Policing and Race

A friend of mine disagrees with my summary at how to fix gaps.

Now I know that many of you want to obsess about Blacks, Racism, etc, but that is NOT a measurable issue.  And we have tons of Native Americans, Hispanics, and even White families that suffer in very similar ways. And after looking into the numbers, the unfortunate reality is that it is likely;that most of the additional police encounters with Black and Hispanic individuals higher likelihood of them being in gangs and involved in crime. And yes there is ; a war going on between the gangs, other gangs and the police, and yes sometimes innocent civilians pay the price. So cut the police a break, while making sure the bad officers are punished.

So I asked him to provided more data and he gave me this. WAPO List of Sources  They will take some time for me to browse so I shared these first thoughts and questions.

I will look further into them. The light skim indicated that they seem to keep making the same error.   They state the sample X is different than sample Y with the assumption that the populations for X and Y are the same. 

When we know that population X on average has far more gang membership, commits more violent crime, has less money, has fewer support systems, etc than population Y.
So of course the sampling should look different. 

And yes police are looking for suspicious situations for whatever reason. (ie old vehicles, gang style dress, loitering, etc) And unfortunately people driving cars that look like they should belong to someone else. It is actually what we expect from them isn't it? 

Or do we want them to err on the side ignoring suspicious or significantly out of the norm situations? 

So what do you think the results of sampling should look like? 

Should White and Black people be pulled of over at the exact same rate? Should they be shot at the same rate? 

If not, how much variation is acceptable within "non-racist" action? 

One more factor that could impact the numbers. Unfortunately the poor neighborhoods with more crime have a larger police presence. 

A large police presence means everyone is watched more. Meaning any suspicious behavior / situation may be checked on. 

In my neighborhood, sometimes people to close their garage doors and we never have the police check. They simple are almost never have a reason to be in our neighborhood. 

Now is more police density a race issue or a crime likelihood issue? 

Reducing the MPLS police by 50% would likely reduce the number of minority stops / arrests. Would that be a good or a bad thing for those communities?