Study: white officers not more likely to shoot minorities than black officers
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This is of little surprise to me (and I'm sure a lot of other black folks) but it does throw a wrench in the media narrative that's for sure. The idea of biased black cops is something that has always been talked about in the black community. But that's way too complex of a story to try and dig in to that psychosis, it's much easier to keep it at racist white cop.
KASTE: Johnson takes pains to say that this study is not trying to deny the role of race. Instead, what they're trying to do is narrow down where it's having its effect on policing. He says it also raises some questions about a common fix for biased policing, the push to hire more minority officers because if this study is right, just hiring more black cops will not mean fewer black people get shot. And that fits with what implicit bias trainers say.
LORIE FRIDELL: People can have biases against their own demographic groups. Women can have biases about women. Blacks can have biases about blacks. It is incorrect to assume that any issue of bias in policing is brought to us by white males.
KASTE: Lorie Fridell is a criminologist as well as a bias trainer. She says academics have been wrestling with this question for decades, and this latest paper is not about to settle things.
FRIDELL: The defenders of police, of course, will cherry-pick the studies that show no bias. And the other side will cherry-pick the ones that do. But we don't have any definitive studies on this.
KASTE: She thinks people should be more open to the idea that bias and demographics can both play a role. And that's something that the authors of the paper and their critics both seem to agree on.
KASTE: Johnson takes pains to say that this study is not trying to deny the role of race. Instead, what they're trying to do is narrow down where it's having its effect on policing. He says it also raises some questions about a common fix for biased policing, the push to hire more minority officers because if this study is right, just hiring more black cops will not mean fewer black people get shot. And that fits with what implicit bias trainers say.
LORIE FRIDELL: People can have biases against their own demographic groups. Women can have biases about women. Blacks can have biases about blacks. It is incorrect to assume that any issue of bias in policing is brought to us by white males.
KASTE: Lorie Fridell is a criminologist as well as a bias trainer. She says academics have been wrestling with this question for decades, and this latest paper is not about to settle things.
FRIDELL: The defenders of police, of course, will cherry-pick the studies that show no bias. And the other side will cherry-pick the ones that do. But we don't have any definitive studies on this.
KASTE: She thinks people should be more open to the idea that bias and demographics can both play a role. And that's something that the authors of the paper and their critics both seem to agree on.
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Yep. I don't doubt for a second that other biases exist even amongst the same demographic groups, I just question if these biases are incendiary enough to create a situation where officers are drawing a firearm prematurely as, as you said, the media often wants us to believe.
This study trashes the narrative that there's a legion of white guys in cop uniforms who are getting their racist jollies off by mowing down black people every chance they get.
This study should get more attention but of course it won't.
Correct. My frustration with these things, like most, is the extreme pictures we paint. We create this narrative of rogue cops and ignore the more nuanced conversation of real implicit bias and now we have to spend time on this. Really no different than the racism conversation as a whole.
Specifically to your point in bias leading to actual shootings, you can find data both ways according to the below link. But even if it stops short of a gun being pulled there's still the data on disproportionate stops, arrests and use of force etc.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/12/cover-policing
I appreciate you posting this bc it even though I don't find it surprising it is encouraging.
Specifically to your point in bias leading to actual shootings, you can find data both ways according to the below link. But even if it stops short of a gun being pulled there's still the data on disproportionate stops, arrests and use of force etc.
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/12/cover-policing
I appreciate you posting this bc it even though I don't find it surprising it is encouraging.
This study from Harvard that came out a couple of years ago agrees with the OP and also notes that, while blacks and Hispanics are often in situations with escalated non-lethal force, it is not clear that there is a pattern of discrimination with non-lethal either. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_analysis_tables_figures.pdf
This study attempts to screen out for behavioral characteristics that would prejudice a decision. The big one that no one wants to talk about is participation in criminal activity. Truly, that’s a hard one to track down perfectly. Are blacks or whites or Hispanics more apt to engage in criminal behavior? Are they the same but the numbers skew towards blacks and Hispanics because they get caught more often when they commit crimes? Is it because police patrol black and Hispanic neighborhoods more? Why do police patrol those neighborhoods more, is it racism or response to a pattern of calls for service and responding to previous crimes?
It goes to reason that a group that is more prone to violence in its own community is more likely to have violent encounters with police. Does that fall under racial lines, cultural, or economic? I’d imagine outlaw white biker gangs have just as violent of encounters with police as black gang members. I have yet to see any studies on it though.
Police are an easy target in this equation and it’s true that they should exhibit a stronger discipline of behavior given that they have a broader ability to use force legally. However, I think that the real change that we need will address both the police and the communities without villainizing either. Unfortunately, given our current social climate, I have no hope this will happen anytime soon.
This study attempts to screen out for behavioral characteristics that would prejudice a decision. The big one that no one wants to talk about is participation in criminal activity. Truly, that’s a hard one to track down perfectly. Are blacks or whites or Hispanics more apt to engage in criminal behavior? Are they the same but the numbers skew towards blacks and Hispanics because they get caught more often when they commit crimes? Is it because police patrol black and Hispanic neighborhoods more? Why do police patrol those neighborhoods more, is it racism or response to a pattern of calls for service and responding to previous crimes?
It goes to reason that a group that is more prone to violence in its own community is more likely to have violent encounters with police. Does that fall under racial lines, cultural, or economic? I’d imagine outlaw white biker gangs have just as violent of encounters with police as black gang members. I have yet to see any studies on it though.
Police are an easy target in this equation and it’s true that they should exhibit a stronger discipline of behavior given that they have a broader ability to use force legally. However, I think that the real change that we need will address both the police and the communities without villainizing either. Unfortunately, given our current social climate, I have no hope this will happen anytime soon.
i forget the study, but it was done after ferguson shooting and called it the ferguson effect. basically cops stopped going into black/hispanic areas as much. they didnt want to be deemed racist and spark another riot in their areas. the results were more poor people in those less policed areas got shot and killed.
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