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Another Phony DOJ Report

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A 161-page U.S. Department of Justice report on the Baltimore Police Department released yesterday concluded that the city's police intentionally target African Americans for stops and arrests, violating their civil rights.  Not unlike a similar report tarring the Ferguson Police Department, the DOJ found that police contacts with minorities, and particularly blacks, were disproportionate compared with other races, evidencing racially biased policing practices.  While drawing such conclusions by comparing the ratio of members a particular race stopped or arrested with their ratio of the population is thoroughly bogus, the national media swallowed it whole, as usual.  Manhattan Institute scholar Heather MacDonald dismantles the report with this piece in today's National Review.           

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Obviously, the arrest rates aren't going to be the same given the differences in criminal behavior. However, the more difficult issue is the rate of stops of wholly innocent people--unless somehow innocent African-Americans exhibit more suspicious behavior than other races. The answer, of course, is that policing tactics are going to be different in different areas.

The sad reality, of course, is that this isn't fair. Law-abiding people in bad areas are going to feel a heavier police presence. That reality is going to be the cudgel with which the law and order policies are pounded into submission.

This is a tragedy--smarter people in politics and the DoJ know full well that policing is going to be different in different areas, and that is going to result in disparities when it comes to stopping innocent people. That unfairness isn't racism--and it certainly isn't as unfair as innocent people in those areas being victims of violent predators.

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