(NYC) Minorities Frisked More but Arrested at Same Rate

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but no more likely to actually be arrested.

The more than 575,000 stops of people in the city — a record number of what are known in police parlance as “stop and frisks” — yielded 762 guns.

Of the reasons listed by the police for conducting the stops, one of those least commonly cited was the claim that the person fit the description of a suspect. The most common reason listed by the police was a category known as “furtive movements.”

Under Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, the New York Police Department’s use of such street stops has more than quintupled, fueling both an intense debate about the effectiveness and propriety of the tactic and litigation aimed at forcing the department to reveal more information about the encounters.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/nyregion/13frisk.html?WT.mc_id=NY-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-BAL-051210-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click&pagewanted=all

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So there you have it. Racial profiling is not just annoying, it is wasteful and ineffective.

[Xipe Totec]

1. Let me see if I understand this correctly

You have to sift through nine times as many minorities to find one guilty party, as you do with whites?

Sounds like racial profiling could work, if only it was applied correctly.

[harry_pothead]

2. Not really

It means they had to sift through 9 minorities to find 1 minority guilty party, and 9 whites to find 1 white guilty party.

The only difference - the volume of sifts was much more for minorities.



Here's a way to look at it:
100 whites are stopped, and of those, 11 are arrested (11%)
900 minorities are stopped, and of those, 99 are arrested (11%)

Same 11% arrest to stop ratio, 9x as much volume for minorities


Another way to look at it:
Whites were stopped at a rate equal to 28.5% of what you would expect given their population, and arrested at 31.4% of that same rate.
Blacks were stopped at a rate equal to 239.1% of what you would expect given their population, and arrested at 208.7% of that same rate.
Hispanics were stopped at a rate equal to 114.3% of what you would expect given their population, and arrested at 128.6% of that same rate.
Asians were stopped at a rate equal to 25.0% of what you would expect given their population, and arrested at 33.3% of that same rate.

The statement that minorities are 9x as likely to be stopped comes from the fact that 10% of arrests are of white people, and 90% of arrests are of minority people. I think they are counting Asians as minorities for this study. Whites and Asians make up 47% of NYC's population, but comprise only 13% of stops and 15% of arrests.

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2010/05/13/nyregion/13frisk-gr.html?ref=nyregion

[Igel]

3. The first line of the story is ambiguous.

It seems to be misread by a lot.

"Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but no more likely to actually be arrested"

is precisely equivalent, as the chart shows, to

"Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but once stopped were as likely to actually be arrested" for misdemeanors.

Of course, it leaves open the possibility that had they stopped and frisked in a communally representative way--since we seem to be heading towards communalism--that the arrest stats would still parallel to the stop & frisk numbers. In other words, we could generalize that assertion to saying 1 in 9 people in NYC, at any time, could be arrested for a misdemeanor of some kind.

Dunno.

[JackRiddler]

4. Misleading NYT Headline Puts False But Happy Spin On Racist Practice

As already pointed out: If they're nine times as likely to be stopped and THEN arrested "at the same rate," it means any given Black or Latino man is

NINE TIMES AS LIKELY TO BE ARRESTED DUE TO A STOP AND FRISK

The headline is transparent double-think.

[political_Dem]

5. And they say that white privilege doesn't exist.

:sarcasm: