Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light • Hacker News Board

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#11

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 8:46 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #7

austincheney wrote: post #2

Until very recently, and thanks to the likes of The Guardian’s The Counted, Fatal Encounters and Campaign Zero’s Mapping Police Violence, the data to prove the systemic racism that results in the police killings of unarmed black people has not been widely available to the public. It doesn't sound like, according to the article, the California initiative is to prove racism but rather track, identify, and reduce police…

As you say, it isn't. But the author doesn't say that that's what it's for. The author describes three stages in collection, from no data, to third-party collections, and now to government collection. The given Guardian link shows that blacks are twice as likely as whites to be killed, on a per-capita basis. This is consistent with the hypothesis that there is systemic racism, which previously was mostly conjectural…

Just for clarification, blacks being shot by police at a rate of 2.5 times that of whites per capita is only evidence of racism if the shootings are random across the entire population.

If the shootings are correlated to, say, the demographics of murderers (which is probably more representative than the population at large), it might actually be evidence of racism against whites -- the number of murders committed per 10,000 people in blacks is about 8 times that of whites, which means if they're dying at only 2.5 times the rate per 10,000 people and the deaths are correlated to the murder rate, the police are killing white people disproportionately often.

I think that a lot of people, such as yourself, are being very dishonest when analyzing the police data because they're analyzing it against total population numbers while ignoring the correlations to crime demographics. Such as the Guardian numbers you cited.

I also think you're being racist. Against white people.

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#12

Post by vkou » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 8:51 PM UTC

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #8

maxander wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its difficult to quantify teleology, but people make the obvious judgements. What it does is track police initiated violence. What it's for , given the context it exists in, is almost certainly to advance public acceptance of the fact that police violence is often racially motivated. The writer furnished sufficient background to justify this inference, even if you're coming at this issue as a complete blank slate.

> advance public acceptance of the fact that police violence is often racially motivated I've never been convinced of this "fact", once controlled for economic/social class and culture. I've certainly never seen the numbers controlled for economic/social class, culture, and any residual correlation between crime and race, which is what would be needed to actually conclude that the police were acting racist rather tha…

When blacks are harassed, detained, arrested, and sentenced more frequently then whites, despite committing crime at a similar rate, why does it matter whether the cause is the colour of their skin, or their economic standing?

Are you blaming this problem on black culture?

Have you ever actually asked any black people (Lower, middle, or upper-class) about how their interactions with police go?

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#13

Post by mc32 » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #7

austincheney wrote: post #2

Until very recently, and thanks to the likes of The Guardian’s The Counted, Fatal Encounters and Campaign Zero’s Mapping Police Violence, the data to prove the systemic racism that results in the police killings of unarmed black people has not been widely available to the public. It doesn't sound like, according to the article, the California initiative is to prove racism but rather track, identify, and reduce police…

As you say, it isn't. But the author doesn't say that that's what it's for. The author describes three stages in collection, from no data, to third-party collections, and now to government collection. The given Guardian link shows that blacks are twice as likely as whites to be killed, on a per-capita basis. This is consistent with the hypothesis that there is systemic racism, which previously was mostly conjectural…

While racism may exacerbate the issue of violence and aggressive policing, we simply have too much aggressiveness and violence in policing. That said, it's going to be a while before we alter training and behavior meaningfully.

If we look at today's Philippines it's quite clear racism is not a necessary component of aggressive and violent policing.

