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FROM WSJ: Good Policing Saves Black Lives LiterateDog Send a noteboard - 04/06/2020 05:14:02 PM

How do you root out bad cops without changing the behavior of good cops?
That’s a question explored in a forthcoming academic paper on policing the police by Harvard economist Roland Fryer and co-author Tanaya Devi. Given the current nationwide protests and mob violence ignited by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, it’s a subject on the minds of many.

In 2016 Mr. Fryer released a study of racial differences in police use of deadly force. To the surprise of the author, as well as many in the media and on the left who take racist law enforcement as a given, he found no evidence of bias in police shootings. His conclusions have been echoed by researchers at the University of Maryland and Michigan State University, who in a paper released last year wrote: “We didn’t find evidence for anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and, if anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.”

Mr. Fryer said in an interview that the new paper is an extension of his earlier research. Although it seemed clear to him that racial disparities in police shootings stemmed primarily from racial disparities in criminal behavior, police departments continued to be investigated, and he suspected these investigations weren’t having the intended effect. In fact, he noticed what he suspected was a pattern that warranted further study. After surveying more than two dozen federal and state probes of police departments across the country, the pattern became clear. When police were investigated following incidents of deadly force that had gone viral, police activity declined and violent crime spiked. It happened in Ferguson, Mo., after Michael Brown was shot by an officer. It happened in Chicago after a cop gunned down Laquan McDonald. And it occurred in Baltimore after Freddie Gray died in police custody.

Mr. Fryer stressed that it isn’t the investigations themselves that are the problem so much as the circumstances under which they are launched. Investigations that weren’t prompted by well-publicized events resulted in little change in police behavior and violent crime. “But when I look at cities in which the investigation was preceded by a viral event,” he said, “homicide goes up considerably. Total crime goes up considerably.” What happens, he said, is that police effectively pull back. They don’t stop doing their jobs, but they become less proactive and curb their interactions with civilians.

In Chicago, there was a 90% drop in police-civilian contacts immediately after the announcement of an investigation, and “Baltimore literally went to zero” after a probe was announced there, he said. In cities where these contacts fell the most, homicides increased the most. Sadly, the decision to launch departmentwide state and federal inquiries into the deaths of Brown, McDonald and Gray resulted in numerous additional deaths. Mr. Fryer said that because of changes in police behavior following investigations in these and other cities, “my estimates show that we lost a thousand more lives, most of them black as well, because of an increase in homicides.” The protesters and their political allies insist that policing is the problem, but when police pull back, black communities are hit hardest.

“This is not to say that police departments shouldn’t be investigated,” Mr. Fryer added. “But to quote [former Mayor] Rahm Emanuel in Chicago, ‘investigations have to be done with police, not to police.’ ” One alternative is to target individual officers for wrongdoing rather than putting entire departments under a cloud. Federal officials also could be more patient in letting local investigations run their course before Washington gets involved. Mr. Fryer hopes his results will “encourage introspection on the trade-offs involved when we increase scrutiny on police departments.” At the moment there’s a lot more venting and posturing than introspection.

Protesters have decided to vilify the police. Rioters have decided to take advantage of the protests. And the media have expressed little interest in putting this tragedy in context. The activists tell us that what happened to George Floyd is commonplace and racially motivated, but the empirical evidence points in the opposite direction. Camera phones and social media may give fatal encounters between cops and black suspects more attention, but anecdotes are no substitute for hard data.
And now we know how scapegoating law enforcement can backfire in ways that do the most harm to our most vulnerable communities. “I never would have guessed that if police stopped putting in the effort, that homicides would change like this,” said Mr. Fryer. “You hear some people say ‘Oh, we want to police our own neighborhoods, get out.’ No, you don’t want that. I guess I always knew it was a foolish idea, but I didn’t realize it was this deadly.”

