I have a question I’d like to get your opinion on. And it really is just a question. It’s based on this:
It is my understanding that blacks in Furgeson largely represent the lower end of the economic spectrum. I would think that in any town, most of the crime would come from the lower economic strata.
So, ignoring Furgeson for a moment, let’s say that 67% of Sometown, USA is poor. And Sometown is 100% white. What percentage of the type of crime mentioned would you expect to come from the poorest 67%? Would you expect 67%? More? Less? I would think it likely that the 67% would be responsible for a disproportionately large amount of all crime. So it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that the 67% was responsible for 75, 80, 90% of all crime.
So based on my hypothetical, would you agree that the poorest 67% being responsible for more than 67% would seem logical?
It is always possible to do what you’ve done with any individual statistic or regression. You can always speculate about some third variable to which both race and stops are correlated. In the worst case scenario, you can just posit that the random samplings used for the analysis just happened to be very skewed by chance. That’s the nature of statistical analysis and arguments by inference.
But in the real world, we make decisions based on the best available data. And the best available data suggests that what’s at work here is racism. From the emails, to the racial disparities across many categories, to the statements of the police–all of it points in one direction. Taking any single fact out of the report, it is possible to speculate about a context that makes that face seem less damaging. But that’s always true, and an unfair way to treat the report.
Just want to take a moment to thank Bricker and Bone for being thoughtful around this case. There’s certainly a tendency for folks to want to take sides, and to the extent that there’s a “conservative” side in this case, it’s to dismiss any hint of institutional racism in our country. I appreciate y’all not doing so.
As usual, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers an excellent, thoughtful take on the case. His article, “The Gangsters of Ferguson,” makes the case that the police force of the town was acting significantly in the manner that an organized crime syndicate would act, shaking down the populace to line their own pockets. The article’s subtitle is important:
He’s not out to crucify Wilson; he’s not out to say that all law enforcement is bad. Indeed, he wants to hold law enforcement to a very high standard, and he believes that the DOJ has upheld that standard in a way that the Ferguson PD vigorously doesn’t. He suggests that the immediate suspicion of Wilson was understandable, in the same way that if Tony Soprano shoots someone you don’t start by thinking it was self defense.
Most of the evidence we have about crime rates comes from policing. Since the neutrality of policing is the very subject we’re investigating, it isn’t very helpful to know that the police arrest and prosecutors charge and convict more black people or more poor people.
When we get statistics about crime unconnected to policing–as when we ask about drug use, or theft from employers–we find that there are not significant racial disparities. Indeed, if the policing of drug use alone reflected the actual underlying use rates, that would go a long way toward making the whole system less racist.
I encourage you to read the DOJ report. I think a lot of the speculation you might come up with in order to find non-racist explanations is dealt with directly in the report.
This is the only evidence of actual systemic racial bias in the report. That is the weakest part of the report. The evidence for using the system for revenue generation instead of public safety is well documented but the only evidence for racial bias is disparate impact. The problem with disparate impact is that the population is not the total number of whites and blacks but rather the total number of white criminals and black criminals. That is either not known or just not referenced and there is no evidence that they tried to ascertain the relevant population. The report says that Ferguson used to be majority white and is now majority black. Maybe the white residents are older residents who moved there forty years ago and thus white residents are less likely to be in the young male demographic which commits most crime. Most of the disparate impact cited had to do with traffic violations and there is no reason to believe that all races commit traffic violations at the same rate. A New Jersey study found that Black drivers were 64% more likely to speed than white drivers. It also found that young drivers were three times more likely to speed than older drivers and men more likely to speed than women. There is no indication that the report considered alternative explanations for the disparate impact.
To name another example, city employees would send blatantly racist emails to other employees, which would then be forward to other employees, and no one would call them out, much less punish them.
Maybe you think these employees kept their private racism out of their jobs. Again, there’s always some way to speculate away the natural inferences. But reasonable people are going to conclude that those folks are racists, and that their ability to operate openly suggests widespread racism.
There are lots of other pieces of evidence too. It boggles my mind that you could post that sentence.
But I’m not speculating. I’m saying it’s virtually inevitable that any member of a group which actually commits a disproportionate percentage of the crime will have a higher rate of incorrect suspicions about them.
The report claimed that “Our investigation indicates that this disproportionate burden on African Americans cannot be explained by any difference in the rate at which people of different races violate the law”, and I wondered what the indications were. You provided a stat and I explained why this stat does not back up the claim.
I’ve not read through the entire report and don’t intend to. I speculated last August that if Holder failed to indict Brown, he would find racism in the FPD in order to placate those upset at the non-indictment, so naturally I’m a bit cynical of his arriving at this exact conclusion. But that said, it could also be that the FPD is a hotbed of racism, and I’m not claiming otherwise. If it’s something that could easily be demonstrated then I’m interested, but not enough to read through extensive reports about.
Actually I notice a lot of the report complaining that the Ferguson police spent too much of their time on traffic enforcement, which would lead to a disproportionate number of searches that found nothing vs. searches based on a belief that the suspect had contraband. Where in the report did they control for “searches subsequent to arrest for traffic warrants” vs. “searches subsequent to arrest for contraband”? I am not saying it isn’t there, but I didn’t see it.
Tell you what- pick some gloriously liberal city in a solidly blue state. Portland, say, or San Francisco.
Then, show me whether the Ferguson PD’s rate of stopping and/or arresting black men is disproportionately higher than it is in those nicer, more progressive cities.
If only the DOJ had consulted us, rather than a rag tag bunch of so-called “professional” statisticians! Then, perhaps, they might have overcome their liberal biases and produced a truly objective and reasonable result. Alas!
When it comes to drug use the latest report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration shows that there are significant differences in substance abuse rates by race, employment status, and education. Generally Asians report having used an illegal drug during the past month 80% less than whites, who report 20% less drug use than blacks, who report about the same amount as American Indians, who report about 40% less than mixed raced respondents. That pattern is true for marijuana, and cocaine. The results are even more skewed for crack. The only category that whites reported using more was hallucinogenics. This is with self reported drug use and there is evidence that the races do not self report with the same reliability. The results are similar for employment status and education with those having a part time job using more than those with a full time job and those with less education using more than those with more. Since having a good education and a full time job makes it more likely you are better off financially it would be odd if the poor and the rich used drugs in the same proportion.
Yes, racist emails don’t automatically mean those same people engaged in racist practices as employees. Yes, individual incidents of intentionally racist stops don’t mean that there is a systemic problem. Yes, overarching statistics showing racial disparity in virtually every category don’t mean some third factor isn’t accounting for the disparity. Yes, widespread police admissions that they consider African-Americans to be less responsible does not mean that they profile based on race.
Taken alone, it’s perfectly easy to cast skepticism on the reports findings. But no reasonable person looks at all of that together and says Holder just had an axe to grind.
So, naturally, people who want to avoid difficult conclusions just won’t read the report.
They state numerous times that the disparities in contraband findings controlled for the justification for the search, which means they controlled for whether it was a search incident to arrest, a search for probable cause, or something else.
Actually it reminds me of the circumstances of the Michael Brown shooting. Rob a convenience store, assault a clerk, then walk down the middle of the street in broad daylight with the stolen goods in your hand, and then attack the cop who confronts you. Some people are looking for trouble, and it usually finds them sooner or later. That’s not racism; it is a law of the universe.
That’s the problem here. You regard this as an attack on your conservative identity. Well, get over your own ego. This isn’t about your political identity. I’m sure Chicago is just as bad.
There are differences in specific kinds of drug use. The overall difference in whether a white person or black person is likely to be a drug user is not large, and is much smaller than the racial disparity in policing and enforcement of drug crimes.
They went through six years of email and found six emails sending racially insensitive jokes. Apparently none were found in the last 3 years. That is very weak evidence.
I disagree and so do most juries, in my experience, but notice how quickly you’ve conceded your earlier false statement that the only evidence was the disparity in contraband.
It would be a much better show of good faith to say something like: “I regard the many parts of the report putatively showing racism to provide weak evidence for their claims.” That’s quite different from the false statement that “This is the only evidence of actual systemic racial bias in the report.”
That’s a pretty obvious dodge. Is it a bad idea to act like a dick to a police officer - Yes. Should that non-criminal behavior be grounds for arrest? I say no. The law says no. Do you say no? Do you gain something by avoiding that answer?