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#14

Post by mcguire » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #11

dalke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you say, it isn't. But the author doesn't say that that's what it's for. The author describes three stages in collection, from no data, to third-party collections, and now to government collection. The given Guardian link shows that blacks are twice as likely as whites to be killed, on a per-capita basis. This is consistent with the hypothesis that there is systemic racism, which previously was mostly conjectural…

Just for clarification, blacks being shot by police at a rate of 2.5 times that of whites per capita is only evidence of racism if the shootings are random across the entire population. If the shootings are correlated to, say, the demographics of murderers (which is probably more representative than the population at large), it might actually be evidence of racism against whites -- the number of murders committed per…

According to the Mapping Police Violence site, fewer than 1/3 of the black suspects shot were suspected of a violent crime or armed. Randomly shooting people who match crime demographics seems a poor strategy.

http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#15

Post by anon1385 » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #11

dalke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you say, it isn't. But the author doesn't say that that's what it's for. The author describes three stages in collection, from no data, to third-party collections, and now to government collection. The given Guardian link shows that blacks are twice as likely as whites to be killed, on a per-capita basis. This is consistent with the hypothesis that there is systemic racism, which previously was mostly conjectural…

Just for clarification, blacks being shot by police at a rate of 2.5 times that of whites per capita is only evidence of racism if the shootings are random across the entire population. If the shootings are correlated to, say, the demographics of murderers (which is probably more representative than the population at large), it might actually be evidence of racism against whites -- the number of murders committed per…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/campaign-zero-debunks-po...

>Among this larger statistical breakdown of police violence, Campaign Zero also discovered that there is no direct correlation between police violence and violence that occurs within a given community.

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#16

Post by eth0up » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

Below is a sloppy, incomplete, and unedited archive of authoritarian madness. While some of the websites are dubious, most events can be verified as having occurred (regardless of the perspective or source) and many of the websites are sufficiently credible. The much larger remainder of this list is not yet vetted and is omitted. I expect very few will take the time to look, but for those who do, it may thereafter become evident that something is terribly wrong. Again, there are a few random or unrelated links included, which will be removed when time or interest permits.

https://justpaste.it/yzu0

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#17

Post by tbrownaw » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 9:03 PM UTC

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #11

dalke wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you say, it isn't. But the author doesn't say that that's what it's for. The author describes three stages in collection, from no data, to third-party collections, and now to government collection. The given Guardian link shows that blacks are twice as likely as whites to be killed, on a per-capita basis. This is consistent with the hypothesis that there is systemic racism, which previously was mostly conjectural…

Just for clarification, blacks being shot by police at a rate of 2.5 times that of whites per capita is only evidence of racism if the shootings are random across the entire population. If the shootings are correlated to, say, the demographics of murderers (which is probably more representative than the population at large), it might actually be evidence of racism against whites -- the number of murders committed per…

I think that a lot of people, such as yourself, are being very dishonest when analyzing the police data because they're analyzing it against total population numbers while ignoring the correlations to crime demographics. Such as the Guardian numbers you cited.

I think applying statistics to societal issues is a right pain in the ass to get right, and even more of a pain to explain concisely without accidentally becoming misleading.

It's not dishonest to get something wrong, when that something is unfeasible or perhaps even impossible to get right.

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#18

Post by maxander » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 9:20 PM UTC

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #8

maxander wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its difficult to quantify teleology, but people make the obvious judgements. What it does is track police initiated violence. What it's for , given the context it exists in, is almost certainly to advance public acceptance of the fact that police violence is often racially motivated. The writer furnished sufficient background to justify this inference, even if you're coming at this issue as a complete blank slate.

> advance public acceptance of the fact that police violence is often racially motivated I've never been convinced of this "fact", once controlled for economic/social class and culture. I've certainly never seen the numbers controlled for economic/social class, culture, and any residual correlation between crime and race, which is what would be needed to actually conclude that the police were acting racist rather tha…

Thank you kindly for directly demonstrating my point. You are exactly the target audience for the data the article is talking about.

In most other aspects of daily life, people are willing and able to make judgements from circumstantial evidence without rigorous quantitative work- you don't demand a formal Bayesian analysis of the day's weather before you decide to take an umbrella with you. But in issues like this, people who don't want to deal with it will plead "lack of sufficient data" until someone does an iron-clad study with five-sigma-significance results. So, that's what they're doing! Public awareness proceeds onwards and upwards through this kind of rigamarole.

