I think police operate on a criminal bias. The super dark tint, the neighborhoods the vehicles are driving in, the familiarity with certain vehicles being more pronounced in the gang style culture. I am certain there are police that pick out ethnic minorities because they have a concious bias, but I believe that the vast majority operate in a bias toward certain targets, not because of their ethnicity, but by the likelihood that certain types of vehicles are more likely to be driven by criminal elements. There is also the fact that they pulled over drivers that are simply breaking the law. This can be seen by black, asian, middle eastern and other ethnic police officers that simply play the odds and pick on folks that have a higher probability of being criminals. Profiling is a useful tool and everyone uses it, not just law enforcement. This is how most people avoid placing themselves in bad situations based on the appearance and attitudes exuded by people in their path. Having grown up in Richmond California in the 80's, I can assure you that body language and type of clothing is a pretty clear indicator of who is aggressive and who is not. You either learned to spot potential trouble halfway down the block or you got robbed/assaulted or killed.
Thanks for the detailed reply. So it comes down to: Black people are more likely to dress/behave in ways that provoke police response ?
How do you think this correlates with black people being less likely to be stopped at night (vs comparitive rate against white people) than during the day? i.e. when they're more visible
Some other interesting tidbits can be found in the study based on data from hundreds of millions of traffic stops.
I think this is more complicated than can be summarized in ahort lists. I definitely don't have all the data, nor do I think anyone else does. Everything boils down to personal experience and anecdotal evidence. The scientifically collected data is always somewhat suspect. 20 years ago, I always believed scientific studies and scientific papers as being honestly researched, analyzed and presented. I no longer believe that. Unfortunately, these studies seem to be biased and manipulated. Not all of them, but a significant enough number that you have to check on who conducted the study and who funded the study.
All that being said, my personal experience and belief is that certain driving habits, certain styles of vehicle and certain vehicle attributes are more likely to provoke a police stop. I do not believe the majority of police pick vehicles to pull over due to race. The reasons I don't believe this is that the vast majority of the vehicles where I live have dark window tint. You cannot tell the race of driver from the outside of a vehicle here. I live in the southeast with subtropical heat. You can't even tell the gender of drivers here. The amount of people driving poorly seems to have increased dramatically in the last ten years, possibly because of cell phone usage. The police can pick almost any vehicle from around them and see some sort of vehicle violation. I stopped using my cell phone in the vehicle entirely. Even with hands free. This allows me to pay better attention to the driving habits around me. I see so many violations just driving back and forth to work, it isn't even funny. I also see the vehicles pulled over by the police, which there are many almost every day. The pattern of vehicles I see seem to fit a profile of young people, teens and early 20's seem to be the most common. My guess is, they have committed the most egregious driving offenses. The vehicle type pulled over the most often are small sporty type vehicles with aftermarket appearance and full size lifted pickups with bigger tires. Somehow, I don't think race is a factor in these stops.
"I only believe what I can see, I don't believe other people and assume they're lying if their studies, that I won't verify, disagree with my world view"
Your approach really doesn't leave a lot of room for debate so I'll let it go, but some generic questions:
Why can't things be different outside your personal sphere?
Why does your personal and anecdotal experience trump those of people who experience the opposite?
It doesn't trump other people's experiences. I just find it difficult to weight other people's experiences. I have also been around to understand that everyone has inherent biases. I am not excluded from the subset of everyone, so I accept that I see the world differently from everyone else. I just happen to know a lot of LEO's, in particular family members. Since I am not a white man, my experiences and viewpoints are more unbiased by racial preferences.
As far as studies go, there has been a recent revelation that approximately 40% of studies are flawed either intentionally or unintentionally. This makes the verification of study data to be crucial and to weight the conclusions appropriately. Undoubtedly, you have been aware of the extremely flawed scientific data involved with the recent Coronavirus and Climate change topics. If this doesn't make you more cautious in viewing study data, then I don't really have much of a footing to persuade you to any particular point of view. Because of the controversial topic of ethnic relations, I would excercise particular care in evaluating any study that draws any conclusion, either for or against. The source of funding for any related study involving ethnic topics are typically very biased for a particular outcome and are unusual in that funding does not typically come from any purely scientific inquiry.
