Even other cops get racially profiled by the NYPD

[Arisia]

Are these folks pro-police for supporting the white cops whatever they say or do, or anti-police for basically saying black cops are lying?

I am pro-police, well let me qualify that, I am pro-good, honest police. I can't see how anyone would want the bad apples in law enforcement to stay in law enforcement, that's not good for anybody; it's certainly not good for the good, honest police who serve and protect us with honor every day.

 

[Ammonitida]

Are these folks pro-police for supporting the white cops whatever they say or do, or anti-police for basically saying black cops are lying?

I am pro-police, well let me qualify that, I am pro-good, honest police. I can't see how anyone would want the bad apples in law enforcement to stay in law enforcement, that's not good for anybody; it's certainly not good for the good, honest police who serve and protect us with honor every day.

No one is saying the cops are lying.

 

[Arisia]

No one is saying the cops are lying.

D.R. certainly seems to think they are at least very much mistaken and seeing racial profiling that isn't there, and D.R. seems to imply that since they're black their claims of profiling shouldn't be taken seriously even if they're cops... I'd call that very similar to saying the cops are lying about their off-duty experiences as black men.

 

[newyorkguy]

<snip> I find it interesting that you do not believe that there is racial profiling by the police when members of the police themselves see this as occurring.

Police who say there IS profiling are lying and police who deny it happens are being honest. As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say, "Is that pretty much it?"

However, since I think police leaders pretty much concede it happens I'm going to accept that it does.

But based on my experience on message boards, people will defend a position to the bitter end. That's not going to change. If someone posted a link to a group of white police officers who admitted, "We are guilty of racial profiling, based on our own bias," some posters would respond:

I'm sorry I don't believe them.

 

[luchog]

What evidence is there that they were racially profiled? I'm not seeing any.

How about police departments admitting to racial profiling?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95406
http://www.portlandcopwatch.org/PPR22/RacialProfiling22.HTML
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/26/nyregion/policing-the-police-on-racial-profiling.html
http://www.policeone.com/news/47030-Two-Troopers-Admit-Profiling-and-Cover-Up-of-Shooting/
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/12/n...y-police-withheld-data-on-race-profiling.html

And even when they don't admit it, the evidence is overwhelming.

http://www.tourolaw.edu/JournalRGE/...f Racial Profiling in Seattle, Washington.pdf (Newspaper article cited in the study: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20000614&slug=4026674.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/poste...cops-are-exploiting-our-weak-laws-against-it/
http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-racial-profiling-happens-in-ferguson/378606/
http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/raceprof.pdf

And, of course, some departments are actively resisting reform to their profiling and use of force policies.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/reform-in-reverse/Content?oid=19281433

Interesting comment from an article on the problem that spawned this thread: "Nearly 90 percent of blacks stopped by the NYPD, for example, are found not to be engaged in any crime."

Fortunately, at least in a few areas, this situation is improving.

http://www.lapdonline.org/assets/pdf/Harvard-LAPD Study.pdf

 

[luchog]

That sounds much more like one's looking for soldiers not policemen.

The source was the memoirs of a former FBI agent. And yes, law enforcement personnel do tend to have strong similarities to career military, and there is a considerably crossover between them.

 

[Giordano]

Obviously, I think that police, like all human professions, are composed of a wide assortment of different individuals. I would be surprised if that assortment does not include some individuals with traits that are inappropriate for the police. The existence of these negative traits, if they exist, needs to be identified and proper training instituted to minimize any impact of these traits on proper law enforcement. These traits can be very human in origin: fear for one's own safety, greed or a tendency to anger when attacked verbally for example. But understandable though many of these traits are, we demand a lot of our police and we need to try to suppress by training and rules the traits that are not desirable on the job. We have, in fact, been successful already in many ways. But if a person cannot be appropriately trained ("a bad apple") they are not appropriate for the police.

There appears to be an unspoken tendency by some posters to assume that the police must be viewed as perfect, and if one sees them otherwise one must hate or not respect the police. I respect the police enormously, I do not hate them in any way, and I recognize that I demand of them many things that I could not consistently live up to myself. But I also demand high standards for medical doctors and airline pilots. If an individual cannot live up to those standards, then they should find another job.

