Inductivist

Do white police officers dislike blacks?

The Media constantly do stories of white officers who seem trigger happy, especially if the suspect is black. Is such a portrayal accurate?

No. This study analyzes data on 291 officers involved in 106 shootings in New York City. Shooting officers were compared to non-shooting officers at the same scene. The authors found that black officers were 3.1 times more likely to shoot suspects than officers of other races. That's a big difference.

New research has reported that officers with high scores on impulsivity are quicker to pull the trigger than highly-controlled officers. Impulsivity is a major cause of criminality, too, and has been used to explain the black/non-black gap in crime.

Anyone who has thought about it for more than a minute knows that policing is a tough job.  You have to deal with screwed-up people and situations all the time, and there is bureaucratic BS up the ying-yang.  Like a high-paid ER doctor, you have to make life-and-death decisions in a split second, and let's not forget that many people hate you for your efforts, and even want to kill you. Heck, you might go to prison if authorities don't like how you behave on the job.

Good law enforcement requires real ability, but what is the average intelligence of an American police officer?

Using General Social Survey data, I identified 90 law enforcement officers. Their average IQ is 100.2.  If we look at blacks and whites separately, the means are 99.4 and 100.3, respectively.  Female officers averaged 99.0, while the average man was 100.5.

I work with many aspiring police officers, and they seem to be motivated by the excitement and the desire to be the hero rather than the security of a government job and the early retirement. Money does not seem to be a priority (although it never hurts).

To inspire a talented young man to choose policing as a career, society needs to portray officers as something like superheroes, not as the executioners of innocent black men. Ironically, demonizing law enforcement might push away the talented and attract the leftovers who are more likely to use excessive force against minorities.

The American Left seems to believe that police don't reduce crime, they commit it.

This meta-analysis of 12 qualifying studies reports that increasing the number of sworn officers in a police force indeed reduces crime.

The impact differs depending on the type of crime. Most crime is done no one is looking, so police patrol might not be so relevant for crimes like rape.

Police presence seems most effective for car theft or assaults. Since cars are often stolen while parked in a public place, more patrolling might make a difference.

Assaults also happen frequently in public places like bars. The typical scenario is when one young drinking guy insults another young drinking guy, and mutual combat begins. Lots of cops around might make people think twice about starting a public brawl.

Keep in mind that the study found the impact of police force size to be fairly small. It helps, but not that much.

This new study by the prestigious American Journal of Public Health reports that the rate that US males are killed by police is 1.9 to 2.4 per 100,000 population for blacks, 0.8 to 1.2 for Hispanics, and 0.6 and 0.7 for whites. The authors then stress that we need to reduce this racial disparity in killings by police.

The authors conveniently leave out the fact that people who get shot by law enforcement are the ones: 1) who interact with the police the most, and 2) who resist the police the most. These two facts explain the higher numbers among blacks and Hispanics. But why explain that when you have an opportunity to portray cops as racist?

There is a stereotype that female cops are lesbians. Is it true?

Using GSS data (sample size = 129) 15 percent of female law enforcement officers are homosexual or bisexual. According the the same survey, only 2.7 percent of all women are homosexual or bisexual. 

How about gay cops? Do you remember the officer from the Village People? Out of 102 male officers, ZERO are homosexual or bisexual.

Most blacks and many whites assume that white cops are racists.

The General Social Survey asked the following question: "In general, how warm or cool do you feel towards African Americans?" Answers ranged from "very warm" (1) to "very cool" (9). There were only 13 white officers in the sample (and 2,080 other whites). The mean for the police is 3.62, and it's 3.65 for all other whites. No significant difference.

White officers do not differ from other whites in their attitudes towards blacks.

Prepare yourselves for Obamamerica... and value the police like I do: This is a pretty good piece on the election polls. It shows that the variation among poll estimates is larger than in 2004, and the simple explanation for it is that pollsters have differing sampling methodologies based on assumptions about who is going to turn out to vote.

It looks like those who expect a really big turnout from folks likely to vote for Obama are generating a large Obama/McCain gap; those with more conservative methodologies show a somewhat tighter race.

All polls show Obama ahead, and if we go by the two polls that were closest in 2004 (at least those I am familiar with)--Investors Business Daily and Rasmussen--Obama is ahead by 4 or 8 points, respectively. The probability is very high that Obama will win. Go out and vote, anyway, all you Republicans, but you'd better start asking yourselves today how you need to change to win next time around.

Let me offer a first suggestion: return to the conservative view that people are inclined to be naughty and therefore need to be policed. Government stinks at most things, but it is pretty good at cracking heads with night sticks. And nobody needs the occasional crack on the head more than our economic elites.

Libertarian, schmibertarian. I, for one, am pro-police. The irony was intensely rich when I saw anarchist Bill Ayers on Fox News yesterday calling the frigging police to get protection from those oh so scary journalists. The guy who tried to kill NYC police officers. Truly rich.

Those Chicago cops should have cracked Billy Boy on the head.