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* From the New Yorker…
African-Americans represent sixty per cent of Baltimore residents old enough to drive legally but eighty-two per cent of those who are stopped by police. In Ferguson, where African-Americans are sixty-seven per cent of the populace, they represent eighty-five per cent of automotive and pedestrian stops. In Chicago, which has roughly equal black, white, and Hispanic populations, blacks and Hispanics are four times more likely to be stopped by police.
The facile response is to see this as a product of the disproportionate number of violent crimes committed by African-Americans. But the number of times that blacks are stopped does not hold up to any examination. In Baltimore, whites who were stopped were twice as likely as blacks to be carrying contraband. In Chicago, police found contraband on white drivers twice as often as on black or Hispanic drivers. In Ferguson, blacks were twenty-six per cent less likely than whites to be carrying illegal or controlled substances. The reasons are straightforward: police tended to stop whites based on some particular indicator of illegal behavior, whereas for people of color the simple fact of their appearance could be cause for a police encounter. For whites, suspicion is an opt-in circumstance. For blacks, it’s nearly impossible to opt out.
* Meanwhile…
Alexes Harris is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Washington and the author of “A Pound of Flesh.” Published in June, the book analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal-justice system. Harris argues that jurisdictions have increasingly relied on levying fines for minor infractions—broken tail-lights, vagrancy, traffic violations—as a way to generate municipal revenue. For instance, a Department of Justice investigation revealed that, in 2013, police in Ferguson, Missouri, issued arrest warrants for nine thousand people, almost all for municipal-code violations such as failing to pay a fine or missing court appearances. Doing so allowed the city to collect $2.4 million in fines and fees, the second highest source of income for the city, behind taxes. […]
Harris says that economic forces have created one of the underlying tensions of modern-day policing: impoverished communities have become deeply distrustful of police, in part because they have come to expect an interaction with an officer to result in some sort of monetary punishment. “When you know that you’re constantly being surveilled for fines and fees, and you’re constantly going to be stopped, police are not going to be seen as legitimate anymore,” Harris says. “So it increases the tension between police and communities of color.” […]
At the core of the issue is a criminal-justice system that has exploded in size in the past two and a half decades. From 1993 to 2012, annual criminal-justice expenditures rose seventy-four per cent, from $157 billion to $273 billion, according to Council of Economic Advisers. But the report noted that, rather than raise taxes to cover the costs, “state and local governments . . . have increasingly turned to monetary sanctions as a source of additional revenue.” The burden of payment now falls on offenders, and on the poorest of the poor. In a report published in 2010 by the Brennan Center for Justice, researchers analyzed criminal-justice debt in the fifteen states with the highest prison populations, and reported that eighty to ninety per cent of those charged with criminal offenses “qualify for indigent defense.” As a result, some people can never pay the fines. Another eye-opening study, commissioned by the University of Alabama at Birmingham and published in 2014, interviewed nine hundred and forty-three people who were under supervision for a felony. They were asked if they had ever committed a crime specifically to pay off court fines. Statewide, seventeen per cent of the respondents said they had committed a crime—mostly selling drugs—to pay off fines. In counties where the question was asked by an independent interviewer, rather than a probation or corrections officer, the percentage was even higher: In Marshall County, Alabama, forty-three per cent of the respondents admitted to committing crimes to pay off official debts. […]
“If police interactions with people are limited to situations where someone’s safety is at risk, there’s going to be X number of confrontations,” Karakatsanis said. “But if you multiply that to giving the police this whole other duty of finding people who owe debt and have the police interact with everyone who owes money, you’re astronomically increasing the number of police-civilian interactions. Even if the percentage of those interactions that are violent stays the same, you’re going to see a lot more violence.”
Thoughts?
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:07 am
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Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:22 am
Let’s just make cigarettes illegal for young adult minorities to possess to give law enforcement yet another reason to “interact” with them, that should help. /snark
Comment by Jeff Trigg Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:24 am
Why are more blacks stopped than whites in the first place? Why did the New Yorker jump from stops to assumptions of violent crimes? How about stops due to much more benign causes (seatbelt)?