 

[luchog]

No, it's supposed to back up eeyore1954's anecdote that there is racial profiling beyond what happens to black people.*

*Not disputing that the treatment after being pulled over can vary immensely depending on race.

As noted elsewhere, racial profiling does not apply only to black people. There's documentation of hispanics being racially profiled as well. Even white people get profiled if they're considered to be in the "wrong" part of town (eg, any white person in a "black" part of town gets profiled as looking for drugs).

 

[luchog]

Of course, this could lead to a relatively pointless discussion as to just what, exactly, a "fancy" car is. The point is, mathematics and percentages guarantee that more whites are being swept up in traffic enforcement actions than blacks are, in their relatively tiny pockets of the country. The difference is, they don't cry racism when it happens.

Only if you are looking at absolute numbers, which is ridiculously misleading in this context, to the point of being laughably ignorant at best, and more often simply disingenuous evasion of the issue. You have to look at the rates (percentage of population), not absolute numbers. Of course more white people are going to get pulled over in absolute terms, because there are more white people. That's why black, hispanic, middle eastern, asian, etc. are known as minorities.

Using the statistics I linked to in another post, there are places where black people consist of less than 20% of the total population; but result in roughly 80% of total traffic stops. That is a wildly skewed rate, and strongly indicative of racial profiling, since that indicates that black people are stopped several orders of magnitude more frequently than whites. Rates for hispanics are not quite that dramatic, but generally show a disproportionately high rate of stops as well.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

Can anyone provide evidence and/or an argument that racial profiling is not an appropriate and logical thing for police to do?

Cops tend to pay greater attention to males than females and greater attention to the young than the old.

Biological specifics about citizens when they are things like age, sex, able-bodiedness, whether the person weighs 160lbs or 650lbs, etc. all seem to be acknowledged as perfectly legitimate things for officers to factor into their formula for how much scrutiny to give someone, whether they're seeking a particular suspect or just keeping an eye out in a high crime area.

Keep in mind, those biological specifics are mostly things (other than weight perhaps) which the individuals have no control over. Yet, we don't insist cops stop profiling males as more likely to be burglars and females as more likely to be prostitutes. We don't insist they start considering granny just as likely a prospect for a drug dealer as her grandson.

Why is race a sacred biological distinction people have no control over which must not be factored in?

Please don't say because it cannot have any implications for crime, because it obviously can. Crime rates vary enormously by race, and wouldn't you know it... the race with the most outrageously high crime rate (blacks) are the ones getting profiled the most. It's almost as though there's a reaction by cops to that reality... hmm.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Can anyone provide evidence and/or an argument that racial profiling is not an appropriate and logical thing for police to do?

Cops tend to pay greater attention to males than females and greater attention to the young than the old.

Biological specifics about citizens when they are things like age, sex, able-bodiedness, whether the person weighs 160lbs or 650lbs, etc. all seem to be acknowledged as perfectly legitimate things for officers to factor into their formula for how much scrutiny to give someone, whether they're seeking a particular suspect or just keeping an eye out in a high crime area.

Keep in mind, those biological specifics are mostly things (other than weight perhaps) which the individuals have no control over. Yet, we don't insist cops stop profiling males as more likely to be burglars and females as more likely to be prostitutes. We don't insist they start considering granny just as likely a prospect for a drug dealer as her grandson.

Why is race a sacred biological distinction people have no control over which must not be factored in?

Please don't say because it cannot have any implications for crime, because it obviously can. Crime rates vary enormously by race, and wouldn't you know it... the race with the most outrageously high crime rate (blacks) are the ones getting profiled the most. It's almost as though there's a reaction by cops to that reality... hmm.

Yes. That is another can of worms. When profiling takes place (I never said it didn't ever take place, just that often people think they're being profiled when they're not), it generally involves profiling people who, in the specific context and environment in which the profiling is taking place, are most likely to be involved in criminal activity. It's not done out of racism, it's done out of practicality and because it helps fight crime.

I've been stopped and searched and harassed in Inglewood at 2 in the morning because I'm white, and could therefore have "no reason" to be there except for some nefarious purpose. When they couldn't pin anything on me, the cops told me, "We don't know who you are, or what the hell you're doing here, but you need to bounce".

