I'll be the first to concede that the raw numbers are troubling. That minorities are more likely than whites to be arrested if pulled over by the police appears problematic.

But I wonder how many folks will consider the disclaimer in the report.

Like the 2002 report, this one contained a warning that the racial disparities uncovered "do not constitute proof that police treat people differently along demographic lines" because the differences could be explained by circumstances not analyzed by the survey. The 2002 report said such circumstances might include driver conduct or whether drugs were in plain view.

And that is precisely the problem with the report -- until we look at the circumstances that led to the arrests, we cannot know for sure what the reason for the disparity is. As I see at school, there is a cultural difference in how different ethnic groups respond to being confronted by authority figures. That could go a long way towards explaining the differences. So could questions of immigration status or, heaven forbid, obvious actual evidence of criminal behavior. For that matter, so could the socio-economic status of the drivers or the neighborhoods where they were pulled over. And until we manage to quantify and control for such things, does the data really tell us anything useful at all?

Posted by: Greg at 10:27 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 233 words, total size 2 kb.