We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

This paper explores racial differences in police use of force. On non-lethal uses of force, blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police. Adding controls that account for important context and civilian behavior reduces, but cannot fully explain, these disparities. On the most extreme use of force – officer-involved shootings – we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account. We argue that the patterns in the data are consistent with a model in which police officers are utility maximizers, a fraction of which have a preference for discrimination, who incur relatively high expected costs of officer-involved shootings.

Roland G. Fryer, Jr

The National Bureau of Economic Research.

H/T, Commentary. 

16 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Greg

    While readers here may appreciate the analytic and factual nature of Mr. Fryer’s work (though few of us have the time to read all the scholarly work on the subject and get opposing or at least alternative views from other experts), I doubt the Black Lives Matters activists and sympathizers care about such things because IT IS JUST TRUE that cops are racist, every one of them, and each to the point of wanting to shoot blacks indiscriminately.

    Oh, and most importantly, add to “activists and sympathizers” above most western politicians.

    There will probably be a subpoena issued soon for Mr. Fryer so that he can “get his mind right”.

  • Johnathan Pearce (London)

    Greg, at this stage the key task is to reach out to the great mass of the population who aren’t enamoured either of BLM or some on the other side, but whose votes and opinions will be important in framing things such as how policing is conducted, etc. And the fact that a heavyweight piece of research, written by the sort of people who tend to have Respectable Opinions, has come to this conclusion, is important. I deliberately chose the paragraph for a SQOTD because of its scholarly tone – it is the tone itself which I think makes the point.

  • The problem is that the police are brutal and there is a double standard, but thank to BLM the Received Wisdom is that we’re only allowed to talk about it in terms of race. This results more or less in TEAM BLUE stoking race-hatred to try to keep the blacks on their side, while TEAM RED gets to stick their heads in the sand about the real double standards and say, “Blacks commit more crime, therefore any black person shot by police must have deserved it! Yum yum I want to keep sucking cop dick!”

    (OK, sorry for the last bit of obscenity, but the extent to which so many people who complain about the size of government in so many other areas love them some police.)

    I try to post examples that have little or nothing to do with race, such as the case of Tiffanie Hupp. Note that the cop implies it’s standard training to shoot dogs:

    According to Photography Is Not a Crime (PINAC), Cook “testified that he was not afraid of the dog, but was following training that required him to kill all dogs that approach him, even if it was chained and wagging its tail as Buddy was doing in this case.”

    They also seem to love taking people’s cellphones, obviously because they don’t want any video evidence contradicting their story to come to light.

    There’s another case of a cop in California who recently was sentenced to a year in prison for bribery and perjury. (Amazingly, a cop was actually convicted!) He was kept out of the general prison population for obvious reasons, and then told the judge that being so alone was depressing, and couldn’t I just serve the rest of my sentence under house arrest? The judge agreed. Could you imagine a judge doing that for any non-cop?

  • Gregory Kong

    Well, power corrupts. And absolute power… ah, you know the rest of it.

    The problem is that in order to have a secure and safe (and stable) civil society, you either need a policing force, or you need a massive number of high-information, high-involvement citizens. Of the two, I’d much prefer the latter. I have to say, though, it seems to me that a whole lot of people prefer the former. Probably because it’s less work and effort.

  • Ted Schuerzinger (July 12, 2016 at 7:22 pm): “… the extent to which so many people who complain about the size of government in so many other areas love them some police….”

    There’s nothing necessarily irrational in that. Whereas the BLM protestors avoid comparative thinking – and in this resemble the left generally – people who say the government is too large may have thought about what size it should be. If they don’t go all the way to anarchism, some governmental functions will be seen as basic: both just cause for a government to exist and necessary duties for any government to go on existing. They will critique those functions with an awareness that “abolish it all” is not the solution, and that it’s a trade-off; if you think being subject to police is bad, but the alternative is worse, you will simultaneously want rational oversight to weed out abuse – because you know it will happen – and you will not expect perfection, or any very close approach to it.

    When politics is expressed as instinct, which for many is the case, then “police good, activists bad” will confront “BLM good, police bad”. The former is much more right at this time.

    The end-take from Ted’s comment might be that comprehensive defeat of the BLM narrative is a necessary, though not sufficient, precondition for more effective police oversight.

  • Alisa

    Niall:

    If they don’t go all the way to anarchism, some governmental functions will be seen as basic: both just cause for a government to exist and necessary duties for any government to go on existing.

    Indeed – but for me at least, the various policing organizations as they exist today (in the US, as a useful example of various forms and functions) are not one of them.

    if you think being subject to police is bad, but the alternative is worse

    I would really like to think that (and I know many policemen make a genuine effort towards that end), but I’m afraid that my experience, and the experience of other law-abiding citizens I know of who had contacts with police, tell me that not to be the case. To go on generalizing based on anecdotal evidence, my impression is that although police are not normally abusive, they are normally useless. If that is indeed the case, then I see no good reason to tolerate occasional (but not too rare) abuse, in pursuit occasional (and rare) usefulness. I could be wrong.

