Justice report finds systematic discrimination against African Americans in Ferguson

[Jimmy Higgins]

OMG! Someone right the DoJ an email stat! They may not realize that it doesn't have to be racism!

It seems odd that those that want to defend the Ferguson police from charges of racism, also at the exact same time want to leap at the DoJ and claim they are the ones making this about race.

Where am I leaping at the DOJ? I am pointing out that the main stat being offered in the media reports and most here as smoking gun evidence of widespread racism is meaningless and uninterpretable without factoring the many well established covariates with race that are also well known to impact (and should impact) the probability of a search.

How in the world can you write (I spelled it write this time... oh damn it!) off 16,000 of 21,000 with outstanding arrest warrants? You'd expect numbers like that in a prison.

This exact same stat was put forth in the main "Ferguson" thread, and shown to be meaningless then to most of the same folks parroting it yet again now.

What is odd is that the same people leaping to parrot these meaningless stats as "evidence" of racism are the first to completely discount similar types of stats when they seem to work against their pet theory.

Actually, there is a lot of talk about the initial reports of the DoJ report, which more than likely looked over more than that single statistic allegedly being parroted.

 

[ronburgundy]

Where am I leaping at the DOJ? I am pointing out that the main stat being offered in the media reports and most here as smoking gun evidence of widespread racism is meaningless and uninterpretable without factoring the many well established covariates with race that are also well known to impact (and should impact) the probability of a search. This exact same stat was put forth in the main "Ferguson" thread, and shown to be meaningless then to most of the same folks parroting it yet again now.

What is odd is that the same people leaping to parrot these meaningless stats as "evidence" of racism are the first to completely discount similar types of stats when they seem to work against their pet theory.

What is truly odd is the perception that the DOJ used one and only one measure when it came to its conclusion.

I didn't say the DOJ did. Several people (and the linked OP article) touted this stat as clear evidence of racism. Without it (and similarly meaningless correlations like dog biting), the only real evidence of racism is the emails, which is only evidence of racist attitudes for those officers and not at all for a system wide singling out blacks for search and arrest.
I replied to a person who presented it and it alone as definitive, with no way to account for it other than racism. IT is nothing. It isn't even "part" of the evidence". It isn't evidence at all. It is a correlation that is just as easily predicted by a universe where the searchers are not racist as by one where they are racist. To be "evidence" for a conclusion, the fact has to be more explicable and predictable if you hold everything else in the world constant and just presume that the claim is true versus not true. This fails that basic definition of "evidence".
In fact, equal search rates would be much stronger evidence of racism, of anti-white racism. Putting aside racism. every other relevant fact predicts higher search rates for blacks. Thus, a failure to observe that would require a strong force going against every other causal factor. Higher rates for blacks is similarly predicted by all the relevant factors, thus does increase the relative probability of any of them.

 

[ronburgundy]

Where am I leaping at the DOJ? I am pointing out that the main stat being offered in the media reports and most here as smoking gun evidence of widespread racism is meaningless and uninterpretable without factoring the many well established covariates with race that are also well known to impact (and should impact) the probability of a search.

How in the world can you write (I spelled it write this time... oh damn it!) off 16,000 of 21,000 with outstanding arrest warrants? You'd expect numbers like that in a prison.

Please clarify what and whom each of those numbers refer. Also, keep in mind that blacks have 2-5 times the national arrest and conviction rates for most crimes, and evidence from victimization reports confirm that these largely reflect actual differences in engaging in criminal acts, not just being more likely to be caught. So, whatever your warrants stats refer to, you need to show that it is not in line with what is expected from national stats on criminality.

This exact same stat was put forth in the main "Ferguson" thread, and shown to be meaningless then to most of the same folks parroting it yet again now.

What is odd is that the same people leaping to parrot these meaningless stats as "evidence" of racism are the first to completely discount similar types of stats when they seem to work against their pet theory.

Actually, there is a lot of talk about the initial reports of the DoJ report, which more than likely looked over more than that single statistic allegedly being parroted.

