What a failure of comprehension. It would make sense if black people were killed by the police at a disparate ratio due to disparate violent crime, at least to some degree, if the two disparate ratios were the same. But they’re not the same – the ratio of young black men killed by the police to young white men is much higher than the statistics for violent crime committed by young black men.
I continue to be surprised that this idea seems so hard to comprehend and consider to some.
Considering the statistics and anecdotal reports, is it really that unlikely that some small but significant portion of police officers might, whether due to overt racism or something subconscious (or conscious), be just a little more nervous, a little more likely to draw their gun, and a little more likely to pull the trigger (or similar actions for other uses of force) when the suspect is a young black male strictly because the suspect is a young black male? Is it that unlikely that some cops see a young black male and are slightly more ‘on alert’/nervous/twitchy because it’s a young black male?
Would be nice to have the statistics for violent crime rate by young black men compared to young white men, wouldn’t it, to back this statement up?
The missing piece of the equation that would complete the analogy, though, is the discrepancy between policing men and women vs. white men and black men.
It’s not just about who commits crimes, but is also about the nature and frequencey of police interactions with those demographics.
Complicated, for sure. Specifically because we have (I assume) good data on arrests/convictions, but we do not have (I also assume) good data on crimes that don’t get the attention of the police. So it’s not as easy to say definitively “women commit fewer crimes than men” as it seems on the surface.
Finally I found another cite that actually has data. This cite is critical of the “21 times” claim, and based on the FBI data it says that “young black males were 9 times more likely to commit murders than similarly aged white males”.
9 times is a lot closer to my cite (6 to 8 times), and it’s still a very, very different ratio than 21 times.
True, but then 9 times is a lot higher than the 3 times that was claimed by your original propublica (or was it Slate?) source.
I give you a 3/10 on your attempt to evade the actual issue here. I never mentioned Slate at all.
As if 21X disparity is horrible, but if it’s 50% or 100% or 200% is no big deal. It’s tough to get really good data here because of the lack of collection by the police, which is alarming enough. There’s a very important oversight component that’s missing here.
The attitude that Terr, Shodan, and others present here (as I interpret it) is “well this may look bad, but since young black males commit crimes at a much greater rate, it doesn’t matter if police kill them at a much greater rate, even though police kill them at a far greater rate than they commit crimes”.
I addressed that point above. The question that needs to be asked is why these differences exist.
I think most people are willing to accept the argument that men and women are innately different. But I don’t think there is any general agreement that black people and white people are innately different. I think most people believe that if black people and white people behave differently it’s because they are responding to different circumstances. This means that black people commit more crimes because black people are more likely to live in environments that encourage crime.
Are you stipulating that “young black males were 9 times more likely to commit murders than similarly aged white males”? If you are, then why are you surprised as indicated below?
If someone knows that a young black male is 9 times more likely to commit murder than similarly aged white males, wouldn’t it be prudent to be more likely to use force when the suspect is a young black male?
*I don’t subscribe to this theory per se, but it seems like you’ve missed this obvious connection.
The original article admits that the data on which they base the 21x figure is very incomplete. So it may be 21x. It may be 10x. Or 40x. Who knows. So if it is 10x, and the violent crime rate among black youth is 9x, the discrepancy is not that enormous, is it?
And even if it is 21x in reality, and the violent crime rate among black youth is 9x, as iiiandyiiii said:
“is it really that unlikely that some small but significant portion of police officers might, whether due to overt racism or something subconscious (or conscious), be just a little more nervous, a little more likely to draw their gun, and a little more likely to pull the trigger (or similar actions for other uses of force) when the suspect is a young black male strictly because the suspect is a young black male?”
iiiandyiiii thinks it may be due to racism. I don’t think so. Human reactions are not exact mathematics and humans are not robots. If a police officer expects that a black youth he is confronting is (as statistics show) 9 times more likely to be a violent criminal than if it was a white youth, then his actions may be different. And maybe they are not exactly 9 times different (see the “humans are not robots” thing). After all, it’s his life he is risking.
That wouldn’t be prudent at all. That would be a total misapplication of statistics that would get people killed unnecessarily.
Good point. Let’s handwave away the issue and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
That’s an overstatement. I think one needs to take into account the degree to which young black men come into contact with crime. Also, I think one factor is that they are engaged with the police more because blacks tend to live in cities, and in the poor areas of them. Most white poverty is more rural. I bring that up because I think it increase the likelihood that blacks are 1) going to be in the vicinity of criminals (whether or not they participate in crime themselves) and 2) due to the the amount of criminality in the area are more likelihood to come into contact with cops.
It’s not a “misapplication of statistics”. Statistics, I am sure, are the furthest thing on the policeman’s mind when he is confronting someone. Experience, though, counts. And if the policeman, in his experience, sees roughly 10 times more violence coming from black youths vs. white youths, then obviously his attitude and actions are different.
Because police are 21 times more likely to kill young black males. The ratios are very different.
I don’t subscribe to this theory either, but even if I did, then it would only be prudent to be 9 times more likely to use force when the suspect is a young black male, not 21 times more likely.
… because of course, 21 is the exact precise ratio based on rock solid data, and each policeman has a calculator in his hand as he is confronting someone.
Why would you expect the ratios to be the same? The relationship need not be linear. A light increase in likelihood could lead to a magnified response. Risk mitigation and all.
Yes. By and large, black people live in very segregated environments.
I’m not sure how much that matters. But we can say that the police are more likely to interact with black people because they’re simply more likely to treat them as possible suspects.
Of course it is. Why would you want a police officer to be more violent with a drug dealer or car thief just because you believe people who look like him are more likely to commit murder?
I referred to this a few posts ago. Yes, our culture very strongly associates black people with criminality and it affects how the police treat people, so it’s not just a question of experience.
Yes, that would be very bad for both society at large and the police, in the long run. I think this is very possible – and it’s a very bad possibility. This would be an indictment of police culture.
Further, this sort of “risk mitigation/magnified response” would justify any ratio – 100 times, 1000 times, etc.