
How we built the largest database of police use of force in N.J. history - danso
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2018/11/how_we_built_the_most_comprehensive_statewide_database_of_police_force_in_the_us.html
======
danso
If this topic interests you, worth pointing out some similar projects, such as
the Citizens Police Data Project of Chicago, which currently has 247K police
complaints (and puts the code/data on Github) [0]. Note that it's about
_complaints_ \-- not about all use of force, as in the NJ database. It also
covers a single agency -- the Chicago PD. Ostensibly, the Chicago PD has put
in the work to create a centralized database, making it relatively
straightforward to get the bulk data once the records request/lawsuit
succeeds. It's a much different situation when trying to corral the records
from multiple agencies, all of which have their own IT systems and practices.

VICE did a mass records request for shooting incidents (again, a subset of use
of force) from the 50 largest police departments. It took them 9 months to
collect the data [1]

[0] [https://invisible.institute/police-
data/](https://invisible.institute/police-data/)

[1] [https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3jjpa/nonfatal-
police-s...](https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/a3jjpa/nonfatal-police-
shootings-data)

~~~
forapurpose
Thanks. I'll add the Washington Post's database of police shootings throughout
the U.S.:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/police-
shootings-2018/)

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rsync
I wonder if this database contains _height_ of officer ?

I have this pet theory ...

~~~
adjkant
Curious why this is downvoted as while I think there are probably much larger
factors, the physical size of an officer compared to their use of force is
certainly something that would make logical sense to correlate somehow given
how society views size and power. If we're going to do a full analysis, why
not include it? It could help clarify what psychological factors (which can be
affected by how people treat you, which could be affected by height) cause or
prevent the use of unnecessary force.

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tzs
See also [http://killedbypolice.net/](http://killedbypolice.net/)

It attempts to list all police killings in the US. Unfortunately it looks like
they stopped in the middle of this year due to lack of support, but there is
five years of interesting past data still there.

------
xbryanx
If you like this sort of reporting, please make sure you are a paying
subscriber for your local newspaper. We must support this sort of essential
journalism with our pocketbooks.

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erinpetenko
Hello, I've never commented on Hacker News before so please forgive me if I am
breaking any rules, but I worked on this project. Let me know if you have any
questions about our process. - Erin Petenko, data reporter for NJ.com

Proof:
[https://twitter.com/EPetenko/status/1069664096042270720](https://twitter.com/EPetenko/status/1069664096042270720)

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onetimemanytime
True journalism. ACLU should do a nationwide one, they'd raise the money in a
hearbeat.

~~~
danso
The various local branches of the ACLU have been doing some impressive data
projects.

\- NYCLU won a lawsuit that forced the NYPD to release a database of their
stop-and-frisk activity. The analysis of the data -- which showed a huge
racial disparity in who was targeted -- was instrumental in winning a court
order to reform the practice. In 2011, the NYPD committed 685K stop-and-
frisks. In 2017, they did 10K. [0]

The ACLU of Northern California [1] filed records requests with 63 California
police departments to uncover their financial deals with Geofeedia, a tech
company that claimed to offer crime/protest detection using real-time feeds
from Facebook/Instagram/Twitter's APIs. Geofeedia, which had recently raised
$24M, had to vastly cut its operations after the tech companies shut off API
access.

[0] [https://www.nyclu.org/en/nyclu-
campaign-0](https://www.nyclu.org/en/nyclu-campaign-0)

[1] [https://www.aclunc.org/blog/facebook-instagram-and-
twitter-p...](https://www.aclunc.org/blog/facebook-instagram-and-twitter-
provided-data-access-surveillance-product-marketed-target)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13010337](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13010337)

~~~
hanniabu
> In 2011, the NYPD committed 685K stop-and-frisks. In 2017, they did 10K.

