(I split this out from the thread on Freddie Gray.)

IMHO, Everyone needs to understand a couple of things. (1) Ubiquitous cameras are going to be far more expensive than $500/cop or $500/van. You have to store the video (every station becomes a datacenter) and hire additional IT people to maintain them ... thus, you're talking about a couple of million dollars per police force, plus recurring costs. (2) A big part of the problem is that police forces are used as tax collection agencies, validated by the Justice department report on Ferguson, MO.

My 4th grader asked "what's a math concept that people need to understand better". My answer was "statistics", and I used it as a chance to explain one big finding from that report on Ferguson. Here is a thought experiment: 66% of the population of Ferguson is African American. 90% of traffic stops in Ferguson were done on African Americans. 1) How much more likely is an African American to be stopped by a policeman than a white (assuming the other 34% are white)? 2) How much more tax (by way of traffic fines) does the average African American pay to Ferguson PD than the average white? For bonus points, assume that fines-taxes are $250 (that's what my recent ticket cost, granting that it was allegedly in a school zone), but that you can reduce the fine-tax to $125 by taking defensive driving... what does that ratio become?

After all, 67% on the one hand is not that much different from 90%... a delta of 23%.

Department of Justice report on the Ferguson, Mo. Police Department - The Washington Post

http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documen...ment/1435/ Wrote:Data collected by the Ferguson Police Department from 2012 to 2014 shows that African Americans account for 85% of vehicle stops, 90% of citations, and 93% of arrests made by FPD officers, despite comprising only 67% of Ferguson’s population.

Highlight between the lines of the rest of this post to see my analysis (this probably won't work for mobile devices, but don't scroll down past here, and may only partially work for PCs).




















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Assume Ferguson has three people - two black, one white. (66% African American).

Assume 10 traffic stops... White guy gets stopped once, the other two combine for 9 stops. Either they get stopped 4.5 times the number of times as the white guy, or assume that the white guy and one black guy are middle class and each get stopped one time (the economic bias, but no racial bias scenario). Then, the poor guy is stopped 8 times as many times as the other two. That goes way beyond what you may expect from normal behavior... I can't imagine that over the population of a city, one class of driver is that much worse than the others around them.

Now for fines. In once scenario, the black guys both pay $1125 in fines to the white guy's $250. Accounting for defensive driving, the ratio is: $125:$1000, or 800%. In the other scenario, it's $125:$1875, or a highly regressive 15 times higher for the poor guy than the two middle class guys.

So, the racial bias in Ferguson is 4.5 times the traffic stops, and 8 times the tax burden from the PD.

The economic bias is 8 times the traffic stops and 15 times the tax burden.

The truth is somewhere between racial bias and economic bias, but those statistics paint a much more damning picture than a small time drug dealer with a broken neck in mysterious circumstances does.

The immediate conclusion is that the current system of putting pressure on police forces to raise funds for the city is extremely harmful to minorities and poor people. The second conclusion is that mandating body cameras everywhere will make that situation a lot worse (I doubt the purported benefits as well, aside from mass media crime porn... it will be a huge subsidy to cable news).

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No comments?

There is a reason why I"m a history teacher.

This is the part of the analysis that I had hidden above...

(04-30-2015 01:38 PM)I45owl Wrote:  Assume Ferguson has three people - two black, one white. (66% African American).

Assume 10 traffic stops... White guy gets stopped once, the other two combine for 9 stops. Either they get stopped 4.5 times the number of times as the white guy, or assume that the white guy and one black guy are middle class and each get stopped one time (the economic bias, but no racial bias scenario). Then, the poor guy is stopped 8 times as many times as the other two. That goes way beyond what you may expect from normal behavior... I can't imagine that over the population of a city, one class of driver is that much worse than the others around them.

Now for fines. In once scenario, the black guys both pay $1125 in fines to the white guy's $250. Accounting for defensive driving, the ratio is: $125:$1000, or 800%. In the other scenario, it's $125:$1875, or a highly regressive 15 times higher for the poor guy than the two middle class guys.

So, the racial bias in Ferguson is 4.5 times the traffic stops, and 8 times the tax burden from the PD.

The economic bias is 8 times the traffic stops and 15 times the tax burden.

The truth is somewhere between racial bias and economic bias, but those statistics paint a much more damning picture than a small time drug dealer with a broken neck in mysterious circumstances does.

The immediate conclusion is that the current system of putting pressure on police forces to raise funds for the city is extremely harmful to minorities and poor people. The second conclusion is that mandating body cameras everywhere will make that situation a lot worse (I doubt the purported benefits as well, aside from mass media crime porn... it will be a huge subsidy to cable news).

(05-01-2015 11:12 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  There is a reason why I"m a history teacher.

Ok. Relevant comments?

