Thanks for the feedback. I’ll take it and use it. Anything else that can be fine-tuned? I’m not changing the core of my points, but I will always update so new readers can find the most accurate facts and outlooks I can muster on policing in Chicago. Here’s the fix and I have a question for you below on your database, which I haven’t seen before (or your blog):
Citizens of Chicago were not any more likely to be shot and killed per arrest from 2009 - 2016 compared to American citizens on average the last couple years. Chicagoans the past three years were far less likely to be shot by police than the first half of the decade.
I actually updated my national odds of being killed numbers on my spreadsheet (for Guardian and Washington Post) in the “CPD are Average” section last night as I realized a slight formula error. But the numbers are mostly in the same ballpark as before and the argument is largely the same. Originally I had said Chicagoans odds of being shot per arrest were slightly more favorable (meaning less likely). And again, absolutely matching the interaction rate which is largely “fair” between racial groups based on the fact these rare incidents — roughly 1 in 10,000 arrests, or no more than 1 in 100,000 interactions — match crime reporting data.
Which brings me to your database Nick Selby. How does it work? Do I need to make an account? Do you have some screen shots or data you can post that could inform how we see policing, or I could possibly share? You seem to want the media to cover this, too. (Then maybe they would have to admit journalistic malpractice.)
I don’t know if we’ve interacted, but I saw a post you had on this database where you said 80% of lethal interactions were based on 911 calls and communities reaching out to police — not the other way around. i.e. not racially profiling or being “selective,” to say it nicely, which is often the critique. I guess we may be on the same page that the narrative of those possibly implicit bias and/or actually racist incidents are anomalies (socks in the pool, Starbucks, BBQs). They can suck, for lack of a better word (for citizens, certainly, and police who have to take such calls), but aren’t the norm — and certainly aren’t leading to people shot. The media shouldn’t cover them as they do, to be honest. We already have our main weekly paper The Chicago Reader saying we shouldn’t call 911 even though only .6% of city shootings are by police. That will only lead to more suffering, not less.
Unlike the Obama DOJ, ACLU, The Guardian, and the political leaders currently making decisions, we need to contextualize to behavior and not city demographics. We can expect Chicago police to arrest and use force at largely the same rates per each demographic (be it by race or gender). And I’ve proven they do.
UPDATE Aug 23: Actually, women don’t have force used against them at the same rates, at least when it comes to lethal use-of-force. Does this mean men are being discriminated against?
This data can lead to only one rational hashtag: #MaleLivesMatter
- Black arrests (27%), and killed by police (25%)
- White non-Hispanic arrests (53%), and killed by police (50%)
- Male arrests (74%), and killed by police (95%)
- Women arrests (27%), and killed by police (5%)
SOURCES: 2015 FBI Arrest Stats for Arrests by Sex (Table 42); 2015 FBI Arrest Stats by Race and Ethnicity, with non-Hispanic White broken out from Hispanic (Table 43) Killed by police use The Guardian and The Washington Post data from 2015–2016
Again, by the exact same logic of the DOJ, civil rights groups, and major media, it’s a gender bias against men that they’re killed at disproportionate rates to their population.
But it’s pure insanity to say police in today’s current climate should stop and arrest people based on their percentage of the population — and that appears to be the political expectation. Another international headline this week tells you what is the true racism if police do that: