What Made you Smile/What Ticked you off Today?

[MrPopo]

Don't you come in here waving your "statistics" when there's moral outrage to be had.

[dsheinem]

Don't you come in here waving your "statistics" when there's moral outrage to be had.

There's also a low percentage of police shootings per incident of police engaging someone, but that doesn't mean police shootings aren't a problem or that there are some striking statistical figures when accounting for race, history, geography, etc.

I think the more pertinent stat for the border crossing thing would be what percentage of people who are actually pulled over at the border then have forfeitures occur.

Finally, I think the emphasis of most of the research on this issue has to do with police stops in the US in general, not at int'l border crossings (I think that was a poor order/selection of words in marurun's original post). I think the "warning" he was making was that traveling in the US with cash, as you cross borders (state or federal), is statistically an increasingly dangerous proposition.

[KalessinDB]

Don't you come in here waving your "statistics" when there's moral outrage to be had.

There's also a low percentage of police shootings per incident of police engaging someone, but that doesn't mean police shootings aren't a problem or that there are some striking statistical figures when accounting for race, history, geography, etc.

I think the more pertinent stat for the border crossing thing would be what percentage of people who are actually pulled over at the border then have forfeitures occur.

Finally, I think the emphasis of most of the research on this issue has to do with police stops in the US in general, not at int'l border crossings (I think that was a poor order/selection of words in marurun's original post). I think the "warning" he was making was that traveling in the US with cash, as you cross borders (state or federal), is statistically an increasingly dangerous proposition.

Agreed on all counts. My only distinction would be swapping race in your statement for socioeconomic status, as I feel they are conflated way way too often.

I read his original "warning" as being Canada/US border specific, and as I've had a lot of interaction with that particular border (especially over the last 2 years) it hit home so I was looking for some real facts, not anecdotal evidence and mumbled warnings. You provided with the IJ link. I acknowledged (as you noticed) in my stats response that I was erring on the side of worst-case, assuming all the stops were related to international border crossings (when they are clearly not, as a number of the personal stories noted people travelling wholly within the US). However, I also repeatedly stressed I'm not trying to justify the practice's abuse or say it's acceptable, because it's not. It's just that I think the statistics would show it's also not in any way an epidemic or even close to a regular occurrence -- and furthermore, that at least some of the stops were warranted and using the law as it was intended to be used.

But much like with shootings (any shootings, I don't care if it's civilian/police, police/civilian, civilian/civilian, black/white, white/black, white/white, black/black, whatever), one instance of the law being abused is one too many.

[BogusMeatFactory]

After beating Space Quest 1, I heard my wife whistling the theme music in the bathroom.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Getting on the wrong end of a conversation has led me to reviewing and questioning every single decision in my life.

[dsheinem]

KalessinDB, I think we're on the same page and my response was more towards what I read as a giant shrug from Popo

My only distinction would be swapping race in your statement for socioeconomic status, as I feel they are conflated way way too often.

But much like with shootings (any shootings, I don't care if it's civilian/police, police/civilian, civilian/civilian, black/white, white/black, white/white, black/black, whatever), one instance of the law being abused is one too many.

Not to go on a tangent, but even if accounting for socioeconomic status there is still a clear RACE problem in how police choose to engage people. The problem is that, perhaps intentionally, police don't keep very good stats on this stuff. That said, the stats we do have suggest that, regardless of one's income or neighborhood, being black (or brown, and usually male) makes you much more likely to get shot (here's a clearer chart showing that same data). Other folks who have done additional investigating have shown the same.

Yes, class matters. Yes, all lives matter. But, at some point, erasing RACE as THE KEY POINT in this recent national discussion starts to minimize or dangerously re-contextualize what is clearly first and foremost a race problem.

[dsheinem]

Getting on the wrong end of a conversation has led me to reviewing and questioning every single decision in my life.

about what?

[Forlorn Drifter]

As in what was the conversation about, or as in what things am I questioning?

[dsheinem]

As in what was the conversation about, or as in what things am I questioning?

the conversation

[MrPopo]

KalessinDB, I think we're on the same page and my response was more towards what I read as a giant shrug from Popo

It was more that I was entertained by the sheer contrast between Marurun's warning and the magnitude of the calculated statistic.

On the other point, I think race magnifies the effect of initial impression. I think if you took a random cop he would be less threatened by a white guy dressed as a gang banger than a black guy dressed as a gang banger, but at the same time he'd be less threatened by a black guy dressed as a middle class suburbanite than a black guy dressed as a gang banger. The real interesting comparison would be the white gang banger vs. the black suburbanite.

And I think a lot of people don't really realize just how much caution the police need to have in their dealings. There are numerous stories where a routine traffic stop ends with an officer down, and that's before you get into people who are acting in ways that tend to correlate with crime or potential crime (the aforementioned gang bangers). Can you imagine every day at your job wondering if this interaction is going to be the one where he pulls a weapon on you?

On a related tangent, why isn't there as much outrage about life insurance and auto insurance rates based entirely on statistical profiling?