I think you make an excellent point. What if there was a federal mandate to give cops body cams and the feds pick up the bill? Would that work?

What you described above is the reason why the rhetoric about the Gray story is so disturbing. What happened to him is just the straw that broke the camel's back. People can't see passed the police brutality or the rioting to see the bigger problem here.

It's a catch 22. Cops patrol these poor areas because there is more crime and there is more crime because the cops are constantly patrolling the area.

(05-01-2015 11:19 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I think you make an excellent point. What if there was a federal mandate to give cops body cams and the feds pick up the bill? Would that work?

What you described above is the reason why the rhetoric about the Gray story is so disturbing. What happened to him is just the straw that broke the camel's back. People can't see passed the police brutality or the rioting to see the bigger problem here.

It's a catch 22. Cops patrol these poor areas because there is more crime and there is more crime because the cops are constantly patrolling the area.

Cops cause crime, got it.

(05-01-2015 11:24 AM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:19 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I think you make an excellent point. What if there was a federal mandate to give cops body cams and the feds pick up the bill? Would that work?

What you described above is the reason why the rhetoric about the Gray story is so disturbing. What happened to him is just the straw that broke the camel's back. People can't see passed the police brutality or the rioting to see the bigger problem here.

It's a catch 22. Cops patrol these poor areas because there is more crime and there is more crime because the cops are constantly patrolling the area.

Cops cause crime, got it.

A clear indication that you have not been paying attention to anything that has been going on all week.

(05-01-2015 11:19 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I think you make an excellent point. What if there was a federal mandate to give cops body cams and the feds pick up the bill? Would that work?

If an outside agency (federal, charity, etc.) bought the cameras and the locals had to pick up the bill, I submit it would be harmful in aggregate. If they pay for ongoing operating costs, then I could see some benefit, but also some potential negatives (police may choose not to do their jobs for fear of litigation or prosecution, police may justifiably kill someone, but the video could still spur riots where they would not have in the absence of video, etc).

(05-01-2015 11:19 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  What you described above is the reason why the rhetoric about the Gray story is so disturbing. What happened to him is just the straw that broke the camel's back. People can't see passed the police brutality or the rioting to see the bigger problem here.

It's a catch 22. Cops patrol these poor areas because there is more crime and there is more crime because the cops are constantly patrolling the area.

This is why I think Ferguson protesters should have stopped altogether for at least 2-3 days once their was rioting, rather than push the police into inaction, which enabled further rioting. Likewise Baltimore.

I agree with the catch 22. Broken windows policing is pretty much directly responsible for the Singleton death in NYC (fat guy selling singleton cigarettes). But, I've heard arguments that that very policy is massively beneficial to high crime areas. I don't know what the right policy decision is there.

(05-01-2015 11:25 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:24 AM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:19 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I think you make an excellent point. What if there was a federal mandate to give cops body cams and the feds pick up the bill? Would that work?

What you described above is the reason why the rhetoric about the Gray story is so disturbing. What happened to him is just the straw that broke the camel's back. People can't see passed the police brutality or the rioting to see the bigger problem here.

It's a catch 22. Cops patrol these poor areas because there is more crime and there is more crime because the cops are constantly patrolling the area.

Cops cause crime, got it.

A clear indication that you have not been paying attention to anything that has been going on all week.

I think that's all avoided if you just say there are more arrests (higher crime statistics) because of police presence.

But, you're free to carry on with that kind of dialog if it's therapeutic to you...

(05-01-2015 11:25 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:24 AM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:19 AM)Fitbud Wrote:  I think you make an excellent point. What if there was a federal mandate to give cops body cams and the feds pick up the bill? Would that work?

What you described above is the reason why the rhetoric about the Gray story is so disturbing. What happened to him is just the straw that broke the camel's back. People can't see passed the police brutality or the rioting to see the bigger problem here.

It's a catch 22. Cops patrol these poor areas because there is more crime and there is more crime because the cops are constantly patrolling the area.

Cops cause crime, got it.

A clear indication that you have not been paying attention to anything that has been going on all week.

So you are speaking towards police brutality then not overall crime, cause that is probably what happened with Freddy.

Cops causing crime is pretty funny to read.

So, what was the answer to the math problem?

(05-01-2015 11:49 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  So, what was the answer to the math problem?

here...

executive summary: blacks 450-800% as likely to receive a traffic citation. Burden for blacks due to cost of citations can be 800-1500%.

(05-01-2015 11:13 AM)I45owl Wrote:  This is the part of the analysis that I had hidden above...

(04-30-2015 01:38 PM)I45owl Wrote:  Assume Ferguson has three people - two black, one white. (66% African American).

