The role of officer race and gender in police-civilian interactions in Chicago | Hacker News Reader

The role of officer race and gender in police-civilian interactions in Chicago

science.sciencemag.org

17 pointspulisse22 comments

BLUF: Hispanic and Black officers make far fewer stops and arrests and use force less than white officers, especially against Black civilians.... These effects are supportive of the efficacy of increasing diversity in police forces.

I support increased diversity as a policy matter. However, this scientific conclusion would require determining whether white officers were over-using force or minority officers were under-using force. While the former situation is more likely due to P200/N200 disparities inherent in interracial encounters, I am not convinced this study is complete enough to come to that conclusion as a matter of science.

This is an important point. We could use 'less force' and 'arrest less' by literally not policing at all.

It's good to have more data but like always it's just one more piece of the puzzle.

FYI One area that seems to have objective credibility apparently are 'victimization reports' i.e. when people are asked the amount of crime they face as opposed to relying on policing measures.

https://hiphopwired.com/510157/audio-nypd-polics-captain-tel...

How could anyone entertain the idea that American police under-use force?

That's not what he said.

I didn't say that's what he said, but it is clearly what he suggested is a possibility.

American police are the most violent in the industrialized world.

Ah yes let’s get bogged down in silly “rationalism” like this. Because of course before you can determine whether they under- or over-use force, you need to determine the _proper_ level of force in each circumstance. And let me tell you it’s going to depend case-by-case! And gosh since it’s so hairy to determine whether something was over- or under-use of force, let’s just broadly leave it up to the officers’ discretion.

Lol. This is exactly how white supremacy & other power structures reinforce themselves

All this presupposes race is the dominant factor. Sure, it is almost certainly a present trait, but it's rather relevant to identify it as a causative factor.

If profiling blacks is an inappropriate means to discern likelihood of criminality, so too is profiling whites as a means to discern likelihood of over-forced policing.

But everyone is so stuck on the "our side vs your side" nobody seems to remember that skin color determines literally nothing about behavior.

The following traits are almost certainly far more meaningful than skin color:

- age

- gender

- upbringing

- culture

- economic status

- social status

Of course, people will argue that members of groups with particular skin colors generalize to certain tendencies in some of these traits. But that's about as useful as saying "fat is bad for you" or "germs are bad".

Well, yeah, in some instances. But if you treat everything with the nuance of a brick hitting a fly, you're gonna miss the actually important distinctions that could lead to meaningful change.

Sorry, but all this "black vs white" garbage is a load of unscientific, unhelpful, tribalistic hogwash. How about if anyone actually cares, we stop enabling the baloney racial characterizations?

Because the genetics and generalizations are utterly idiotic and useless.

If we aren't supposed to be rational then how can we even argue over things?

I don't even know what "under-use of force" means as a credible measure of... I don't eve know, but apparently they may have not been using enough force

In Chicago especially (where the study was based and where I live), police fairly clearly have an overuse of force in general. They have paid enormous sums over many years in lawsuits for wrongful use of force. There is plenty of research to show that when confronted with complex problems police will respond with force when other tactics may have been better for all (such as cited in this book - https://www.npr.org/2019/01/02/681606995/punishment-without-... )

That is directional evidence, not the kind of evidence needed for a study like this.

Assuming we accounted for every one of those court cases, would that nudge the data? Are there 100x cases that 'never made it to court' for every case that did, or only 2?

How wide is that Gaussian distribution of assertive policing? Is it limited to a specific unit? Or a specific tactic, i.e. no-knock warrants?

What was the nature of 'over policing' in those cases, vs. the kind of issues that police face daily? Because typically, it's going to be the 'egregious' issues that go to court, probably not 'the little things' and of course the 'little things' might be the real problem, or not.

Are some police letting people off the hook for serious things aka "I saw you with that gun in your belt, son, I'm not going to ruin your life in this moment because you remind me of me when I was your age, but you need to get that thing home and put it away, if I see you on this block again I'm going to check up on you". Which FYI might actually in some ways be a rational policing tactic - or not - it's hard to know.

Or is it almost entirely a function of profiling and the likelihood for police to act given certain bits of information, whereupon the actual type of applied policing might be the same?

Maybe it's the reaction of the offenders - perhaps young men of colour are really that much more likely to not flinch when someone 'who looks like them' approaches?

Paradoxically 'more policing' in the broadest sense seems to lead to less crime, at least by some measures [1], but that doesn't take into account level of assertion.

There are too many variables to just assume that police are, in most cases under or over policing with respect to application of the law.

[1] https://around.uoregon.edu/content/study-finds-largely-black...

This is not a troll, but a genuine call to question an assumption: what utility does policing have? I see no evidence that they present any kind of solution to economic or social issues of any kind. They will cage or hurt people or tear apart families to protect insured private property, never mind whatever "moral" aspersions we cast on a given instance of "crime," which is itself a wonderfully flexible and fluid term we bandy about like it has a fixed, equitable meaning.

Let's first scientifically test the wild, unproven assumption that we improve society by threatening each other with violence. I am skeptical, to put it mildly.

I'm kinda surprised no one's asked what "under-using force" even means

I found this phrasing interesting: "One explanation for these disparities centers on racial bias, i.e., white officers are more likely than Black officers to harass Black civilians. Technically, it is also possible that Black officers respond more leniently when observing crimes in progress"

What is the crime rate in Chicago?

Has the crime rate increased or decreased in Chicago?

Does people feel safer living in Chicago ?

The role of police is to reduce crime in Chicago. Is it working?

Pretty sure areas with high crime are the ideal place you'd want to study how police officers deal with citizens there. What do these questions have to do in particular with the subject at hand anyway? Furthermore police depts are reluctant to release this kind of data. The work that had to be done to get this data to get this kind of study done in the first place...

Is this a study about police and no police and the effects it has on crime rates? Not sure what you were reading.

The point is that there are two explanations for the difference observed. One is that white police make the correct amount of arrests, and black police make too few. Another is that white police make too many arrests, and black police make the right amount. The paper seems to assume the latter (I only scanned it very quickly).

Perhaps to someone who lives in Chicago, it’s “obvious” which of these is true. But that’s not usually good enough for science: we want to base our claims on evidence, not on our intuitions.

Yes, but we of course know it's way more complicated than 'too few or many arrests'.

As to the OP, I would argue the job of police is really to just 'keep a lid on things'.

We don't not run around killing each other because 'policing' - we don't do it because it's immoral, wrong, self-defeating etc..

Solving 'high crime' probably necessitates a whole slew of social things, including policing - and once the situation arrives at something resembling civil, the police deal with crimes that are more or less rare and on the margins. Or more serious things like organized crime.

In my suburban upbringing I barely ever saw police, and I think I had one interaction with them regarding a traffic ticket. It's literally the only time I've had an interaction with law enforcement growing up. I didn't know a single person growing up who interacted with the police in any more than those terms.

If you can get a community to that point of stability/baseline prosperity, policing is something different entirely than 'there are 50 people shot this weekend, gangs control parts of town, kids going to school face real violence'.

"The role of police is to reduce crime" It is a bit more than that.

"Hispanic and Black officers make far fewer stops and arrests and use force less than white officers, especially against Black civilians"

Well duh! Who would have thought that having a police fors look like the people they are serving would be helpful? Anybody, that is who

The police are not a occupying army! They are there to keep the peace not suppress dissent

>Well duh! Who would have thought that having a police force look like the people they are serving would be helpful

People who aren't racists?

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