Berkeley; the bastion of progressive values?

April 26, 2018

Yesterday, I sent the within to the Mayor of Berkeley and others, in the mayor's office, as listed. Much nothing will come of it; not until Berkeley is sued for some  atrocity in policing. Believe me, it is just a matter of time. Doubtless we will have the usual protestations, denials and promises. The lot below shall not be able to say that they did not know of the rot; the oppression; the bias.

Berkeley's data is, for want of a polite expression, piss-poor. This opinion may be partly driven by the fact that the data is not in the form that Berkeley represents it to be; that over 3,400 records have no demographic data, and that it leaves out some of the most basic, the most common, policing data elements. On the other hand, it carries data of other persons involved in the stop, but one cannot determine who is driver and who is passenger. It is, as it is, but it tells the same old story, and it tells plenty; albeit less vividly than most other places.

Mayor Jesse Arreguin

Brandi Campbell, Chief of Staff to the Mayor
bcampbell@cityofberkeley.info
Jacquelyn McCormick, Senior Advisor to the Mayor
jmccormick@cityofberkeley.info
Karina Ioffee, Director of Communications
kioffee@cityofberkeley.info
Stefan Elgstrand, Assistant to the Mayor
selgstrand@cityofberkeley.info
Tano Trachtenberg, Legislative Assistant
TTrachtenberg@cityofberkeley.info

Mr. Mayor;

I fetched your Stop Data, from the Open Data site, a few weeks ago. I do not like the results of what your data produces. Neither should you, nor will anyone.

Summary of Findings

1.      Berkeley PD officers stopped (5.93) searched (2.25) and arrested (1.53) and issued more citations (3.4) to Blacks, by proportion, than Whites and Asians. Blacks are subjected to a disproportionate number of 4th Waiver, Vehicle and Inventory Searches. They get more Warnings, too (a place where constitutionally-infirm stops are concealed.) Hispanics fare better, but not well. To understand this data, one needs go no farther than the stacked-bar chart below. See also Figure 14; Encounters and Stop Causes.

2.      These adverse disparities exist for Blacks and Hispanics, irrespective of Encounter Type. See Encounters and Stop Causes, in the full report.

3.       Blacks receive a disproportionate share of citations; 3.41 times as many, by population, as Whites.

4.      The Citation Rate for Blacks is almost 7 (6.77) points lower than the next closest group, Hispanics. This is the result of an extraordinarily disproportionately high number of stops; a disproportion that is shown in the massive Disparity Index of 3.38 (Stops to Population %.) The disparity to Whites— who have a disparity index of .57— is 5.93. The foregoing fact exists as a paradox to the high Citation Issuance rate, which rate is computed against population presence.

5.      The stop disproportion for Blacks, by far, outstrips that all other groups.

·         Some 29.10% of Berkeley stops were of Blacks, who make up 8.6%[1] of Berkeley’s population. When compared to the inverse disproportion enjoyed by Whites, Black stop disproportion is an eye-catching 5.93.

·         Asians are around 20.1% of the population but compose only 6.99% of stops; an inverse disparity to population, and to Whites. A Massive inverse proportionality to Blacks and Hispanics.

·         Whites are 56.00% of the population but compose just 32.18% of stops; an inverse disparity.

·         Hispanics are 10.1% of the population and compose 10.84% of stops.

6.      Berkeley does not disclose whether searches are Consent or Non-consent, neither does it disclose contraband recovery results. Since such contraband recovery is an essential part of police record keeping, it is concluded that this value is beingconcealed. In the absence of contraband recovery results, Hit Rates may not be computed.

7.      There is Warning data but the type of warning is not clear. In the presence of this ambiguity, all warnings are coded as Written Warnings.

8.      The values necessary for the computation of the rate at which persons are ordered to exit Vehicles are not disclosed.

9.      Stop duration has not been disclosed.

10.  On an overall basis, when over 9 discrete stop and post-stop actions were examined, Blacks are adversely disparately dealt with more than 1.7 times that of Whites. The disparity is even larger when the comparison is made to Asians.

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[1] https://statisticalatlas.com/place/California/Berkeley/Race-and-Ethnicity

A complete report that has more words, but scant more information, may be fetched here.