Assume 10 traffic stops... White guy gets stopped once, the other two combine for 9 stops. Either they get stopped 4.5 times the number of times as the white guy, or assume that the white guy and one black guy are middle class and each get stopped one time (the economic bias, but no racial bias scenario). Then, the poor guy is stopped 8 times as many times as the other two. That goes way beyond what you may expect from normal behavior... I can't imagine that over the population of a city, one class of driver is that much worse than the others around them.

Now for fines. In once scenario, the black guys both pay $1125 in fines to the white guy's $250. Accounting for defensive driving, the ratio is: $125:$1000, or 800%. In the other scenario, it's $125:$1875, or a highly regressive 15 times higher for the poor guy than the two middle class guys.

So, the racial bias in Ferguson is 4.5 times the traffic stops, and 8 times the tax burden from the PD.

The economic bias is 8 times the traffic stops and 15 times the tax burden.

The truth is somewhere between racial bias and economic bias, but those statistics paint a much more damning picture than a small time drug dealer with a broken neck in mysterious circumstances does.

The immediate conclusion is that the current system of putting pressure on police forces to raise funds for the city is extremely harmful to minorities and poor people. The second conclusion is that mandating body cameras everywhere will make that situation a lot worse (I doubt the purported benefits as well, aside from mass media crime porn... it will be a huge subsidy to cable news).

(05-01-2015 11:59 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:49 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  So, what was the answer to the math problem?

here...

executive summary: blacks 450-800% as likely to receive a traffic citation. Burden for blacks due to cost of citations can be 800-1500%.

(05-01-2015 11:13 AM)I45owl Wrote:  This is the part of the analysis that I had hidden above...

(04-30-2015 01:38 PM)I45owl Wrote:  Assume Ferguson has three people - two black, one white. (66% African American).

Assume 10 traffic stops... White guy gets stopped once, the other two combine for 9 stops. Either they get stopped 4.5 times the number of times as the white guy, or assume that the white guy and one black guy are middle class and each get stopped one time (the economic bias, but no racial bias scenario). Then, the poor guy is stopped 8 times as many times as the other two. That goes way beyond what you may expect from normal behavior... I can't imagine that over the population of a city, one class of driver is that much worse than the others around them.

Now for fines. In once scenario, the black guys both pay $1125 in fines to the white guy's $250. Accounting for defensive driving, the ratio is: $125:$1000, or 800%. In the other scenario, it's $125:$1875, or a highly regressive 15 times higher for the poor guy than the two middle class guys.

So, the racial bias in Ferguson is 4.5 times the traffic stops, and 8 times the tax burden from the PD.

The economic bias is 8 times the traffic stops and 15 times the tax burden.

The truth is somewhere between racial bias and economic bias, but those statistics paint a much more damning picture than a small time drug dealer with a broken neck in mysterious circumstances does.

The immediate conclusion is that the current system of putting pressure on police forces to raise funds for the city is extremely harmful to minorities and poor people. The second conclusion is that mandating body cameras everywhere will make that situation a lot worse (I doubt the purported benefits as well, aside from mass media crime porn... it will be a huge subsidy to cable news).

When I skimmed the article this word stuck out.

There are a lot of non-trivial factors that need to be taken into account that will swing the bias both ways.

The population figure isn't the best, you need to know how many cars are owned by each race. You also need to know how long they spent behind the wheel in the jurisdiction (and on what type of road), perhaps one race is more likely to commute to somewhere else whereas the other is more likely to stay in Ferguson. Also rightly or wrongly the police are (probably, this is a guess) more likely to patrol black inhabited areas, therefore they will notice more infractions from black drivers.

That's not to say that the police in Ferguson or anywhere else aren't more likely to pull over and subsequently ticket a black driver, just that the figure of 4.5 is rather misleading.

(05-01-2015 12:01 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:59 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:49 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  So, what was the answer to the math problem?

here...

executive summary: blacks 450-800% as likely to receive a traffic citation. Burden for blacks due to cost of citations can be 800-1500%.

(05-01-2015 11:13 AM)I45owl Wrote:  This is the part of the analysis that I had hidden above...

(04-30-2015 01:38 PM)I45owl Wrote:  Assume Ferguson has three people - two black, one white. (66% African American).

Assume 10 traffic stops... White guy gets stopped once, the other two combine for 9 stops. Either they get stopped 4.5 times the number of times as the white guy, or assume that the white guy and one black guy are middle class and each get stopped one time (the economic bias, but no racial bias scenario). Then, the poor guy is stopped 8 times as many times as the other two. That goes way beyond what you may expect from normal behavior... I can't imagine that over the population of a city, one class of driver is that much worse than the others around them.

Now for fines. In once scenario, the black guys both pay $1125 in fines to the white guy's $250. Accounting for defensive driving, the ratio is: $125:$1000, or 800%. In the other scenario, it's $125:$1875, or a highly regressive 15 times higher for the poor guy than the two middle class guys.