"I'll blow whomever I want, whenever I want, as long as I can still breathe and kneel."
-Samantha Jones, SatC
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Soooo, it turns out that George Floyd had drugs in his system - 04/06/2020 02:02:47 PM 1084 Views
Why let facts cloud your emotions when you want to steal shit? - 04/06/2020 03:45:24 PM 319 Views
Facts that don't fit a narrative are ignored. - 04/06/2020 05:12:44 PM 282 Views
FROM WSJ: Good Policing Saves Black Lives - 04/06/2020 05:14:02 PM 255 Views
White leftists/liberals and "Passover Syndrome" - 04/06/2020 05:16:15 PM 257 Views
I worry about the desired end state sought by those promoting the narrative. - 05/06/2020 02:31:39 PM 268 Views
I'd be curious to see how other models work. Granted, I want them tested in someone else's town. *NM* - 05/06/2020 04:28:31 PM 166 Views
Bingo *NM* - 05/06/2020 05:31:26 PM 156 Views
Mookie how do you feel now after the May 30th tire incident, that the cops admitted they did today? - 08/06/2020 11:59:42 PM 250 Views
Whatever the rationale, defunding the police is a bad idea. Even Bernie agreed with that. *NM* - 12/06/2020 03:27:29 PM 143 Views
Are you disagreeing with the branding, or the actual ask? - 12/06/2020 04:32:36 PM 223 Views
Second - 12/06/2020 05:42:05 PM 228 Views
It depends on who's asking. - 12/06/2020 06:55:34 PM 224 Views
LA schools police will return grenade launchers but keep rifles, armored vehicles - 12/06/2020 07:11:36 PM 300 Views
Wow. What an absolutely insane sentence. *NM* - 12/06/2020 07:13:42 PM 146 Views
A six year old news article? Is it even still relevant? *NM* - 12/06/2020 08:39:44 PM 139 Views
It is extremely relevant - 12/06/2020 09:09:33 PM 217 Views
That's bizarre. You position changes based on who you're talking to? - 12/06/2020 07:12:47 PM 227 Views
yes because some have an agenda I can't accept. - 12/06/2020 08:36:15 PM 278 Views
So you are Anti-Anti- ... isn't that exhausting *NM* - 12/06/2020 08:39:35 PM 146 Views
No, I would be Uncle-Uncle *NM* - 12/06/2020 08:40:56 PM 152 Views
Sounds like one of those damned forsaken Time Loops. - 12/06/2020 09:12:27 PM 225 Views
Did you see this? It's brilliant - 08/06/2020 02:07:30 AM 329 Views
I did indeed. - 09/06/2020 08:50:04 AM 256 Views
I've read Joe's post on FB and the study it referred to. - 04/06/2020 07:29:12 PM 268 Views
Some of what you write is reasonable. - 04/06/2020 07:52:14 PM 294 Views
The drug war has caused a lot of collateral damage, yeah. - 04/06/2020 09:37:43 PM 239 Views
“Structural racism” is a bullshit term - 05/06/2020 04:00:09 AM 300 Views
Maybe the term isn't right - 05/06/2020 05:41:59 AM 266 Views
More bullshit! - 05/06/2020 11:14:49 PM 243 Views
and another point - 06/06/2020 03:37:45 AM 246 Views
A modest proposal *NM* - 05/06/2020 07:14:50 AM 148 Views
0.1% should be unarmed blacks *NM* - 05/06/2020 11:16:12 PM 165 Views
Your definition of racial prejudice is not the same as racism - 12/06/2020 02:49:04 PM 228 Views
And the hair splitting award goes to... - 12/06/2020 04:26:29 PM 219 Views
Also, COVID-19 - 04/06/2020 08:05:47 PM 263 Views
I hate to agree with Roland, but... - 05/06/2020 02:01:56 AM 264 Views
Exactly. There is no reason to have a knee on his neck for 8 minutes. *NM* - 05/06/2020 04:15:58 PM 133 Views
Who said otherwise? That actually shows the VIRTUES of the system. - 05/06/2020 06:46:10 PM 272 Views
Wait so that is your complaint? SERIOUSLY? - 05/06/2020 11:10:04 PM 230 Views
Re: Wait so that is your complaint? SERIOUSLY? - 17/06/2020 09:23:38 PM 364 Views
Daniel Shaver had a BAC 3 times the legal limit. - 05/06/2020 03:38:27 AM 238 Views
Never gonna happen - 05/06/2020 07:13:57 PM 257 Views
Re: Soooo, it turns out that George Floyd had drugs in his system - 05/06/2020 04:45:41 PM 260 Views
??? - 05/06/2020 05:23:34 PM 227 Views
My question is not why George Floyd said he can't breathe... - 05/06/2020 05:44:47 PM 265 Views
Oh, he asserted it - 05/06/2020 06:03:06 PM 253 Views
Ever watch Cops or Live PD or any police reality show? - 05/06/2020 05:35:38 PM 232 Views
Posting something a literal Karen made. - 06/06/2020 01:50:54 AM 315 Views
A Karen is a moron - 09/06/2020 06:42:11 PM 236 Views
It doesn't matter a whole lot - 06/06/2020 08:36:10 AM 261 Views

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