Am I wrong to read this as "if we can't be racist about it we're just not
going to do it as much"

~~~
twunde
Only partially. The NYPD was essentially forced by lawsuits and political
pressure to shut down stop and frisk. The ACLU lawsuit that parent mentioned,
required that police have a valid reason to stop and frisk someone in advance.
Think of this as having a business justification for every expense at a
company that scrutinizes these requests. Subsequent lawsuits shut down the
ability to stop and frisk individuals coming and going from public housing[0].
On top of this, the new NYC mayor, De Blasio, wanted to shut down stop and
frisk altogether (one of his major campaign planks).

0: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/nyregion/new-york-
police-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/nyregion/new-york-police-dept-
stop-and-frisk.html) for more information

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the-dude
Confusing title. 'police force' -> 'police use of force'.

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paddysanfran
Enjoyed the read! Thanks for sharing

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catacombs
Great story. But, goddamn, this page is cancer on mobile.

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qrbLPHiKpiux
“Now that’s some fine reporting there, Lou...”

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stareatgoats
A database that lists the officers responsible for force by name, frequency
and race. Resulting in neat graphs that strongly suggests that police violence
is caused by two factors: individuals and/or race.

Police brutality is a serious problem and data like this should be available,
but several things here are (maybe intentionally) provocative:

1\. Listing the officers by name is a kind of online vigilantism that
ultimately might threaten their personal safety. It doesn't sit well with me
at least. This data should be anonymized.

2\. The prominence of graphs that conflict race of officer with race
distribution of the community. Race should really be stripped from this kind
statistic. Race is a social construct based on superficial attributes that
does not carry any explanatory meaning. It mostly serves to underpin racist
prejudice, which in turn serves to blur out the real reasons for a problem.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> Race should really be stripped from this kind statistic. Race is a social
> construct based on superficial attributes that does not carry any
> explanatory meaning. It mostly serves to underpin racist prejudice, which in
> turn serves to blur out the real reasons for a problem.

In a lot of cases, racial prejudice _is_ the problem, or a significant aspect
of it. Racism is deeply embedded in the fabric of American society.

~~~
stareatgoats
> Racism is deeply embedded in the fabric of American society.

Yes, I'm sure, and racism is for sure "a significant aspect" of police
brutality, I don't contest it. But racism is nonetheless merely a stupid
pattern of thought, and I oppose the notion that combating it is to apply
_more racism_.

You'll note that the database doesn't analyze racism, it analyses _race_.

~~~
danso
> _You 'll note that the database doesn't analyze racism, it analyses race._

It's impossible to do any analysis of racial disparity unless the race element
is specifically recorded. And, as data collection is as much a political
endeavor as it is technical, not every agency or state tracks race.

You can see a not-quite complete collection and comparison of nationwide
police data in the Stanford Open Policing Project (disclosure: started by one
of my former colleagues) [0], and which states do/don't track driver race. Not
all states have agreed to release their data.

I wonder how you propose that a database "analyze racism"? A database contains
data. If it's hard as it is to define and get data on race, you think there
exists an arbiter and resulting data source for _racism_?

[0]
[https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/data/](https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/data/)

~~~
stareatgoats
The Stanford data set suffers from the same problems as the one in discussion:
It opens up for correlating 'race' with foul behavior. Of course there may be
such a correlation per se, just as there may be a correlation between heavy
drinkers/medication abusers and excessive use of force. The problem with
isolating the 'race' factor is that it promotes race hate, which is just
stupid, when there are factors that are amendable ('race ' is not amendable).
There is obviously a correlation between _racism_ and inappropriate police
work, but these kinds of data sets don't show that.

> I wonder how you propose that a database "analyze racism"?

I note that we are in agreement: you can't surmise racism from this kind of
data, still that's what the presentation implies. To be able to establish the
extent of racism one would have to conduct attitude research (psychological
profiling) on the officers.

~~~
Falling3
>The problem with isolating the 'race' factor is that it promotes race hate

How is your stance any different from the common and absurd refrain that
discussing racism is racist? We can't discuss racism without looking at race.

~~~
stareatgoats
I'm not familiar with that refrain, and agree it sounds absurd. FWIW I really
do believe we need to discuss racism, however not with racist arguments.

~~~
Falling3
I don't think anyone here will disagree with you on that either. But I fail to
see the relevance of that in the context of this article.