    Gregory Kong, that is true with regard to any other societal function taken over by governments, leading to thinking along the lines of: “It is there and we have no say in it anyway, so we might as well use it”. How truly useful It is (whatever It is – police, roads, welfare), is a different matter (see above).

  • Alisa

    Oh, and screw BLM regardless of police or of anything else.

  • Gregory Kong

    Alisa: Indeed, I have often ruminated on the notion that whatever the government provides, let it be the provider of last resort. Regrettably, due to all sorts of factors, too many of my fellow citizens believe that the government should be the provider of first resort.

  • Alisa

    Yes, but the important thing to remember is that it is because they literally do not know any different. It takes a lot of study or imagination (or both?) to even begin to believe that the government does not have to be the provider of first resort (or even a provider at all).

  • Paul Marks

    The “contextual circumstances” are the higher violent crime rate of “minorities”. As Jesse Jackson, in a rare moment of honesty, said “when I hear footsteps behind me and I turn round it see it is a white guy – I feel relief”.

    According to the media and the education system what “minorities” have to fear is police officers.

    In reality the vast majority of black people who are killed are killed by other black people – black criminals, not black police officers (and there are very many black police officers in local police forces – including some police forces that have come under media attack).

    “Black Lives Matter” has indeed managed to get local police forces to pull back in some towns and cities.

    And that has led to an INCREASE in the number of black people murdered in those towns and cities – when the murder rate had been in DECLINE for many years.

    That is the truth about “Black Lives Matter” – and President Barack Obama also.

    They say “Black Lives Matter” – but what they mean is “black lives do NOT matter – the cause is much more important….”.

    “Bottom up” – chaos on the streets (such as the looting and burning of Ferguson Missouri – which the media called “protests”).

    “Top Down” – Federal Government (such as “Justice” Department) take over of local police forces.

    And “inside out”.

    The “fundamental transformation of society”.

    And some libertarians fall right into the Progressive trap.

    They have learned nothing from the 1960s and the demented “left and right join hands”.

  • Paul Marks

    Private police forces.

    Fair enough – and they would be paid for by local business enterprises (who else would voluntarily pay?) and would treat criminal elements just the same as the local government police forces do – at least used to before “Justice” Department demands that they pull back.

    After all “reactive” policing (only acting after a crime has been committed) does not work – that style of policing led to thousands of deaths a year in New York City alone in the 1970s.

    One has to enforce-the-law – and that means getting on the streets “in the face” of the criminals, before they have the chance to murder people. The criminal elements (what Marxist Progressives call the “socially friendly” – due to their opposition to private property rights “capitalism”) must be made to fear the local police, or fear private security.

    And if the criminals sense weakness – they will loot, burn, rape and murder.

    Pull back (what the Progressive campaign demands) is a display of weakness.

    And Progressives, such as President Obama, know that.

    Indeed they know all of the above.

  • Alisa

    Paul:

    Private police forces.

    Fair enough –

    No one here suggested that (not that I object, mind you).

    One has to enforce-the-law

    What law? The laws against drugs? How much violent crime do think is out there not connected to illegal trade in drugs?

  • Thailover

    “…blacks and Hispanics are more than fifty percent more likely to experience some form of force in interactions with police.”

    As one should expect, since blacks make up about 12.6% of the US population but literally commit 50% of the murders. Black men compose 6.5% of the general population and commit 42% of all murders. These are 2011 stats, so it’s probably worse now, as shootings in Chicago and other hot-bed areas have grown worse in the past few years.

  • Thailover

    Greg wrote,
    “I doubt the Black Lives Matters activists and sympathizers care about such things”

    White cops killing black people in their custody hardly makes a blip on the numerical radar compared to the number of blacks killing blacks nationwide, or hell, even in Chicago on one summer weekend.
    (Chicago, mind you, has some of the most stringent gun laws in the nation).

    “Black lives” don’t really matter to Black Lives Matter or they would focus their energies where the problems really lie. What matters to Black Lives Matter is fomenting hatred and gaining political power to intimidate and frighten.

  • Thailover

    Ted wrote,

    “Blacks commit more crime, therefore any black person shot by police must have deserved it! Yum yum I want to keep sucking cop dick!”

    No, rather blacks commit considerably more crime than other races relative to their percentage of US society in general, and so we can expect somewhat similar ‘more’ interactions between police and said perpetrators. To conflate this with giving murdering police a free pass is to be disingenuous.
    The motives of BLM are as fake as the “motives” of 3rd wave feminists.

  • A study indicates that blacks commit at least 24% of relevant crime (at least because 7.8% was by unknown-race perpetrators) and are shot 26% of the time. The similarity of these two figures is a strong argument against any systemic race component in police shootings.

    Obviously, the two figures could coincide because a generally non-racist police force shot citizens too often or too seldom or about as often as they should.