Collecting, Categorizing and Analyzing Demographic Data in San Diego in the years of the Profiling Plague.
A letter essentially identical to the below was sent to Chief Lansdowne on the date indicated. I refrained from using my preferred expression "bullshit detector" and instead used the lame "balderdash detector."
I must and will do better.
February 15, 2014
William Lansdowne
Chief, San Diego Police Department
By email to : sdpdpolicechief@pd.sandiego.gov
Subsequent to my
communication, to you, that contained my analysis of 2013
stop data, I located one or more Official San Diego documents
that contained other analyses and officer comments. The analyses were not at
odds with mine. So were the observations and comments, including those of the
officers and supervisors. I harbour no doubt that you are familiar with all of
them. Aside from directing you to the obvious, i.e. the possibility of
constituting stop analysis data from Citation data[1],
I will let you re-read them for yourself.
Vehicle Stop Form Racial Categories
The United States Census identifies these
categories:
·
Black or
African American alone
·
American
Indian and Alaska Native alone
·
Asian
alone
·
Native
Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone
·
Two or
More Races
·
Hispanic
or Latino
·
White
alone, not Hispanic or Latino
The Federal
Government, in its feeble attempts to monitor discriminatory practices, uses or
used the following categories:
·
American
Indian and Alaska Native
·
Black not
of Hispanic Origin
·
Asian or
Pacific Islander
·
Other
(specify)
·
Hispanic
·
White not
of Hispanic origin
See Uniform Residential
Loan Application or Fannie Mae form 1003. Required HMDA reporting data.
Finally; in support of
using census-like categories, you, Chief Lansdowne
implemented a tracking system in San Jose[2]
that used a system of categorization that is only slightly dissimilar to that
required by the Federal government:
A = Asian American.
B = African American.
H = Hispanic.
I = Native American.
O = Other.
P = Pacific Islander.
W = White.
Furthermore, since analyses
regularly refer to Census data, common-sense tells us to use categories that
the Census uses because officers, understandably, are confused or challenged by
the following categories, as appear on the recently-obtained Vehicle Stop forms.
And, you and or Deputy Chief Zimmerman have
recently stated that it is difficult to precisely determine demographic data. I
now understand why.
Therefore, after
adopting the Census/San Jose Categories (save one) existing values for Chinese,
Cambodian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Vietnamese (VIET), Asian Indian should be set to Asian; like so:
Update StopData SET
Race = 'A'
WHERE Race in
('C','D','J','K','L',’V’,’Z’);
And, the island people
Filipino, Samoan, Guamanian, Hawaiian should be placed in the category Native
Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, like so:
Update StopData SET
Race = 'P'
WHERE Race in
('F','S','G',’U’);
These data group changes have very
little effect on the larger groups; certainly none on Whites, Blacks or
Hispanics.
Perhaps, Jamaicans
should be classified as Other since they do take the Latinized version of their
motto “E pluribus
unum[4]”
quite literally
and are quite exceptional. They should
not be classified as Indian even though they are West Indian and around 2% of them are descendants of Indians of
Asian origin and few, if any, are descended from the Taino (called Indians by the
lost Genoan or Genoese). Given their outsized
cultural footprint, they deserve to be given their own category[5].
Almost Finally;
in a recent journal comparing the 1990s to the present, studies have established
that when the community criticized police for targeting the black community
during traffic stops it received more media coverage and toned down racial
profiling. However, whenever there was a significant lack of media coverage or
concern with racial profiling, the amount of arrests and traffic stops for the
African-American community would significantly rise again. For this
reason alone, the Public Safety and Livable Communities Committee has a useful purpose. However, that purpose is undermined by
the SDPD policy of anonymity that is, for all intents and purposes, a grant of immunity[6]
to bigots on the SDPD.
I see that you and or
your underlings are scheduled for another session before the City Council, or
one of its committees, on April 16, 2014. Although, I prefer to proceed unaccompanied,
I intend to attend; God willing. I intend to come equipped with a
well-calibrated “balderdash” detector. To that end, please provide Vehicle Stop
Data for the period, upon which your report shall be based, so that the
required calibration can be performed beforehand. Accordingly; please consider
this part of this communication to be a California Public Records Act Request ; (Government Code section 6250
et seq.)
I
close with Judge Battaglia’s observation from Case
3:11-cv-00876-AJB-WVG Document 78 Filed 05/28/13 Page 17 of 25:
The remedy for
improper police conduct is in the courts, not in private
reprisal[7].
(People v. Coffey, 67 A.C. 145, 162, fn. 18, 60 Cal. Rptr. 457, 430 P.2d
15; People v. Baca, 247 A.C.A. 560, 569, 55 Cal. Rptr. 681.)
I
hope to see you and your underlings on April 16, 2014, or on whatever the
appointed date is; I think. I do not intend to allow the amount of arrests and traffic stops for the
African-American community to significantly rise again. I intend to follow
Judge Battaglia’s Order.
Finally
sir; I do not like Officer Chris Hays’ Stop
and Frisk Policy. Few do; certainly not those 7 women. I suppose that his
father’s position had nothing to do with the department’s blind-eye policy to the
many much-earlier reports regarding his behavior.
[1] With the attendant risk that the citing
Police Officers will be identifiable and consequently shall lose promised
anonymity; a rock and a harder place, indeed.
[3] The lumping together, doubtless
due to the post-9-11 inability of dunces to distinguish the turbans worn by
Sikhs from those worn by Arabs. That a police department, led by a giant such
as you, officially subscribed
to this ignorance is, at best, dismaying. Why not use education instead?
Just
after 9-11, my daughter’s college friend, on parental orders, discarded his
turban and cut his hair. A neighbourhood Sikh man discarded his turban, kept
his hair, but donned a hat.
[4] They use the English “Out of
many one people” or literally “From many one” or, as those who do not
understand exceptionalism would prefer, “One out of many.”
The
Jamaican motto was stolen from what appears on the Great Seal of the United
States of America.
[5] Tongue firmly in cheek.
[6] In San Jose, too, there was effective
or functional immunity, regarding use of data. See page 21 of A Resource Guide on
Racial Profiling Data Collection Systems
[7] I would also exclude the Public Safety and Livable Communities Committee of the City Council; not for now, but certainly for later.
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