Racial Bias in Police Use of Force

Name: Racial Bias in Police Use of Force
Start: 2018-04-01T15:00:00-04:00
End: 2018-04-01T17:00:00-04:00
Location: Cafe Walnut

Hosted By

Brian B.

Details

We're currently hosting our discussions at Café Walnut, not too far from our summer meeting spot in Washington Square Park. The cafe is near the corner of 7th & Walnut in Olde City. The cafe's entrance is below street level down some stairs, which can be confusing if it's your first time. Our group meets in the large room upstairs.

Since we're using the cafe's space, they ask that each person attending the meetup at least purchase a drink or snack. Please don't bring any food or drinks from outside. If you're hungry enough to eat a meal, they have more substantial fare such as salads, soups & sandwiches which are pretty good and their prices are reasonable.

The cafe is fairly easy to get to if you're using public transit. With SEPTA, take the Market-Frankford Line & get off at the 5th Street Station (corner of 5th & Market), and walk 2 blocks south on 5th and then turn right on Walnut Street and walk 1 block west. With PATCO, just get off at the 9th-10th & Locust stop and walk 3 blocks east. For those who are driving, parking in the neighborhood can be tough to find. If you can't find a spot on the street, I'd suggest parking in the Washington Square parking deck at 249 S 6th Street which is just a half block away.

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RACIAL BIAS IN THE POLICE USE OF FORCE

INTRODUCTION:

The media debates on police shooting & police brutality since the shooting of Mike Brown and the Ferguson protests in 2014 have produced more heat than light, and hard data on the police use of force incidents is unfortunately still hard to come by. This meetup will try to remedy that. This is a huge topic, but we'll look at the way in which some of members of the skeptic & rationalist communities (i.e. Dan Bier & Scott Alexander), along with the data journalists at sites like Slate, Vox & FiveThirtyEight, have analyzed the excessive use of force by police, specifically the allegations of systematic racial bias among police in America.

The skeptic community hasn't dealt with this issue very extensively, with the exception of Sam Harris who had a 2-hour discussion on racism in policing with the African-American economist Glenn Loury back in August of 2016:

https://samharris.org/racism-and-violence-in-america/

I considered using Sam & Glenn's talk as the basis of our discussion, but it's too wide-ranging and while they discuss research on the issue such as Roland Fryer's study and Jill Leovy's book "Ghettoside", and lot of their discussion ends up being more about the problems with the way liberal pundits like Ta-Nehisi Coates & the economist Rajiv Sethi obfuscate the core issues with identity politics rhetoric and misleading statistics. Sam also uses hypothetical reasoning to address the issue of how people should think about law enforcement and how people should act when they're stopped by police. His views appear to be informed both by his personal training in firearms & martial arts, as well as his personal acquaintance with police officers & firearms instructors (e.g. Scott Reizt, who he had on his podcast in Jan. 2016). While Sam's views are informed, they still comes off as amateur sociology, and they're hard to evaluate without a lot of data from both police training simulations & real-world encounters. I'm also not sure how it can interface with our typical, top-down empirical approach to broad social problems. I decided that we'd be better off if we focused more directly on specific claims being made about racial bias in policing and the extent to which research supports or refutes these claims.

I've divided our discussion into 5 sections, and we'll cover them in this order - spending about 25 minutes of our discussion on each section.

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DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major findings from criminologists, economists & data scientists on racial bias in the police use of force, as well as how the skeptic & rationalist communities have dealt with this issue. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles & watch all the videos prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about 44 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I figure we'll spend about 25 minutes on each section.

I. THE DIFFICULTIES IN ANALYZING POLICE SHOOTINGS IN AMERICA: HOW MANY POLICE SHOOTING ARE THERE ON AVERAGE? ARE POLICE SHOOTINGS INCREASING OR DECREASING? HOW DOES THE DANGER OF BEING SHOT BY A POLICE OFFICER COMPARE TO THE DANGER OF BEING SHOT BY A CRIMINAL? ARE POLICE FACING INCREASED DANGER RECENTLY - A "WAR ON COPS" - OR HAS VIOLENCE AGAINST POLICE DECLINED?

1a) Cenk Uygur, "Here’s How Many People Police Killed In 2015" (video - 6:01 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg89vEp8hkU

1b) Brian Simms, "Police Brutality Motiongraphic" (video - 2:51 min.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRd5oucG114

Daniel Bier, "By the Numbers: How Often Do Cops Kill?" (blog post)
http://blog.skepticallibertarian.com/2016/07/13/by-the-numbers-how-often-do-cops-kill/
https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/9/f/6/c/600_460600812.jpeg
Reuben Fischer-Braun, "Another (Much Higher) Count Of Homicides By Police" (article)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/another-much-higher-count-of-police-homicides/
Jay Syrmopoulos, "A Viral Video About Police Brutality is Making Its Way Across the Web. Read This Before Sharing It"

http://thefreethoughtproject.com/viral-video-police-brutality-making-web-read-sharing/

[Note: The link to the response video in the article no longer works, but it argued: “You are 5.8 more times likely to be a victim of police brutality than you are to be the victim of aggravated assault by one of your own citizen peers.”]

II. CONFLICTING TAKES ON THE ROLAND FRYER STUDY ON POLICE USE OF FORCE & RACIAL BIAS: WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF THE FACT THAT FRYER'S STUDY DOESN'T SHOW RACIAL BIAS IN POLICE SHOOTINGS BUT DOES SHOW RACIAL BIAS IN NON-LETHAL FORCE? ARE THE DATA SOURCES FOR THE FRYER STUDY TOO LIMITED TO GENERALIZE? DOES IT MATTER THAT FRYER'S STUDY WASN'T PEER REVIEWED? HOW DO FRYER'S FINDINGS COMPARE TO OTHER STUDIES?

2a) Heather MacDonald, "Are The Police Racist?" (5:35 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQCQFH5wOJo

2b) Thom Hartmann & Chauncey DeVega, "Sorry Cons - There Is More Racism (Not Less) By Police" (10:51 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k20BZBEKO0

Roland Fryer, "Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias In Police Use Of Force But Not In Shootings" (article)
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/12/upshot/surprising-new-evidence-shows-bias-in-police-use-of-force-but-not-in-shootings.html?

https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/c/b/4/f/600_460672047.jpeg

Rosa Li, "The Research Is Only As Good As the Data" (article)
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2016/07/roland_fryer_s_new_paper_came_to_the_opposite_conclusion_as_a_paper_last.html
Sendhil Mullainathan, "Police Killings of Blacks: What the Data Says. Eighteen academic studies, legal rulings, and media investigations shed light on the issue roiling America." (article)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-blacks-what-the-data-says.html?

III. DOES CONTROLLING FOR VARIOUS FACTORS (E.G. INCOME, NEIGHBORHOOD, TYPE OF STOP, PRIOR RECORD) IN RESEARCH ON POLICE USE OF FORCE HIDE SYSTEMIC RACISM? IS IT DISHONEST TO CLAIM THAT DISPROPORTIONAL SHOOTINGS OF BLACK MEN PROVES RACIAL BIAS IN POLICING, BUT THEN SHIFT TO A DISCUSSION OF SYSTEMIC RACISM ONLY AFTER AN OPPONENT SHOWS THAT YOUR INITIAL STATS LACKED CONTROLS?

3a) Vox, "The racism of the US justice system in 10 charts" (video - 1:47 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InOsF5x1lZw

3b) Independent Man, "Debunking the Black Lives Matter Narrative - Understanding Proportionality" (video - 9:02 min, watch til 6:35)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJMb1mz_o9A

Scott Alexander, "Race and Justice: Much More Than You Wanted To Know" (blog post)
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/25/race-and-justice-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/

https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/a/0/2/4/600_460600996.jpeg

Ezra Klein, "How Racial Discrimination in Law Enforcement Actually Works" (article, reply to Alexander)
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/1/7311417/race-law-controls
Scott Alexander, "Framing for Light Instead of Heat" (blog post, reply to Klein)
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/03/framing-for-light-instead-of-heat/

IV. IS THE "FERGUSON EFFECT" REAL - I.E. DO BIG CITIES EXPERIENCE A SHARP DECLINE IN ARRESTS & A SHARP RISE IN VIOLENT CRIME AFTER HIGH-PROFILE ALLEGATIONS OF POLICE BRUTALITY? HAS THIS LED TO A NATIONAL UPTICK IN VIOLENT CRIMES SINCE THE FERGUSON RIOTS IN SEPT. 2014? IS THE "FERGUSON EFFECT" MORE DO TO "DE-POLICING" (I.E. POLICE CONDUCTING LESS PATROLS TO ACTIVELY SEARCH FOR CRIME) OR LESS CALLS TO POLICE? COULD SOMETHING ELSE BE BEHIND THE UPTICK IN CRIME - LIKE DECARCERTAION OR THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC?

Rashawn Ray, "What Is The Ferguson Effect and Why Does It Not Hold Water? The Real Reason Why Crime May Increase" (video - 7:09 min.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bASkR82c-t8

Alex Tabbarock, "In Baltimore Arrests are Down and Crime is Way Up" (blog post)
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/06/in-baltimore-arrests-are-down-and-crime-is-way-up.html

https://secure.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/c/6/d/e/600_460670910.jpeg

Jamiles Lartey, Ryan Felton & Louis Beckett, "'Ferguson Effect' Is A Plausible Reason for Spike in Violent US Crime, Study Says" (medium-length article)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/15/ferguson-effect-homicide-rates-us-crime-study

The Guardian reviews a recent Justice department-funded study that suggests three possible drivers for the more than 16% spike in homicide from 2014 to 2015 in 56 of the US’s largest cities: (1) police disengaging from vigorous enforcement in black neighborhoods due to intense criticism & rioting after they've shot unarmed black suspects, (2) systemic breakdown in the black community's trust in police & the justice system, leading some to take the law into their own hands, (3) a rise in ex-cons returning to society due to decarceration policies. The criminologist Richard Rosenfeld says that the evidence points to the 2nd factor being the most dominant, and that this "crisis of police legitimacy" represents a dangerous decline in the rule of law in some locales.

Nicole Lewis, "Fact Check: Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s claim that a violent crime wave is sweeping the nation [Ruling: Four Pinocchios]"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/09/01/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-claim-that-a-violent-crime-wave-is-sweeping-the-nation/

V. DO BODY CAMS REDUCE POLICE BRUTALITY & SHOOTINGS, OR AT LEAST REDUCE RACIAL BIAS IN THE USE OF FORCE? IF NOT, IS IT BECAUSE THE VIDEOS AREN'T RELEASED? ARE JURIES STILL RELUCTANT TO INDICT POLICE OFFICERS EVEN WITH VIDEO EVIDENCE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE? DO THE BODY CAMS HAVE OTHER EFFECTS - LIKE REDUCING COMPLAINTS AGAINST POLICE?