Saturday, February 03, 2007

Racial profiling or good policing?

The New York Post article “NYPD frisked blacks at 5 times the rate of whites” notes that of total frisks in 2006, 52% were Black, 29% Hispanic, and 10% White.

Does this indicate racial profiling?

Does this indicate racially biased policing?

Consider that the arrests resulting from these frisks were 51% Black, 30% Hispanic, and 12% White.

The fact that the arrest and frisk percentage breakdowns by race were almost identical implies that the probability of an arrest, given a frisk, was the same for all races. Assuming that the arrest decisions were made without regard to race (something that remains to be determined), then the implication is that the frisk decisions were racially unbiased and not due to adverse racial profiling. This is not to say that there was no racial profiling, only that, if there was, it was statistically relevant.

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