quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:

If you want to stop racist traffic stops, you'll need to do something that actually works, not something that feeds your preconception but doesn't actually have any positive real-world effect.

I think you need to do what Camden did and what Minneapolis says they are going to do. Disband the entire corrupt enterprise and start over.

Not perfect but it seems to work.

A limited sample size, but it's got a better chance of success than banning turn signal stops.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Hey, you're the expert!

Those who employ faulty logic frequently try to claim expertise.

Here's a hint. If you're the one who feels the need to declare that you're an expert, you've already lost the point.

quote:

Originally posted by Horace:
I strongly welcome any attempt to gather more data about law enforcement racism. However I suspect those numbers will not be generated. This alternate method of proof of systemic racism, the one that involves viral anecdote culled from millions of arrests, is doing very well without the risk of numbers which might not align with it.

There's a nice analysis done by Stanford data geeks that is attempting to do more sophisticated analyses of a variety of police interactions. The one I linked to here is about consistent bias regarding searches following a traffic stop.

There are others if you go to the home page.

My purpose in posting this is really two-fold: first, I want to agree with everyone that analysing this type of data is inherently difficult, and goes beyond simply counting. Second, I think their methodology is pretty cool and I know there are some folks here who might enjoy reading about it.

Yeah, the folks at Stanford do good work in this area.

We have to guard against tunnel vision, though. You need to collect and analyze lots of police interactions.

But also have to do things with that information.

Like, if you find that officers are conducting a lot of pretext stops against people of color, what do you do?

One approach is to do what Quirt says, and scold individual officers. Trouble is, the reaction from the officer is to stop doing stops. Officers aren't supposed to enforce quotas, so options are limited. The officer also might just start stopping more white drivers to even things out, but that is just another form of racial profiling.

Or you can adopt systemic remedies to address what is a systemic problem. If your agency rewards writing ticky tack citations, that is why officers will do. There is not a lot of patience for trying to address racism one officer at a time. If you want systemic chance, you'll need a systemic remedy.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Yeah, the folks at Stanford do good work in this area.

We have to guard against tunnel vision, though. You need to collect and analyze lots of police interactions.

But also have to do things with that information.

Like, if you find that officers are conducting a lot of pretext stops against people of color, what do you do?

One approach is to do what Quirt says, and scold individual officers. Trouble is, the reaction from the officer is to stop doing stops. Officers aren't supposed to enforce quotas, so options are limited. The officer also might just start stopping more white drivers to even things out, but that is just another form of racial profiling.

Or you can adopt systemic remedies to address what is a systemic problem. If your agency rewards writing ticky tack citations, that is why officers will do. There is not a lot of patience for trying to address racism one officer at a time. If you want systemic chance, you'll need a systemic remedy.

Well, as I said already, you'd have to audit both the stops they made and the stops they didn't make.

Yes, it's a lot of work, but apparently getting rid of systemic racism is a lot of work. It isn't as easy as, no more stops for turn signal violations, boom!, we're done.

Personally, I have an appetite for us as a society doing the hard work. I hope everyone does.

quote:

Personally, I have an appetite for us as a society doing the hard work. I hope everyone does.

I don't think a damned thing is going to happen on that front without very strong, very positive leadership from the very top, and consistently on down.

http://well-temperedforum.grou...3954497?r=6453954497

You're right. The problem is baked into society as a whole, not just in law enforcement.

Further, given police departments' appetites for acquiring military equipment and grabbing anything they can through civil forfeiture, I'm thinking the desire and willingness to reform will stop at the local level in many areas.

Quirt,

When you figure out how to audit the stops an officer didnt make, please share your methodology.

Those of us in the police reform world could benefit from your insights.

And I never said prohibiting stops for turn signal violations is the only thing we could do. Instead, it is an example of how you can eliminate discretion if an agency as a whole is racial profiling. It is one step among many you can take to prevent it. Remember, by the time you gather enough data to do an audit or study to figure out which deputy is profiling, it is too late for the people who were already profiled.

And to blow your mind further . . . One way you figure out which officer is profiling is to compare an officer against his peers. Trouble is, if the whole department is racially profiling, no one sticks out. Then what?

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Quirt,

When you figure out how to audit the stops an officer didnt make, please share your methodology.

I'm going to start counting up all the times I answered a question before you read it, and you just didn't read the answer. It's already happened several times in this thread.

quote:

So, taking away their opportunity to stop someone for a turn signal violation may make you feel better, but it won't actually accomplish anything ... unless you do what I suggest, and audit their dash cams. (And not just for the stops, but for the instances in which they chose not to make a stop.)

quote:

Those of us in the police reform world could benefit from your insights.