What does havin’ or not havin’ contraband have to do with the original stop?
Comment by Dr X Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:25 am
I think the more relevant point is this: “The NPD has engaged in a pattern or practice of effecting stops and arrests in violation of the Fourth Amendment.”
Since the 1970’s, the 4th has been whittled down to the quick. Warrant? What’s that?
Probable cause? Well just about antyhin’.
Comment by Dr X Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:29 am
There was a study that is now quite dated that suggested that black motorists were stopped more often because they were exceeding the posted speed limits. As a correlation, many of the motorists were subjected to vehicle searches that were incidental to their being ticketed.
Ferguson, Missouri does have the reputation of being a speed trap where the municipal police write lots of tickets.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:31 am
DOJ reports on police departments/bias are an exercise in junk statistics. Comparing a population makeup to stops or contacts is statistically meaningless without mentioning differing rates of crimes committed by different groups. Violent crimes are more heavily concentrated in heavily minority communities so police activity is rightly going to be concentrated there. The vast majority of minority residents want cops there to protect them from the violence. Truly, the DOJ conclusions of bias wouldn’t pass a high school statistics class.
Comment by Contra Man Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:31 am
“What does havin’ or not havin’ contraband have to do with the original stop?” If I read that right, that’s the whole point. If the only reason for a stop were one that would lead the office to believe the driver has contraband, then ratio of the number of stops to the number of citations for contraband would be the same for everybody (a different metric than just the sheer number of traffic stops.) What they found (and this answers the question I had) was the ratio for blacks was significantly lower (meaning more stops for blacks with no contraband) than that for whites.
Comment by Skeptic Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:36 am
“The reasons are straightforward: police tended to stop whites based on some particular indicator of illegal behavior, whereas for people of color the simple fact of their appearance could be cause for a police encounter.”
To me this is the thing nobody gets. Good article.
Comment by m Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:39 am
What % of crime is committed by race in Baltimore? Cops do investigative stops. If they don’t there not doing there job. You can’t present on stat without the other.
Comment by Just Fred Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:45 am
Chicago has 2.7 Million People: 32 % African Americans
Stop and Frisk in Chicago in 2013: 700,000: 72% African American
Traffic Stops in Chicago in 2013: 100,000: 46% African American
Marijuana Arrests in 2013: 16,000: 80% African American
Comment by Biker Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:56 am
Well let’s see crime is higher in African American areas of all those cities, which results in more police officers being assigned to those neighborhoods which results I more stops in those areas. Perhaps if crime weren’t occurring in those areas thier would be less police and police stops.
Comment by John Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 10:59 am
May people are given the option of community service in place of a fine or jail. Unfortunately some choose not to do the community service and we are back to the fine or jail time. There has to be some punishment involved.
Comment by Joed beard Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:01 am
Biker.
In Chicago African Americans are 32% of population yer 79% of murder victim and offenders. Stats can be used to make many points.
Lowering commited crime in a certain population would probably lower police interactions.
Police interactions in certain communities are higher because the amount of police assigned to those areas is higher. Also should be noted elected officials are screaming for more police in these high crime African American areas which will further scew the stats. Their are more police assigned Englewood on a given night than most counties in Illinois.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:10 am
How come none of these discussions include the fact that, most of the time, communities DEMAND police presence in areas that have a history of criminal activity. These areas are disproportionately minority areas. Simple math would dictate that, regardless of population, police will obviously make stops in the areas they are most often operating in, which, in most cases is going weight the stops more heavily toward those parts of communities.
Is there profiling going on? Undoubtedly. But if we want to be honest about this, lets not leave out some of the most obvious reasons more minorities are stopped than whites because it doesn’t fit our hypothesis.
Comment by LessAnon? Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:11 am
The 2015 SB1304 Body Cam bill requires police who make investigative stops on citizens in vehicles and on foot to document the stops for accountability. One statistic not being collected in Illinois is whether or not the citizen being stopped holds a concealed carry license. Look at that stat and I’ll bet that most searches and stops on licensed armed citizens are being made on blacks in Chicago and Cook County.