So, the racial bias in Ferguson is 4.5 times the traffic stops, and 8 times the tax burden from the PD.

The economic bias is 8 times the traffic stops and 15 times the tax burden.

The truth is somewhere between racial bias and economic bias, but those statistics paint a much more damning picture than a small time drug dealer with a broken neck in mysterious circumstances does.

The immediate conclusion is that the current system of putting pressure on police forces to raise funds for the city is extremely harmful to minorities and poor people. The second conclusion is that mandating body cameras everywhere will make that situation a lot worse (I doubt the purported benefits as well, aside from mass media crime porn... it will be a huge subsidy to cable news).

When I skimmed the article this word stuck out.

So you aren't going to comment on I45Owl's conclusions?

(05-01-2015 12:02 PM)ODUgradstudent Wrote:  There are a lot of non-trivial factors that need to be taken into account that will swing the bias both ways.

The population figure isn't the best, you need to know how many cars are owned by each race. You also need to know how long they spent behind the wheel in the jurisdiction (and on what type of road),

I agree with your points... man-hours on the road by race would be helpful, but probably not easy to find. You'd probably want to collect that before committing to a multi-billion dollar program, but that's not how our politics work.

If the number were 1.25, I'd be inclined to say "holy crap, we've got a problem... we need to teach blacks how to drive better".

Since the number is 4.5, I'm inclined to say "holy crap, we've got a problem... we need to buy a ton of white gloves and Richard Nixon masks so that blacks can drive safely without being harassed".

There was someone that did some investigation into Ferguson Mo and the rampant ticketing system.

What I remember is that lets say you have a busted tail light and you have to drive through 5 towns/boros, it is possible to get 5 different tickets. Really messed up system.

Anyone recall seeing this video? I'm trying to find it.

(05-01-2015 12:04 PM)Fitbud Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 12:01 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:59 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 11:49 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  So, what was the answer to the math problem?

here...

executive summary: blacks 450-800% as likely to receive a traffic citation. Burden for blacks due to cost of citations can be 800-1500%.

(05-01-2015 11:13 AM)I45owl Wrote:  This is the part of the analysis that I had hidden above...

(04-30-2015 01:38 PM)I45owl Wrote:  Assume Ferguson has three people - two black, one white. (66% African American).

Assume 10 traffic stops... White guy gets stopped once, the other two combine for 9 stops. Either they get stopped 4.5 times the number of times as the white guy, or assume that the white guy and one black guy are middle class and each get stopped one time (the economic bias, but no racial bias scenario). Then, the poor guy is stopped 8 times as many times as the other two. That goes way beyond what you may expect from normal behavior... I can't imagine that over the population of a city, one class of driver is that much worse than the others around them.

Now for fines. In once scenario, the black guys both pay $1125 in fines to the white guy's $250. Accounting for defensive driving, the ratio is: $125:$1000, or 800%. In the other scenario, it's $125:$1875, or a highly regressive 15 times higher for the poor guy than the two middle class guys.

So, the racial bias in Ferguson is 4.5 times the traffic stops, and 8 times the tax burden from the PD.

The economic bias is 8 times the traffic stops and 15 times the tax burden.

The truth is somewhere between racial bias and economic bias, but those statistics paint a much more damning picture than a small time drug dealer with a broken neck in mysterious circumstances does.

The immediate conclusion is that the current system of putting pressure on police forces to raise funds for the city is extremely harmful to minorities and poor people. The second conclusion is that mandating body cameras everywhere will make that situation a lot worse (I doubt the purported benefits as well, aside from mass media crime porn... it will be a huge subsidy to cable news).

When I skimmed the article this word stuck out.

So you aren't going to comment on I45Owl's conclusions?

I don't have anything to add to them so no.

Why would I?

(05-01-2015 12:06 PM)I45owl Wrote:  

(05-01-2015 12:02 PM)ODUgradstudent Wrote:  There are a lot of non-trivial factors that need to be taken into account that will swing the bias both ways.

The population figure isn't the best, you need to know how many cars are owned by each race. You also need to know how long they spent behind the wheel in the jurisdiction (and on what type of road),

I agree with your points... man-hours on the road by race would be helpful, but probably not easy to find. You'd probably want to collect that before committing to a multi-billion dollar program, but that's not how our politics work.

If the number were 1.25, I'd be inclined to say "holy crap, we've got a problem... we need to teach blacks how to drive better".

Since the number is 4.5, I'm inclined to say "holy crap, we've got a problem... we need to buy a ton of white gloves and Richard Nixon masks so that blacks can drive safely without being harassed".

Certainly not disagreeing with the conclusion, just the figure.

I'm more of a reader than a poster in the Spin Room and your posts are some of the most informative on this issue.