spend per rider increased over that time doesn't mean the system is getting what it needs though. A newer system will usually function better than a starved system years later naturally because of deferred maintenance and other aging infrastructure ailments even if the per rider numbers have increased. Comparing it just on the per rider spend assumes that the earlier number is enough.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#215

Post by fearingreprisal »

lovehashbrowns wrote: post #213
fearingreprisal wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't account for why you think the way you do. I had an early life typical of some of these places. My area was not as bad as the one you describe FYI. I made so many mistakes in my own early life that really set me back, some of which could potentially be attributed to the nihilistic attitude of my surroundings. As a result I'm perhaps more sympathetic to the downtrodden people of these areas than you might belie…

I mean I'm glad you had your light bulb moment but that doesn't always happen, does it? Furthermore, the issue isn't that "they're not all going to be saved, no matter what you do," the issue is that society gives up on them before they even have a choice. E.g. their elementary school has its funding cut, their after-school programs are cut, they family is broken and/or abusive--why are you expecting a child to grow…

I hope you're able to work through the issues you feel that you have and enjoy a happy life. Being single at 31 isn't terribly unusual in 2020, nor is it a terminal condition. There are plenty of other single people out there to work with.

> ...the issue is that society gives up on them before they even have a choice...

I was able to learn useful skills on my own without the education system supporting me. No doubt, high school helped build a useful foundation for learning other useful things. I was teaching myself skills using freely ( or the next best thing ) available tools and resources online. American poverty in 2020 includes access to the internet. This is evident by the interaction of impoverished and low socio-economic status Americans on social media. They're not here debating the systemic causes of poverty on HN, they're consuming mind numbing media on worldstarhiphop. Before I was able to get internet access at home I used the local library, or at my high school. I won't dox myself by talking about my specific professional interests, save to say they were important enough to me that I devoted my own time to researching it. I refuse to believe that there are people in first-world countries who have no access to useful resources like this. YMMV, obviously. I didn't have anyone in my life who encouraged me to do X, I just felt X was cool and I really wanted to understand more. Most of the people I've met in my field are the same. I don't mean to project my own thoughts and experiences on to everyone. I feel that my natural inclinations were to learn, and all of the people I grew up with who were similarly gifted and inclined ended up escaping poverty in one form or another. You could probably count yourself among this cohort.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#216

Post by tptacek »

graeme wrote: post #145
rayiner wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no austerity. Here is state-and-local spending as a percentage of GDP from 1970 to present: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/courses-images-archive-re... And here is GDP in 2010 dollars: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?location... State and local governments went from spending 10% of $23,000 per person to 15% of $55,000 per person. Per-person state and local spending went up by a factor…

My favorite example: the American government spends more on health care than any other OECD government, for much less coverage. https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm

It's probably not a great example, because we spend more for health care across the board, not just publicly. Doctors and nurses here make more money, and we deliver more procedures (especially outpatient procedures) than the rest of the OECD.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#217

Post by redis_mlc »

graeme wrote: post #194
munk-a wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The key issues are instead police unions, lack of police training in the US, impunity for police abuses, etc Police unions, poor training and qualified immunity are really serious issues - but ones that are intractable to fight for on the national stage due to political gridlock. Just breaking up the unions as they stand right now and enforcing transparent employment history for law enforcement would make worlds of…

> Defunding the police is an actual policy decision that can be made on a local scale to address issues of over policing and start reinvesting in crime prevention rather than punishment. Can you give an example of a country that does what you recommend? If you can’t, what evidence do you have that it is the solution? I’m not American. My criticism above is that the movement appears to have developed a policy idea tha…

> I’m not American.

Well then.

- US police are above the law, and have free union-provided legal counsel.

If a city prosecutes an officer, he will sue them right back, and the union will threaten the careers of city councilpersons, DAs and judges at the next election. A perfect circle of corruption.

- DA's and judges are elected, so political from Day One of their careers. Public unions hold 20% or more of the votes and vote in a bloc. Either play with the unions, or finish second.

- the US is the most successful multicultural large country in history, but that makes things more complicated.

- everybody who wants a handgun has one, or two. A lot of people driving around illegally have a loaded gun under their seat.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#218

Post by dragonwriter »

redis_mlc wrote: post #217
graeme wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Defunding the police is an actual policy decision that can be made on a local scale to address issues of over policing and start reinvesting in crime prevention rather than punishment. Can you give an example of a country that does what you recommend? If you can’t, what evidence do you have that it is the solution? I’m not American. My criticism above is that the movement appears to have developed a policy idea tha…

> I’m not American. Well then. - US police are above the law, and have free union-provided legal counsel. If a city prosecutes an officer, he will sue them right back, and the union will threaten the careers of city councilpersons, DAs and judges at the next election. A perfect circle of corruption. - DA's and judges are elected, so political from Day One of their careers. Public unions hold 20% or more of the votes…

> Public unions hold 20% or more of the votes

No, they don't. Public employees don’t, outside of a few localities with extremely high concentrations (which are usually military, which isn't unionized) make up 20% of the electorate, much less public sector unions holding 20% of votes.

> and vote in a bloc

No, they don't. Law enforcement and corrections unions often don't even lean toward the same major party as most other public sector unions.

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#219

Post by antepodius »

perl4ever wrote: post #138
lazyjones wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are more reflective of where police officers are and where crimes are most easily spotted. The article says: MacDonald argues that PredPol uses only crimes reported by victims, such as burglaries and robberies, to inform its software. “We never do predictions for crime types that have the possibility of officer-initiated bias, such as drug crimes or prostitution,” he says.

That doesn't mean reports are completely independent. Isn't it obvious that the perception of whether the police will do anything is going to affect the reporting?

Wouldn't that affect it in an inhibitory way, though? Black areas would be reporting less crime than actually occurs- so if reported crime rates there are still higher, that tells us something?

Re: Mathematicians urge colleagues to boycott police work in wake of killings

#220

Post by redis_mlc »

dragonwriter wrote: post #218
redis_mlc wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not American. Well then. - US police are above the law, and have free union-provided legal counsel. If a city prosecutes an officer, he will sue them right back, and the union will threaten the careers of city councilpersons, DAs and judges at the next election. A perfect circle of corruption. - DA's and judges are elected, so political from Day One of their careers. Public unions hold 20% or more of the votes…

> Public unions hold 20% or more of the votes No, they don't. Public employees don’t, outside of a few localities with extremely high concentrations (which are usually military, which isn't unionized) make up 20% of the electorate, much less public sector unions holding 20% of votes. > and vote in a bloc No, they don't. Law enforcement and corrections unions often don't even lean toward the same major party as most o…

In case you didn't notice, every election there's lawn signs saying "endorsed by the Police Union" or similar.

So get your facts straight.

If you want to see DA politics in action, watch just about any Law & Order episode when they discuss optics. Those "stories" are based on current affairs.

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