Rep. Will Davis brought up profiling of blacks in the floor debate with Brandon Phelps concealed carry bill in 2013. Phelps claimed “It hasn’t been a problem in other states.” Since Philando Castile was killed by police in Minnesota trying to comply with the Duty to Inform, and since every violation of the concealed carry act is criminal, CCL data should be reported for all police-citizen interactions.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:20 am
It’s pretty clear that some commenters are reading the headline and not the stories.
Read the stories.
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:21 am
Community service instead of fines would be a better way of handling minor law violations. Remember if this happens that taxes will need to be raised because many municipalities rely on those fine monies to operate. Elected officials who will be the first to throw the police under the bus are also the ones who initiated this problem by pushing higher and higher fines to balance budgets instead of facing voters and saying higher taxes are needed.
Comment by John Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:21 am
$115 Billion in monetary sanctions to support the almost doubling of police cost increases from 1993 is the elephant in the room. Unless you’ve been stopped and frisked, or pulled over more than 10 times, or god forbid had a serious charge like a DUI you really have no idea the many fees and ongoing craziness involved, like parole officers that charge $50 a visit to berate you and threaten false arrest.
There is so much wrong with the justice system when people think its justifiable that African Americans should be arrested more often for possession because they live in a neighborhood that has more murders.
Comment by Biker Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:49 am
This “study” is absolute crap.
The relevant question is ****where**** in the jurisdiction that the stops occurred.
More blacks are stopped because a greater proportion of blacks live in/near high-crime areas within their respective cities.
A greater proportion of whites who were stopped have contraband because 1) they were stopped in the aforementioned high-crime areas and 2) getting contraband is why they went to those areas in the first place.
This is evidence only of good police work, not racism.
Comment by gopower Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:58 am
The WAPO did a piece a couple years ago about using criminal justice for revenue in St. Louis. Fascinatin’ read.
It mainly came down to two things
1. Too many local governments ( a lot of it caused by racial zonin’ decades agao) in St. Louis County.
2. Less local aid from the state.
But how many studies or protests focus on that? Those systemic causes have to be changed before the criminal justice part changes. Just telling cops to “quit ticketin’ improper lane changed” ain’t goin’ to change it.
Another big problem, was the breakdown in impartial legal representation. Judges in one area were prosecutors in another.
Justice does have a color, and its roots are more deep than a police stop.
Comment by Dr X Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 12:15 pm
Just another tax on the poor and middle class.
Comment by Blue dog dem Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 1:07 pm
===But how many studies or protests focus on that?===
When protests occur or civil society breaks down into a riot or something along those lines, the folks responsible for governing are really the ones that should be advancing long term solutions.
I’m not sure it’s really productive to expect folks that are responding to being over policed, or more accurately, constantly having their rights infringed upon, to also propose the details of the policy solution.
The data available demonstrates a strong racial bias in how our police carry out the law. I don’t know why any protester or rioter should have to make any other demand than “stop it” and have the government come up with a better means to carry out the law.
The problem may simply be that our leadership is deaf to their complaints or refuse to acknowledge the problem.
Comment by Anon Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 1:23 pm
Rich you merry band must not have much to do to read all this stuff that they can’t change.
Comment by scott aster Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 3:38 pm
scott aster,
Readers here may have more input to policymakers than you think.
To the post.
The raw numbers are misleading. Multivariate analysis that identifies location and crime rates by location might help,but the data may not be collected in a way that permits good analysis.
Revenue should be incidental to the police process. Red light cameras are useful but have also been misused as revenue generators. Would like to compare red light tickets racial mix to police issued traffic tickets.
Comment by Last Bull Moose Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 4:58 pm
The article states that between 1993 and 2012 criminal justice expenditures rose 74 percent. Since no mention is made of any adjustment for inflation, this is presumably in nominal terms. Well, over the exact same time period, nominal GDP rose 135%. Therefore, one can infer that as a percent of the economy, we are spending less now than we were back then, which contradicts one of the main themes of the article - namely, that high spending is pressuring cities to be more aggressive in collecting fines to increase revenues.
Comment by Andy S. Monday, Aug 15, 16 @ 11:11 pm