Was it profiling and harassment? Yes. Was it likely to result in discovery of criminal activity? Well, not in my case, but statistically? Yeah, probably.

Blacks are more likely to commit murder and robbery by astronomical numbers, so why wouldn't we want the cops to profile them?

 

[newyorkguy]

I lived in East Harlem in New York City, largely Puerto Rican, for a while in the 1980s. I got a great deal on a rent-controlled apartment through a co-worker. A nice building on a pretty decent block. I used to hear whites in the neighborhood complain about being stopped by police, "They always think I'm buying drugs." Only the people who used to complain about that WERE there to buy drugs. I didn't buy drugs; I lived there. I don't ever remember getting stopped by the police. Could they somehow tell who's who? Apparently they often can.

There are police departments that are actively trying to get their officers to treat blacks with a decent amount of respect. Oakland CA is one. They believe that some cops are implicitly biased rather than explicitly biased. That the down side of this is it creates conflict. On a PBS newscast they interviewed young black men in Oakland who said they feel less safe when they see police. That when police stop them the cops are often rude, surly and overly-aggressive. Even the police commanders concede that kind of treatment is going to cause problems. Same thing in a police department in Michigan where officers began to wonder, "Why are so many young black men hostile and suspicious towards us?" One white officer said, "I realized I had worked in this neighborhood for several years but I knew almost nothing about it."

White cops I know are usually kind of defensive about the idea of police profiling blacks. But I'm surprised how concerned some of them are with what they see as an increasing 'militarization' of the police. In New York under Commissioner Ray Kelly in the 1990s the police embraced the concept of community policing. The police as a part of the community. As problem solvers. Some cops say since 9/11 the police department has moved away from that. Another thing I have heard cops say, which surprised me, there is a huge corrections industry in the United States and it has a lot of political influence. They think in some ways the police are pushed to make lots of arrests in order to supply the corrections industry -- not just prisons, but courts, halfway houses, social service agencies -- stocked with clients.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Using the statistics I linked to in another post, there are places where black people consist of less than 20% of the total population; but result in roughly 80% of total traffic stops. That is a wildly skewed rate, and strongly indicative of racial profiling, since that indicates that black people are stopped several orders of magnitude more frequently than whites. Rates for hispanics are not quite that dramatic, but generally show a disproportionately high rate of stops as well.

Yes, because these groups of people are responsible for far more crime. Why wouldn't they be stopped more frequently? Why wouldn't they be profiled as more likely to be involved in something nefarious?

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Police who say there IS profiling are lying and police who deny it happens are being honest. As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say, "Is that pretty much it?"

However, since I think police leaders pretty much concede it happens I'm going to accept that it does.

But based on my experience on message boards, people will defend a position to the bitter end. That's not going to change. If someone posted a link to a group of white police officers who admitted, "We are guilty of racial profiling, based on our own bias," some posters would respond:

No, I am not denying that racial profiling exists, but I am saying that people frequently believe they are being racially profiled when they aren't, and that if they are going to claim that they are, there should be some sort of evidence.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

I lived in East Harlem in New York City, largely Puerto Rican, for a while in the 1980s. I got a great deal on a rent-controlled apartment through a co-worker. A nice building on a pretty decent block. I used to hear whites in the neighborhood complain about being stopped by police, "They always think I'm buying drugs." Only the people who used to complain about that WERE there to buy drugs. I didn't buy drugs; I lived there. I don't ever remember getting stopped by the police. Could they somehow tell who's who? Apparently they often can.

There are police departments that are actively trying to get their officers to treat blacks with a decent amount of respect. Oakland CA is one. They believe that some cops are implicitly biased rather than explicitly biased. That the down side of this is it creates conflict. On a PBS newscast they interviewed young black men in Oakland who said they feel less safe when they see police. That when police stop them the cops are often rude, surly and overly-aggressive. Even the police commanders concede that kind of treatment is going to cause problems. Same thing in a police department in Michigan where officers began to wonder, "Why are so many young black men hostile and suspicious towards us?" One white officer said, "I realized I had worked in this neighborhood for several years but I knew almost nothing about it."