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#19

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 9:23 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #12

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> advance public acceptance of the fact that police violence is often racially motivated I've never been convinced of this "fact", once controlled for economic/social class and culture. I've certainly never seen the numbers controlled for economic/social class, culture, and any residual correlation between crime and race, which is what would be needed to actually conclude that the police were acting racist rather tha…

When blacks are harassed, detained, arrested, and sentenced more frequently then whites, despite committing crime at a similar rate, why does it matter whether the cause is the colour of their skin, or their economic standing? Are you blaming this problem on black culture? Have you ever actually asked any black people (Lower, middle, or upper-class) about how their interactions with police go?

I disagree that it's a similar crime distribution per capita, on the whole. Of course, many of those "racial" or "cultural" differences disappear once you control for other factors, mostly economic. That being said, we still need to control for if we're using "black" as a proxy for "poor" before we call the police racist, for example. (That would be classist, not racist, policing.)

> Are you blaming this problem on black culture?

In part, yes. It's not popular, but I think that black culture has developed "pathological" behaviors, similar to the defense mechanisms we see in children, were the behavior was actually adaptive at one point in time (and likely essential for survival), but has become maladaptive now that the circumstances have changed. (I would even go so far as to argue that a lot of the backlash over "microaggressions" is that people think talking about "microaggressions" before those maladaptive behaviors in unreasonable and unfair, but we're getting on a tangent.)

> Have you ever actually asked any black people (Lower, middle, or upper-class) about how their interactions with police go?

Sure. There's HUGE correlations between those stories and a) economic status (usually as conveyed by dress) and b) culture (usually as conveyed by language choice).

My point is that you're getting like 10 variance points from what you wear, another 5-10 variance points from how you conduct yourself, and like 1-5 variance points from the color of your skin.

I'm not convinced there's not a racial component to the policing either -- I just suspect it's much like the wage gap, where what we find is that it's mostly social issues we don't really want to talk about (women leaving work force to have children; men having more variance as a gender; men skewing slightly more competitive) and a little bit actual problematic bias (that last 3-5 cents).

So I suspect we'll find a little bit of genuine bias in policing, but I think we'll find, once we dig further in to the numbers, that mostly what we're seeing is behaviors that correlate highly with facts that make us uncomfortable, and have to do with either economics, social class, or culture.

Re: Police use-of-force data is finally coming to light

#20

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Tue, Oct 04, 2016, 9:27 PM UTC

maxander wrote: post #18

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> advance public acceptance of the fact that police violence is often racially motivated I've never been convinced of this "fact", once controlled for economic/social class and culture. I've certainly never seen the numbers controlled for economic/social class, culture, and any residual correlation between crime and race, which is what would be needed to actually conclude that the police were acting racist rather tha…

Thank you kindly for directly demonstrating my point . You are exactly the target audience for the data the article is talking about. In most other aspects of daily life, people are willing and able to make judgements from circumstantial evidence without rigorous quantitative work- you don't demand a formal Bayesian analysis of the day's weather before you decide to take an umbrella with you. But in issues like this,…

> people are willing and able to make judgements from circumstantial evidence without rigorous quantitative work- you don't demand a formal Bayesian analysis of the day's weather before you decide to take an umbrella with you

But I do do a Bayesian analysis rather than a naive one: it's cloudy without raining here too often to carry an umbrella just because it's cloudy. That would be a maladaptive response, even if naive analysis is "clouds -> rain; prepare!"

Similarly, social issues tend to have enough complexity that you can't just resort to "clouds -> rain!" In this particular case, I'm just arguing that you need to control for background statistics rather than saying police shootings are randomly distributed across the entire population without any correlations.

No different than thinking a little about how often it's cloudy without rain before grabbing an umbrella. And I dislike that people like you are just screaming "DON'T THINK! CLOUDS! GET UMBRELLA!"