I wanted to pass this along. At least according to the Centers for Disease Control, the rate at which black people are being killed by police has declined substantially over the last half century. From the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice:
In the late 1960s, nearly 100 young black men under age 25 were killed by law enforcement every year. Even as the black youth and young adult population doubled over the last 40 years, police shootings of young black men fell to around 35 per year in the 2000s, a rate decline of 79 percent. While younger African Americans were the victims in 1 in 4 killings by police in the 1968-74 period and 1 in 7 in 1975-84, today, that proportion is 1 in 10.
Similarly, police killings of African Americans 25 and older have declined by 61 percent since the late 1960s. Still, the rates for younger African Americans remain 4.5 times higher, and for older African Americans 1.7 times higher, than for other races and ages.
You might wonder what has transpired since 2011. The rate at which black people have been killed by police has continued to decline. Some of the decrease might be due to the “Ferguson effect”.
Clearly, there is still room for improvement including in communication. I have already presented some ideas for improvement. “Defunding the police” might make a good slogan but that will also result in more black people dying at the hands of other black people. Since 2011 Baltimore, St. Louis, Chicago, and other cities with substantial black populations have seen increasing homicide rates, mostly young black men.
Let’s hope that the events of the last weeks will impel positive change. As the graph at the top of the page shows, little has changed over the last 30 years but as the graph also makes clear, there simply isn’t room for the dramatic improvement between the late 60s and the 80s. Frankly, I doubt that will be enough to satisfy the demonstrators.
“defunding the police”
Disclaimer, I’m for law and order and I respect Bill Barr, but this article really got my attention re:
Number of available unmarked federal troops, number of agencies with armed forces, etc.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/05/protests-washington-dc-federal-agents-law-enforcement-302551
As this shows, police do kill black people more often. Racism? And again, this looks only at killing. Someone should explain why being beaten a lot more often is not a problem and only killings matter.
Steve
As one might suspect a number of studies have hit the internet, government and academia in origin. Some do simple rates. Some attempt to control for variables such as rural vs urban, incidence of crime etc. (All the controls are laudable attempts, but probably suspect in precision.). If you take a look at them the overwhelming conclusion is that the image or narratives portrayed in the press or by politicians and the race grievance industry is largely a lie. Rates of killings or other physical abuse converge. Black cops rough up white people etc. That shouldn’t be surprising. The common denominator is simple: if you commit crimes and resist arrest you are headed for trouble. Otherwise these things are very rare events. In the case of black deaths time and effort would be far better spent where the real available improvements are: Black on Black.
The conclusions shouldn’t be hard to understand. Pols, and race hustlers don’t really give a damn. They do, however, cynically care about money and power. As for the true believers, mostly virtue signalers and the naive.
No thinking person could seriously believe that defunding the police is a serious proposal. You might surmise that it would be a darling of those seeking chaos. Speaking of which, this Ellison character upping the charges to murder II is odd. Raising the ante on getting a conviction is a rather reckless move.
I definitely believe that racism is a factor. Differences in culture, particularly as it affects communication, and lack of understanding are also factors. Gangs are factors.
But the point of this post is that a lot has changed. Killings (whether murder or justifiable homicide) have become much less common. There should continue to be improvements but they will necessarily be fractional rather than dramatic.
If you are suspected of having committed a crime and resist arrest you are headed for trouble and that is true of both blacks and whites. Are young black men more likely to be suspected of having committed a crime? I think so. So there is actually more than one message. Don’t resist arrest. Police culture needs to change to think less in terms of two categories of people: police and suspects.
Racism is everywhere, and runs in multiple directions. It does not follow that police killings do as well. I’m suspect of the precision of some of these studies, but they indicate a far, far smaller disparity and, as you point out, are dominated by changes over time. I’m not suspect of the motives of politicians and the race industry.
Are young black men more suspected of committing a crime? You bet. It would be irrational not to. I also expect that people believed Michael Jordan was more likely to make the last shot of the game than was Will Perdue.
Most studies actually show a discrepancy in the way and frequency of police using violence against blacks, but there is a lot of literature suggesting there is no difference. That is why you always need to look at the raw numbers, like with this study. Then you need to look at the methods in those studies to find out how they achieve their results.
But even before that you should remember that police are not required to report the violence they commit, so most dont. The only reason we have some idea about how many people police kill is because some news organizations decided to track it. If you compare what reports we do get vs surveys of civilians you get huge differences with civilians reporting much higher rates of abuse.
Why haven’t things changed since 1990? Remember the 1992 NYC police riots? I didnt, but CATO has a nice article on it.
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/rudys-racist-rants-nypd-history-lesson
I suspect that the attitudes present in 1992 just have not changed. Any serious attempts to change police gets met with resistance. They rioted in 1992, but now they just stop enforcing the law. Of course they do this too if they dont get as much money as they want in a new contract. So I doubt that there are many racists in our police forces, but the ones that are there have had cover and protection.
“If you are suspected of having committed a crime and resist arrest you are headed for trouble and that is true of both blacks and whites.”
Even when you dont resist arrest the police sometimes use force to send a message. When you are really just a suspect, and they suspected wrong, it really pisses people off. That is why minority kids have to know the rules. Even if you are innocent, if the police decide to shove you around a bit dont push back or even talk back.
Steve
As noted in the post, the CDC is tracking it.
I think that’s right. That’s why I list police unions as among the impediments to reform.
What is being lost in the calls to “defund the police” or the statements of grievance is that less enforcement will hurt black people the most. What is needed is better enforcement not less. But less enforcement is a lot easier to implement as well as being less risky to those doing the enforcement.
Another serious impediment is the lack of trust between police officers and black communities. There would be enormous benefits in increasing that trust. That’s why the “community policing” strategy has been promoted. I also think that police officers living in the communities they serve would help.
Am J Prev Med. 2016 November ; 51(5 Suppl 3): S173–S187. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2016.08.027.
The CDC also has issues collecting data. It is pretty well recognized that both their initial system and the FBI methods under report LE killings. The only way the CDC can try to come up with accurate numbers is by collecting data from multiple sources including death certificates. Still, I think the important point here is that we arent getting our data from the police. At best I think we can say that the police just dont care. At worst, they are trying to hide stuff.
Steve
What will happen is we will weaken police forces until crime reaches 1970’s levels then voters will demand we get tough and elect leaders who will.
Trump’s not wrong, just out of sync.
From Quillette, circa 1968:
The effect of violent protests, however, seemed to have the opposite effect. Indeed, Wasow believes that violent protests caused a shift among whites toward Republicans large enough to tip the 1968 presidential election to Richard Nixon, as scenes of violent protest shifted news coverage, elite discourse, and public opinion toward the theme of social control. “Members of Congress were deluged with ‘torrents of constituent mail’ in favor the 1968 Safe Streets bill,†Wasow writes, quoting the research of Yale professor Vesla Weaver. “Even liberal Democrats ‘felt compelled by public anxiety over crime and riots to vote for the bill.’ Polling data from August 1968 finds 81% of respondents agreed with the statement ‘Law and order has broken down in this country.’â€