Black people encountering police at a much higher rate than white people could be taken itself as evidence of systemic bias in policing.
A study found that white police are no more likely to shoot minorities than non-white police, but that is dismissed as flawed reasoning. [1]
Another study examining lethal and non-lethal interactions with police;
> In the raw data, blacks are 21.3 percent more likely to be involved in an interaction with police in which at least a weapon is drawn than whites and the difference is statistically significant. Adding our full set of controls reduces the racial difference to 19.4 percent.
> In stark contrast to non-lethal uses of force, we find no racial differences in officer-involved shootings on either the extensive or intensive margins. Using data from Houston, Texas – where
we have both officer-involved shootings and a randomly chosen set of potential interactions with police where lethal force may have been justified – we find, in the raw data, that blacks are 23.8 percent less likely to be shot at by police relative to whites. [2]
I think at this point the statistics can be used to argue both ways.
I think what’s left behind is the undeniable fact that certain inner cities are more like war zones than civilian population centers with the number of daily shooting and killings. Chicago just saw 18 murders in 24 hours, or nearly ~4,500 shootings per year. [3]
According to the Washington Post last year there were 9 fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police (19 of white people). Fatal police shootings in total were about 1,000 and ~25% were black, a number that under-represents black people relative to the rate of violent crime.
Compare to what the Atlantic describes as the “homicide plague afflicting black America“ of black on black civilian violence, which claims nearly 100,000 lives per decade. This is not whataboutism, this is flip sides of the same coin, because while “defunding” police can reduce the total number of armed and unarmed black people killed by police a maximum of ~2,500 per decade, what will it do to the 100,000 killed per decade in inner city gang wars?
In my estimation, the vilification of police as racist, declarations of “ACAB” and “Fuck 12”, and calling to abolish or defund the police is more likely to result in significantly more dangerous environments where the majority of black homicides are occurring.
> In my estimation, the vilification of police as racist, declarations of “ACAB” and “Fuck 12”, and calling to abolish or defund the police is more likely to result in significantly more dangerous environments where the majority of black homicides are occurring.
The vilification of police as racist is political. It's always political. The police being jerks to everyone somehow seems less unfair and more acceptable than the police being jerks to only black people, so the people who want change argue that it's racism even though that's basically a lie. Because if it's racism you can get people angrier about it. (The problem is it also alienates all the non-black victims of police misconduct who would otherwise be allies, and also allows opponents to pretend there isn't a problem if they can disprove the racism, even though the misconduct and mistreatment still exist regardless of whether they're racially motivated.)
But the less extreme calls to "defund the police" aren't actually that unreasonable. Because you don't defund the murder police, only the rest of it. Reduce their number by narrowing their scope to only investigating major crimes, so that there aren't as many police needed, so that you're less likely to interact with any of them and have a bad experience.
You basically do the opposite of the "broken window" garbage -- forget about broken windows and instead concentrate on solving ~100% of the murders. Which becomes easier when you discontinue having a million BS traffic stops for revenue extraction and stop and frisk, since they only increase community resentment of the police and make them less likely to cooperate in investigations of serious crimes.
A study found that white police are no more likely to shoot minorities than non-white police, but that is dismissed as flawed reasoning. [1]
Another study examining lethal and non-lethal interactions with police;
> In the raw data, blacks are 21.3 percent more likely to be involved in an interaction with police in which at least a weapon is drawn than whites and the difference is statistically significant. Adding our full set of controls reduces the racial difference to 19.4 percent.
> In stark contrast to non-lethal uses of force, we find no racial differences in officer-involved shootings on either the extensive or intensive margins. Using data from Houston, Texas – where we have both officer-involved shootings and a randomly chosen set of potential interactions with police where lethal force may have been justified – we find, in the raw data, that blacks are 23.8 percent less likely to be shot at by police relative to whites. [2]
I think at this point the statistics can be used to argue both ways.
I think what’s left behind is the undeniable fact that certain inner cities are more like war zones than civilian population centers with the number of daily shooting and killings. Chicago just saw 18 murders in 24 hours, or nearly ~4,500 shootings per year. [3]
According to the Washington Post last year there were 9 fatal shootings of unarmed black people by police (19 of white people). Fatal police shootings in total were about 1,000 and ~25% were black, a number that under-represents black people relative to the rate of violent crime.
Compare to what the Atlantic describes as the “homicide plague afflicting black America“ of black on black civilian violence, which claims nearly 100,000 lives per decade. This is not whataboutism, this is flip sides of the same coin, because while “defunding” police can reduce the total number of armed and unarmed black people killed by police a maximum of ~2,500 per decade, what will it do to the 100,000 killed per decade in inner city gang wars?
In my estimation, the vilification of police as racist, declarations of “ACAB” and “Fuck 12”, and calling to abolish or defund the police is more likely to result in significantly more dangerous environments where the majority of black homicides are occurring.
[1] - https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/study-claims-white-p...
[2] - https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/workshop/leo/l...
[3] - https://www.chicagotribune.com/data/ct-shooting-victims-map-...