My comments have been directed at the frequent referenced to search and arrest disparities as in themselves evidence of racism. They are not. The emails and other evidence of actual racism, do make those statistical disparities any more interpretable as racism, because they remain just what is predicted whether or not the searching cops were racist.

IF you take a shower every single day, then on the day that your neighbor gets killed, is the fact that you took a shower evidence that you killed him? No.
IF I find blood on your clothes, that is evidence. However, even then, is that same shower you took now evidence that you killed him? No.
You would have taken a shower whether or not you killed him, and the added fact of the knife has no impact on that probability.
Uninterpretable correlations with countless confounds do not magically become evidence for a specific causal claim, just because unrelated facts support that cause. The correlation remains uninterpretable until some of those alternative factors can be ruled out.
So far, I haven't seen any evidence addressing those confounds, namely are blacks without warrants or records more likely to be searched than whites without warrants or records?
The DOJ has that data and unless they are pathetically incompetent know that such results are far better evidence of racism than what is being reported. Can you or anyone touting this report as valid evidence show me where they did that very simple analysis, controlling for prior record and warrants?
IF they don't include that analyses, then either they are so intellectually incompetent that the whole report is toilet paper, or they are deliberately suppressing those analyses because they do not support the narrative they wanted to tell. I wouldn't know whether to bet on gross incompetence or corruption with the DOJ, but it would have to be at least one of those.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Have you read the report?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

You drive on expired tags. You have a busted headlight or tail light. You jaywalk. You roll slow through a stop sign. Any of these things and more will get you a ticket. You don't have money to pay the ticket (or depending on the ticket possible increased insurance because if you pay that's an admission of guilt and that's points on your license) so that leaves you with a court date. If for any of a hundred reasons you miss your court date, now you have a failure to appear. This can lead to a warrant, and the beginnings of a record.

this of course doesn't even address that old standby, "you fit the description" which can lead to heated words, an attempt to arrest, an attempt to resist and boom, another innocent man goes to jail or the morgue.

Now, according to ronburgundy, you are no longer a citizen with a right to be left alone. You have a warrant so the police get to stop you, harass you, arrest you, jail you and, quite possibly shoot you.

When you have a system that disproportionately generates warrants and records for a particular population, you can't then turn around and say that said warrants and record are right and righteous reasons to harass, arrest and kill members of said population. You can't fix the deck than blame the player for losing.

 

[lpetrich]

Have you read the report?

ronburgundy gives me the impression of having set the bar of proof impossibly high.

 

[laughing dog]

What is truly odd is the perception that the DOJ used one and only one measure when it came to its conclusion.

I didn't say the DOJ did. Several people (and the linked OP article) touted this stat as clear evidence of racism. Without it (and similarly meaningless correlations like dog biting), the only real evidence of racism is the emails, which is only evidence of racist attitudes for those officers and not at all for a system wide singling out blacks for search and arrest.
I replied to a person who presented it and it alone as definitive, with no way to account for it other than racism. IT is nothing. It isn't even "part" of the evidence". It isn't evidence at all. It is a correlation that is just as easily predicted by a universe where the searchers are not racist as by one where they are racist. To be "evidence" for a conclusion, the fact has to be more explicable and predictable if you hold everything else in the world constant and just presume that the claim is true versus not true. This fails that basic definition of "evidence".
In fact, equal search rates would be much stronger evidence of racism, of anti-white racism. Putting aside racism. every other relevant fact predicts higher search rates for blacks. Thus, a failure to observe that would require a strong force going against every other causal factor. Higher rates for blacks is similarly predicted by all the relevant factors, thus does increase the relative probability of any of them.

let's make this simple. do you agree with the doj conclusion that the justice system in ferguson is racist?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

ronburgundy, what would you consider acceptable evidence that black people are being singled out? Yes, acceptable evidence. I repeat again, acceptable evidence.

It's rather clear that Ferguson cops and officials had targeted black people in a big way, and that they repeatedly let their friends off the hook for things that they would eagerly charge black people with committing, like traffic violations.

This defending of targeting of black people means that white people can get away with crimes that are supposedly intolerable when black people commit them. Think about that.