White cops I know are usually kind of defensive about the idea of police profiling blacks. But I'm surprised how concerned some of them are with what they see as an increasing 'militarization' of the police. In New York under Commissioner Ray Kelly in the 1990s the police embraced the concept of community policing. The police as a part of the community. As problem solvers. Some cops say since 9/11 the police department has moved away from that. Another thing I have heard cops say, which surprised me, there is a huge corrections industry in the United States and it has a lot of political influence. They think in some ways the police are pushed to make lots of arrests in order to supply the corrections industry -- not just prisons, but courts, halfway houses, social service agencies -- stocked with clients.

I certainly do not disagree with you that there are some serious problems with the way policing is being done, in certain areas. There are many disturbing things going on.

 

[Doghouse Reilly]

Certainly in parts of the US, say Ferguson Missouri, blacks do seem to be stopped disproportionately more often - contraband is found more ferquently when whites are stopped, but blacks are more likely to be arrested as a result of a search, which suggests that something is tilting the playing field.

Not really. If the whites that go into Ferguson mainly do so to obtain contraband, it makes sense that contraband would be found more often than when blacks are searched. But of course blacks would be stopped disproportionately...they make up more of the population in that area and are still responsible for most of the crime overall, in that area, and would therefore be the main group targeted.

 

[wareyin]

Yes, because these groups of people are responsible for far more crime. Why wouldn't they be stopped more frequently? Why wouldn't they be profiled as more likely to be involved in something nefarious?

Are you claiming that black people are more likely to commit traffic violations? These are traffic stops, after all. Do you have any evidence for this claim, if indeed that is what you are claiming?

 

[jimbob]

Not really. If the whites that go into Ferguson mainly do so to obtain contraband, it makes sense that contraband would be found more often than when blacks are searched. But of course blacks would be stopped disproportionately...they make up more of the population in that area and are still responsible for most of the crime overall, in that area, and would therefore be the main group targeted.

You seem to be having it both ways. In that case you'd expect whites to be stopped more often relative to their populations if they were more likely to be buying drugs.

The populations are taken into account. Blacks are stopped about 1.4 times as frequently as you'd expect from their population, whilst whites are stopped about half as often.

 

[jimbob]

I lived in East Harlem in New York City, largely Puerto Rican, for a while in the 1980s. I got a great deal on a rent-controlled apartment through a co-worker. A nice building on a pretty decent block. I used to hear whites in the neighborhood complain about being stopped by police, "They always think I'm buying drugs." Only the people who used to complain about that WERE there to buy drugs. I didn't buy drugs; I lived there. I don't ever remember getting stopped by the police. Could they somehow tell who's who? Apparently they often can.

There are police departments that are actively trying to get their officers to treat blacks with a decent amount of respect. Oakland CA is one. They believe that some cops are implicitly biased rather than explicitly biased. That the down side of this is it creates conflict. On a PBS newscast they interviewed young black men in Oakland who said they feel less safe when they see police. That when police stop them the cops are often rude, surly and overly-aggressive. Even the police commanders concede that kind of treatment is going to cause problems. Same thing in a police department in Michigan where officers began to wonder, "Why are so many young black men hostile and suspicious towards us?" One white officer said, "I realized I had worked in this neighborhood for several years but I knew almost nothing about it."

White cops I know are usually kind of defensive about the idea of police profiling blacks. But I'm surprised how concerned some of them are with what they see as an increasing 'militarization' of the police. In New York under Commissioner Ray Kelly in the 1990s the police embraced the concept of community policing. The police as a part of the community. As problem solvers. Some cops say since 9/11 the police department has moved away from that. Another thing I have heard cops say, which surprised me, there is a huge corrections industry in the United States and it has a lot of political influence. They think in some ways the police are pushed to make lots of arrests in order to supply the corrections industry -- not just prisons, but courts, halfway houses, social service agencies -- stocked with clients.

I think that the highlighted bit is key. In the UK, the McPherson report also found institutional racism which is subtly different.

 

[wareyin]

You seem to be having it both ways. In that case you'd expect whites to be stopped more often relative to their populations if they were more likely to be buying drugs.

The populations are taken into account. Blacks are stopped about 1.4 times as frequently as you'd expect from their population, whilst whites are stopped about half as often.

I wonder how different the crime numbers would be if whites were stopped at the same proportion as blacks, and further if whites were arrested at the same rate as blacks when contraband was found per jimbob's claim in post #40.