

The Race Gap in America’s Police Departments - Bud
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/03/us/the-race-gap-in-americas-police-departments.html

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viggity
This is not to minimize a plethora of issues that I have with modern day
policing (i.e. their militarization, lack of dash/body cameras, etc). I do
feel like this is an unfair way to analyze this information.

As far as I'm aware, most police forces require at least an Associates Degree,
if not a Bachelors Degree. So to compare racial makeup of the community as a
whole and that of the police force is unfair. It suggests, without explicitly
stating it that the police force is inherently racist. If they were just
comparing the racial makeup of community members with degrees to the police
force, I think it would be a more fair comparison. The largest disparities in
racial makeup are going to tend to be in poorer cities, which will naturally
lead to fewer people with degrees.

It is also worth stating, that from a psychological perspective, a poor city
with more crime is going to be harder on a cop mentally and make them more
likely to misbehave and overreact. Coupled with the racial disparity (which as
aforementioned is likely caused by outer forces), could lead to racial
tensions.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
That's some pretty weak apologetics.

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a8da6b0c91d
John Lott found that the more minorities on a police force, the higher the
rates of murder, manslaughter, violent crime, robbery and aggravated assault
will be. Violent crime increased by a minimum of 3.3 percent every year after
affirmative action policies went into effect—and the spike in crime was
highest in black neighborhoods.
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=231100](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=231100)

The problem was not with black cops, Lott’s study showed, but rather with the
lowering of standards across the board, resulting in less-qualified officers
of every race. To get more of MSNBC’s “voices of oppression” on police forces,
requirements are reduced for all recruits. (Just as quality declined at MSNBC
when “voices of oppression” had to be added to their lineup.)

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jaxytee
Did he define exactly what these "Standards" are?

~~~
dalke
Based on the paper at
[http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/56.Lott_.Police.pdf](http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/56.Lott_.Police.pdf)
, "standards" here refers to various tests, including tests for cognitive
skills, that police departments used during employee selection. The tests
ended up with a negative bias towards minority groups. This is important
because of the 1989 Supreme Court decision in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson
Co. which imposed a strict scrutiny test to ensure that job qualifications fit
the goal 'so closely that there is little or no possibility that the motive
for the classification was illegitimate racial prejudice or stereotype.'

Eg, and quoting from the paper:

> After spending “$5.1 million to have consultants develop unbiased exams,
> only to have minorities fare poorly again,” Chicago moved to a heavily
> weighted seniority system for promoting police officers and a lottery system
> for hiring firefighters (Spielman, 1996, p. 16)

Thus, the supposition in the paper is that those cognitive tests _correctly_
measured skills needed for law enforcement, and with that in supposition in
place, it tries to estimate the impact of the changes, concluding that they
were negative.

I don't find the paper persuasive. I don't think the hypothesis is tested well
enough, I don't see a model for how the police force composition could change
so drastically after only 5 years, and I don't like the short baseline of the
analysis.

