Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed • Hacker News Board

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#71

Post by LudwigNagasena » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

policepost wrote: post #26

> Two strikingly different types of areas experience high police vehicle deployments — 1) dense, higher-income, commercial areas and 2) lower-income neighborhoods with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic residents. We discuss the implications of these disparities for policing equity and for algorithms trained on policing data. You can see the history of police in this. Uniformed police depts were founded by merc…

> Prior to uniformed police, we had town watch/night watch/shire reeves .

So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? Law enforcement is law enforcement no matter how you call it.

> The results of this research saying, "wealth and race seem to be where police are deployed" is a fascinating rhyme to the origins of police.

I don’t think it is appropriate to compare protection of people in destitute areas to slave patrols. You are stigmatising helping poor people.

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#72

Post by kaitai » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:16 PM UTC

TeeMassive wrote: post #37

dmoy wrote: post #8

Remember that the federal government is still of the opinion that NYPD is disproportionately targeting black people with its stop and frisk policy, today . That is, almost a decade after it was ruled unconstitutional in federal court. (Edit: "it" being stop & frisk as a whole, not just the targeting of minorities)

The big question is it because of their race or is it coincidental with the higher crime rate?

There's an elegant paper and analysis that addresses this in Minneapolis, another city that's had some DOJ attention for policing. https://lawandinequality.org/2020/11/24/does-the-minneapolis...

The TLDR is that you can analyze the difference between stops on summer evenings (sunny) and winter evenings (dark) and detect a racial bias depending on whether officer can see the driver or not. The raw data is also available through Minneapolis' Open Data website, so you can repeat the analysis yourself.

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#73

Post by danaris » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #71

policepost wrote: post #26

> Two strikingly different types of areas experience high police vehicle deployments — 1) dense, higher-income, commercial areas and 2) lower-income neighborhoods with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic residents. We discuss the implications of these disparities for policing equity and for algorithms trained on policing data. You can see the history of police in this. Uniformed police depts were founded by merc…

> Prior to uniformed police, we had town watch/night watch/shire reeves . So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? Law enforcement is law enforcement no matter how you call it. > The results of this research saying, "wealth and race seem to be where police are deployed" is a fascinating rhyme to the origins of police. I don’t think it is appropriate to compare protection of people in de…

> So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name?

The goals and incentives.

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#74

Post by the_doctah » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #49

the_doctah wrote: post #33

This is the kind of "policing is racist" kind of propaganda that has San Francisco in it's current "hands off" state. Does anyone prefer that in every city everywhere?

All of these cities could learn something from San Francisco: https://vanlifewanderer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/san_f...

Can't imagine the cognitive dissonance it takes to link this statistic while pretending there's nothing wrong with crime in SF.

Here's the full picture: https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2022/fixing-san-francis...

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#75

Post by kelseyfrog » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #60

kelseyfrog wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to note that common sense itself is a bias. It's a bias towards what we already think. Don't mistake that as trying to say that for "we should avoid priors" - that's not possible. What would it take for you to soften (not move) your priors on the common sense that "police aren't co-creators in crime through the act of observation"?

police aren't co-creators in crime Police aren’t co-creators of crime, they’re co-creators of crime statistics . Crimes that go unreported, with no arrest made, are invisible to crime statistics. When the police arrest someone and charge them with a crime, it counts as both an arrest and a reported crime. So even if crime were uniformly distributed across the city, if police spent the majority of their time in one ne…

Instead of reacting, why don't you get curious instead?

I stand by my claim. Crimes are social facts. They exist within a reality supported by whichever laws those with the monopoly of violence believe in. Crimes exist within the symbol register of thought. I'll ask you a question in return, why did you choose your ontology of crime among all those that could possibly exist?

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#76

Post by LudwigNagasena » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

policepost wrote: post #67

verteu wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were misled. From the paper: "we report racial and socioeconomic disparities without attempting to control for other covariates." [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3593013.3594020

Misled implies a degree of intent, the wording is ambiguous but I don't assume ill intent by the author, especially when they later spend a paragraph explaining why they did not slice by covariates.

It is either purposefully misleading or unreasonably reckless. It is obviously ambiguous and screams of ragebait. I wanted to punch my monitor and fire the author of article when I read this sentence because it is just inflammatory racebait.

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#77

Post by LudwigNagasena » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:24 PM UTC

danaris wrote: post #73

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prior to uniformed police, we had town watch/night watch/shire reeves . So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? Law enforcement is law enforcement no matter how you call it. > The results of this research saying, "wealth and race seem to be where police are deployed" is a fascinating rhyme to the origins of police. I don’t think it is appropriate to compare protection of people in de…

> So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? The goals and incentives.

They got paid to enforce the law.

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#78

Post by j33zusjuice » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

zo1 wrote: post #54

sandworm101 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The big question is whether we want cops to be "randomly" stopping and frisking any people regardless of race/location. The idea that armed people are allowed to just accost people on the street to conduct cursory searches seems incompatible with basic liberties. It is a stone's throw from the "papers please" interaction that so many Americans loath. (I was about to say uniformed, but cops don't always wear unifo…

No. The big question is whether we want to live in a society that requires the police to randomly stop and frisk people in order to stop crime. There is crime, I don't think anyone can dispute that. Honestly, I personally have no problem with criminal-looking individuals being stopped and frisked in high-crime areas. And I say this as someone that's been profiled as a white person in a black country, and held at gunp…

Strictly define criminal-looking.

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#79

Post by Volundr » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:28 PM UTC

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #71

policepost wrote: post #26

> Two strikingly different types of areas experience high police vehicle deployments — 1) dense, higher-income, commercial areas and 2) lower-income neighborhoods with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic residents. We discuss the implications of these disparities for policing equity and for algorithms trained on policing data. You can see the history of police in this. Uniformed police depts were founded by merc…

> Prior to uniformed police, we had town watch/night watch/shire reeves . So what is the difference between them beyond the uniform and the name? Law enforcement is law enforcement no matter how you call it. > The results of this research saying, "wealth and race seem to be where police are deployed" is a fascinating rhyme to the origins of police. I don’t think it is appropriate to compare protection of people in de…

> You are stigmatising helping poor people.

I suspect there is a wide variety of opinions on if increased police presence is "helping".

Re: Dashcam images reveal where police are deployed

#80

Post by kaitai » Mon, Jul 10, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #59

jwestbury wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because even after controlling for income, American police still disproportionately mistreat Black people. I'm struggling to find the data right now, but I believe the source was Phillip Atiba Goff. The tl;dr is that Black people are treated violently by police at a rate of several times that of white people, even once you control for socioeconomic status.

One of the best illustrations of this is a fascinating study about police stops and sunset time. They were able to demonstrate that when the sun is up (i.e. the driver can be seen), black drivers are more likely to be pulled over, but when the sun goes down , it equalizes. As a bonus, they controlled for other factors by looking at these stats around when daylight savings switches. https://engineering.stanford.edu/ma…

Hah, just linked to the Minneapolis counterpart study above. Yes, this is an elegant natural data experiment, thanks for sharing this version that touches a larger dataset.