Re:U.S. Police Shootings: Breaking Down the Data by Race
by jariel on Thursday May 28, 2020 @04:30PM
(#23342173)
The ratio may align with the ratio of underling rates of crime and violence by ethnicity.
This means the 'root cause' of that 2.5x multiple may necessarily be 'cops are shooting blacks at an arbitrarily greater rate', rather, cops may very well be shooting criminals in a rate somewhat commensurate with necessity given rates of altercations.
Which would imply the 'cause' is one step away, i.e. whatever is 'causing' people of different groups to commit more or less crime.
This is the very obvious and problematic issue with reporting such a statistic without context, that even smart people will be utterly misled.
There are 330M Americans, a Billion guns, an inherently aggressive population, there's a 100% chance that people are going to die in awkward situations, it doesn't mean that there's a deeply racist police force.
Case and point: in this very Minnesota incident, one of the officers was White, one Black and one Asian (!!) this is a seriously 'Multicultural' gang of dudes that will be up on charges.
The argument was made back in the 1980s that 'mostly white cops' was the 'problem' in dealing with communities that didn't look like them, but in 2020 we actually have police forces that largely represent the people they police and yet we still have a lot of problems (though fewer).
Almost every story and every bit of data is 'taken out of context' it's almost as though the whole can of worms needs to be opened each time there is serious reporting.
This means the 'root cause' of that 2.5x multiple may necessarily be 'cops are shooting blacks at an arbitrarily greater rate', rather, cops may very well be shooting criminals in a rate somewhat commensurate with necessity given rates of altercations.
Which would imply the 'cause' is one step away, i.e. whatever is 'causing' people of different groups to commit more or less crime.
This is the very obvious and problematic issue with reporting such a statistic without context, that even smart people will be utterly misled.
There are 330M Americans, a Billion guns, an inherently aggressive population, there's a 100% chance that people are going to die in awkward situations, it doesn't mean that there's a deeply racist police force.
Case and point: in this very Minnesota incident, one of the officers was White, one Black and one Asian (!!) this is a seriously 'Multicultural' gang of dudes that will be up on charges.
The argument was made back in the 1980s that 'mostly white cops' was the 'problem' in dealing with communities that didn't look like them, but in 2020 we actually have police forces that largely represent the people they police and yet we still have a lot of problems (though fewer).
Almost every story and every bit of data is 'taken out of context' it's almost as though the whole can of worms needs to be opened each time there is serious reporting.