I think police operate on a criminal bias. The super dark tint, the neighborhoods the vehicles are driving in, the familiarity with certain vehicles being more pronounced in the gang style culture. I am certain there are police that pick out ethnic minorities because they have a concious bias, but I believe that the vast majority operate in a bias toward certain targets, not because of their ethnicity, but by the likelihood that certain types of vehicles are more likely to be driven by criminal elements. There is also the fact that they pulled over drivers that are simply breaking the law. This can be seen by black, asian, middle eastern and other ethnic police officers that simply play the odds and pick on folks that have a higher probability of being criminals. Profiling is a useful tool and everyone uses it, not just law enforcement. This is how most people avoid placing themselves in bad situations based on the appearance and attitudes exuded by people in their path. Having grown up in Richmond California in the 80's, I can assure you that body language and type of clothing is a pretty clear indicator of who is aggressive and who is not. You either learned to spot potential trouble halfway down the block or you got robbed/assaulted or killed.
Thanks for the detailed reply. So it comes down to: Black people are more likely to dress/behave in ways that provoke police response ?
How do you think this correlates with black people being less likely to be stopped at night (vs comparitive rate against white people) than during the day? i.e. when they're more visible
Some other interesting tidbits can be found in the study based on data from hundreds of millions of traffic stops.
https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2020/may/black-drivers-more-likely-to-be-stopped-by-police.html
I think this is more complicated than can be summarized in ahort lists. I definitely don't have all the data, nor do I think anyone else does. Everything boils down to personal experience and anecdotal evidence. The scientifically collected data is always somewhat suspect. 20 years ago, I always believed scientific studies and scientific papers as being honestly researched, analyzed and presented. I no longer believe that. Unfortunately, these studies seem to be biased and manipulated. Not all of them, but a significant enough number that you have to check on who conducted the study and who funded the study. All that being said, my personal experience and belief is that certain driving habits, certain styles of vehicle and certain vehicle attributes are more likely to provoke a police stop. I do not believe the majority of police pick vehicles to pull over due to race. The reasons I don't believe this is that the vast majority of the vehicles where I live have dark window tint. You cannot tell the race of driver from the outside of a vehicle here. I live in the southeast with subtropical heat. You can't even tell the gender of drivers here. The amount of people driving poorly seems to have increased dramatically in the last ten years, possibly because of cell phone usage. The police can pick almost any vehicle from around them and see some sort of vehicle violation. I stopped using my cell phone in the vehicle entirely. Even with hands free. This allows me to pay better attention to the driving habits around me. I see so many violations just driving back and forth to work, it isn't even funny. I also see the vehicles pulled over by the police, which there are many almost every day. The pattern of vehicles I see seem to fit a profile of young people, teens and early 20's seem to be the most common. My guess is, they have committed the most egregious driving offenses. The vehicle type pulled over the most often are small sporty type vehicles with aftermarket appearance and full size lifted pickups with bigger tires. Somehow, I don't think race is a factor in these stops.
"I only believe what I can see, I don't believe other people and assume they're lying if their studies, that I won't verify, disagree with my world view"
Your approach really doesn't leave a lot of room for debate so I'll let it go, but some generic questions:
Why can't things be different outside your personal sphere?
Why does your personal and anecdotal experience trump those of people who experience the opposite?
It doesn't trump other people's experiences. I just find it difficult to weight other people's experiences. I have also been around to understand that everyone has inherent biases. I am not excluded from the subset of everyone, so I accept that I see the world differently from everyone else. I just happen to know a lot of LEO's, in particular family members. Since I am not a white man, my experiences and viewpoints are more unbiased by racial preferences.
As far as studies go, there has been a recent revelation that approximately 40% of studies are flawed either intentionally or unintentionally. This makes the verification of study data to be crucial and to weight the conclusions appropriately. Undoubtedly, you have been aware of the extremely flawed scientific data involved with the recent Coronavirus and Climate change topics. If this doesn't make you more cautious in viewing study data, then I don't really have much of a footing to persuade you to any particular point of view. Because of the controversial topic of ethnic relations, I would excercise particular care in evaluating any study that draws any conclusion, either for or against. The source of funding for any related study involving ethnic topics are typically very biased for a particular outcome and are unusual in that funding does not typically come from any purely scientific inquiry.