Not only that, but many of the black people cited in the report committed no actual crime before being arrested.

You realize that if you ignore a traffic ticket the next time you interact with the police they're going to haul you off to jail? This happens no matter what your race.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What is truly odd is the perception that the DOJ used one and only one measure when it came to its conclusion.

I didn't say the DOJ did. Several people (and the linked OP article) touted this stat as clear evidence of racism. Without it (and similarly meaningless correlations like dog biting), the only real evidence of racism is the emails, which is only evidence of racist attitudes for those officers and not at all for a system wide singling out blacks for search and arrest.

And it would be very surprising indeed to find a department of that size without at least a few racists in it. Thus finding a few proves nothing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You drive on expired tags. You have a busted headlight or tail light. You jaywalk. You roll slow through a stop sign. Any of these things and more will get you a ticket. You don't have money to pay the ticket (or depending on the ticket possible increased insurance because if you pay that's an admission of guilt and that's points on your license) so that leaves you with a court date. If for any of a hundred reasons you miss your court date, now you have a failure to appear. This can lead to a warrant, and the beginnings of a record.

I disagree--if you behave decently in the traffic stop the light is likely to only get you a warning and that might even be informal. (Now, if you're stopped again for the same light that's another matter.) I've been stopped twice over the years about lights, the officer told me about the light, found out I wasn't aware of it and would fix it promptly, that was that. Not even a written warning.

The rest of it, though--you're correct. That gets your next encounter with the law a trip to jail. If you can't afford a ticket either drive properly or don't drive in the first place.

I don't have a problem with such people getting arrested. Being poor isn't an excuse for being a criminal.

 

[Underseer]

This thread just floors me.

The "small government" conservolibertarians harp endlessly about how the government is the enemy and we have to reduce its size in order to keep them from oppressing us, so what do they do when we find evidence that the government has been systematically screwing over a huge portion of the population?

Make excuses for them, of course.

 

[bleubird]

They want small government for the "right"people.

 

[RavenSky]

I don't have a problem with such people getting arrested. Being poor isn't an excuse for being a criminal.

This attitude - coming from you - shouldn't still shock me, but it does.

Per the DoJ report, Ferguson is CREATING "criminals" - issuing many, mostly bogus, tickets within the same stop; and structuring the system in a way to essentially force the poor to be unable to pay off the bogus tickets.

 

[RavenSky]

Here Ferguson police not only CREATED a "criminal", they created a poor jobless person:

For example, in the summer of 2012, a 32-year-old African-American man sat in his car cooling off after playing basketball in a Ferguson public park. An officer pulled up behind the man’s car, blocking him in, and demanded the man’s Social Security number and identification. Without any cause, the officer accused the man of being a pedophile, referring to the presence of children in the park, and ordered the man out of his car for a pat-down, although the officer had no reason to believe the man was armed. The officer also asked to search the man’s car. The man objected, citing his constitutional rights. In response, the officer arrested the man, reportedly at gunpoint, charging him with eight violations of Ferguson’s municipal code…because of these charges, he lost his job as a contractor with the federal government that he had held for years.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/20...rt-blasts-racism-in-ferguson-law-enforcement/

 

[AthenaAwakened]

You drive on expired tags. You have a busted headlight or tail light. You jaywalk. You roll slow through a stop sign. Any of these things and more will get you a ticket. You don't have money to pay the ticket (or depending on the ticket possible increased insurance because if you pay that's an admission of guilt and that's points on your license) so that leaves you with a court date. If for any of a hundred reasons you miss your court date, now you have a failure to appear. This can lead to a warrant, and the beginnings of a record.

I disagree--if you behave decently in the traffic stop the light is likely to only get you a warning and that might even be informal. (Now, if you're stopped again for the same light that's another matter.) I've been stopped twice over the years about lights, the officer told me about the light, found out I wasn't aware of it and would fix it promptly, that was that. Not even a written warning.

The rest of it, though--you're correct. That gets your next encounter with the law a trip to jail. If you can't afford a ticket either drive properly or don't drive in the first place.

I don't have a problem with such people getting arrested. Being poor isn't an excuse for being a criminal.

if you are gonna quote me, quote the whole damn thing.

Because if you don't, I will.

What Loren left out and what shoots down his whole lets beat up on people raant

When you have a system that disproportionately generates warrants and records for a particular population, you can't then turn around and say that said warrants and record are right and righteous reasons to harass, arrest and kill members of said population. You can't fix the deck than blame the player for losing.

Now about you and your being stopped at a light. What does that have to do with the cops stopping black people in Ferguson? Were you black and in Ferguson when you were stopped?


That is what I thought.

 

[RavenSky]

So Loren is fine with debtors prison... I hope he will be consistent and demand that this "criminal" be jailed immediately:

The judge in Ferguson, Missouri, who is accused of fixing traffic tickets for himself and colleagues while inflicting a punishing regime of fines and fees on the city’s residents, also owes more than $170,000 in unpaid taxes.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/...d-poor-residents-owes-170000-in-unpaid-taxes/

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't have a problem with such people getting arrested. Being poor isn't an excuse for being a criminal.

This attitude - coming from you - shouldn't still shock me, but it does.

Per the DoJ report, Ferguson is CREATING "criminals" - issuing many, mostly bogus, tickets within the same stop; and structuring the system in a way to essentially force the poor to be unable to pay off the bogus tickets.

The DOJ is interested in proving discrimination rather than a hunt for the truth.

It's normal for a cop to write as many tickets as they can for the situation, even when they know they aren't going to hold up. (I've gotten insurance and registration tickets when the paperwork wasn't in the glove compartment for some reason--the cop knew things were actually current.) It's not singling out poor people.


It also doesn't surprise me that you don't care about crimes committed by those you support. You've taken the same attitude in multiple threads.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I disagree--if you behave decently in the traffic stop the light is likely to only get you a warning and that might even be informal. (Now, if you're stopped again for the same light that's another matter.) I've been stopped twice over the years about lights, the officer told me about the light, found out I wasn't aware of it and would fix it promptly, that was that. Not even a written warning.

The rest of it, though--you're correct. That gets your next encounter with the law a trip to jail. If you can't afford a ticket either drive properly or don't drive in the first place.

I don't have a problem with such people getting arrested. Being poor isn't an excuse for being a criminal.

if you are gonna quote me, quote the whole damn thing.

Because if you don't, I will.

What Loren left out and what shoots down his whole lets beat up on people raant

When you have a system that disproportionately generates warrants and records for a particular population, you can't then turn around and say that said warrants and record are right and righteous reasons to harass, arrest and kill members of said population. You can't fix the deck than blame the player for losing.

Now about you and your being stopped at a light. What does that have to do with the cops stopping black people in Ferguson? Were you black and in Ferguson when you were stopped?


That is what I thought.

And once again you are using a disparate result as proof of discrimination.

- - - Updated - - -

So Loren is fine with debtors prison... I hope he will be consistent and demand that this "criminal" be jailed immediately:

The judge in Ferguson, Missouri, who is accused of fixing traffic tickets for himself and colleagues while inflicting a punishing regime of fines and fees on the city’s residents, also owes more than $170,000 in unpaid taxes.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/...d-poor-residents-owes-170000-in-unpaid-taxes/

"Debtors prison" is normally a result of ignoring court notices. You don't go to jail for owing money.

 

[Mumbles]

What amazes me isn't so much the racism (I could have told you that last August - and probably did), it's the sheer incompetence. Warrants that just vanish, speeding tickets with no speeds filled in, detainment and violence records that vary from sparse to nonexistent, a woman who is told that they'll send her a court date, schedule the date, fail to notify her in anyway, and then cancel her license when she misses the date, people who are turned away repeatedly when they show up to pay fines and tickets, a Municipal court that lacks any transparency, and on and on. They'e apparently not even good at the robberies they're supposed to be doing.

 

[Horatio Parker]

It's the callousness of local govt that's the worst thing to me.

We're short of money to run the city? No problem, we'll use the cops to take it from black people, they're trash anyway. Ain't life grand?