If you're going to ask for ideas, snarkily or not, maybe some of you in police reform world could benefit from listening to what people actually say, and responding to that. It does tend to help to move the conversation forward, as opposed to, you know, asking a question that was already answered.

quote:

Remember, by the time you gather enough data to do an audit or study to figure out which deputy is profiling, it is too late for the people who were already profiled.

I'd like to hope you've heard of the concept of deterrence before.

Can’t wait to see that methodology for auditing stops an officer didn’t make. Go on. I’m listening.

Bonus question: please explain how you will determine the race of the drivers an officer didn’t stop.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Can’t wait to see that methodology for auditing stops an officer didn’t make. Go on. I’m listening.

Bonus question: please explain how you will determine the race of the drivers an officer didn’t stop.

I think we're up to four times that you failed to read what I wrote, and then asked the very question that I'd already answered.

I said, the time intensive process of auditing the dash cam, to see what the officer saw. If you see someone violating the law that the officer doesn't choose to stop, you ask why.

And as for their race ... the same way the officer either knew or didn't know. Again (so I guess this makes five times), presuming you have decent enough camera technology so that you can see what the officer saw.

quote:

True, you won't always know the race of the person they are stopping, but hopefully you'll see what the cop saw, and, if it's hard for you to know, it's hard for them to know, too.

Being forced to repeat everything because you didn't read it the first time and then snarkily ask the question that's already been addressed ... well, that behavior is impolite.

OK, I see.

Your methodology involves magic technology that doesn't exist.

As a starting point, dash cams are falling out of favor because they capture such a limited amount of information -- just what is in front of the stationary camera. Most agencies choose body cameras, and a body camera usually does not capture anything until the officer gets out of the car because it is chest-mounted.

I know you're not all that familiar with this subject, but there is no dashcam or other technology available to police agencies that will allow them to discern the race of a driver while the driver's vehicle is moving. Nor can any technology "see what the officer sees;" just because a dashcam saw a turn signal violation does not mean the officer made a decision not to stop the driver. The officer may not have seen it.

More to the point, though . . . if you want to learn whether an officer is racially profiling by auditing their dashcam video, you absolutely must know the race of the driver . . . which you cannot discern if you are following a moving vehicle. It is hard to discern race accurately in the daytime, and you can't do it at all at night. (Google "veil of darkness" studies if you want to understand the way people who understand this field discern whether racial profiling is happening.)

Please keep in mind that officers do not turn on their dashcam or bodycamera until they make the decision to stop a vehicle. The reason is one of capacity. If you told officers they had to have their cameras activated to capture their violations that occur where they do NOT stop vehicles, they would have to have the cameras running for their entire shift. The storage costs would be prohibitive.

Also, it would be really difficult, maybe impossible, to audit these lengthy periods of time where violations may happen but an officer does not stop the offender. See, normally officers upload their body-worn camera footage at the end of every shift, and they "tag" the footage with the citation number or incident number and some other bits of information so that it can be retrieved. Well, how are officers supposed to tag all of this footage where they DON'T stop anyone?

Look, I appreciate the effort to be creative about finding solutions. That's good, it really is.

But if you don't know how these things work, you have to listen to people who do understand it. And I'm telling you the idea of recording, storing, and auditing every minute of every shift of every officer in a department with hundreds of officers to try to figure out when an officer DOESN'T stop someone is unworkable and silly.

I said it wouldn't be cheap, or easy. But I think you are wrong about the unavailability of better technology. It may not be what the installed base is, but there are better cameras available, and the quality of technology is increasing exponentially fast. Do you even remember when the first iPhone came out? Roughly 13 years ago. That's how far we've come, and how fast.

But hey, stick to the cheap and easy and ineffective solutions like "no more turn signal stops!" Ignore the fact that they'll just use "driving erratically" as the new excuse. Because no one can argue that's not a safety concern.

Talk about unworkable and silly ... I think you need a mirror.

Sometimes I wonder what you would do if you actually met in person.

Assuming you haven't.

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
Sometimes I wonder what you would do if you actually met in person.

Assuming you haven't.

I have met many many people from the fora over the past 19 years. Quirt is the only person I met who is--to all appearances--nothing at all like his online persona. (And if he were in real life like he is online, we would all be scratching our heads over how a certain famous author and multifacted woman deigned to marry him.)

I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Cindy, but I admire the hell out of her for the job she is doing.

Guys, it would make the atmosphere around here a lot more pleasant if both of you pretended you are having a conversation at a piano party instead of representing adversarial clients in a courtroom.

I've been scratching my head about that for years. Why shouldn't the rest of you?