Submitted by tommytornado t3_ywowl8 in dataisbeautiful
Comments
SpecialistPlastic333 t1_iwkthbm wrote
Or deaths per Police officers per million population
tommytornado OP t1_iwkxsi1 wrote
Totally agree - number of police would be a great feature
thk5013 t1_iwlbwsp wrote
Vermont: I THOUGHT IT WAS A MOOSE
vt2022cam t1_iwloni2 wrote
The police don’t shoot moose in Vermont. When they need to be “removed”, they are assassinated and imposter moose are brought out for the cameras. (This literally happened).
2234redditguy t1_iwm1kmo wrote
That was a very interesting read. Thank you for sharing
[deleted] t1_iwpyu2p wrote
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[deleted] t1_iwqye59 wrote
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maxxim333 t1_iwkp2z0 wrote
So no correlation whatsoever
tommytornado OP t1_iwkq0ws wrote
I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying no correlation between police training and fatal shootings? If so, then yes, and no.
My post here is in response to a previous post https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/yw5xb8/correlation_between_police_training_and_fatal/ which asserted a correlation between police training and shootings (less training = more shootings). But they hadn't taken into account a great deal of other things.
That post seemed to take only two features and extrapolate. I'm taking more data and more features and showing that the cause and effect cannot be extrapolated from a mere two features.
Here, for example I'm not showing training vs shootings, but training vs shootings by crime rate, which changes the dynamic completely.
maxxim333 t1_iwkqbje wrote
I am saying that having in mind only this graph, there clearly is no correlation.
tommytornado OP t1_iwl0da5 wrote
That was kinda my point. In contrast to the original post which seems to show a correlation I can add other features and show no correlation.
edit:
The hours of training alone don't seem to make a difference to the rate of police fatal shootings.
44 of the 50 states all have a Police Fatal Shooting / Violent Crime index of 2 or less
Hawaii has no basic training but I find it hard to believe that police can be given a gun and head out to the streets with literally ZERO training.
45 of 50 states are in the cluster of 400 < training hours < 800, and Index < 4
The 5 'outliers' warrant a closer inspection in my opinion:
Why do Vermont and North Dakota have the highest indexes of police shootings by violent crime?
Why do Maine and Connecticut have such high training?
Is it really possible that police in Hawaii can go out with no training?
hkaerki t1_iwl44xp wrote
There is no correlation, because all of those numbers are super low. 1200 hours is a bit over 30 work weeks. I think here, where I live, the cops training takes minimum of three years.
IllustriousAd5963 t1_iwnj1nh wrote
Do you live in Connecticut? Because this website says it's only --- 818 hours --- of basic training to become CT cop. Can you fill me in on what the facts are for this, or a site where I can see for myself?
https://www.how-to-become-a-police-officer.com/states/connecticut/
Another couple sites say it's --- 900 hours --- of training for Connecticut police.
hkaerki t1_iwtwu5y wrote
I don't live in the US. So I can't tell you about the facts on that site.
IllustriousAd5963 t1_iwtwx8t wrote
oh, it's alright. which country you live in? I'm curious because 3 years and 1200 hours is a hefty amount of time for initial training.
hkaerki t1_iwu4b6o wrote
I live in Finland. And I think 1200 hours is not that much of training. I mean compared to studying 3 years in police academy.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlb92c wrote
>There is no correlation
I understand what you're saying but I don't understand how you can be so confident that there is NO correlation between fatal shootings and the amount of training, just because this graphic isn't showing one.
Pithy_heart t1_iwlce7t wrote
Because the OP provided the data (again, in not a beautiful way, but rather a mildly interesting way) and it shows no correlation, a regression would be flat and probably poor. To think beyond the data would be undermining the point of having data and analysis in the first place. By all means, if there is information that speaks as definitively in support of the opposite, provide it! Otherwise, without data, it’s just your opinion, and 100000% doesn’t belong in this sub.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlco4c wrote
I am OP
[deleted] t1_iwlcymo wrote
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tommytornado OP t1_iwldcgr wrote
To think beyond the data of course serves a purpose to go and find more data that speaks to your next hypothesis.
Pithy_heart t1_iwlji0m wrote
Not my hypothesis, yours. I’m saying, put up the data that supports the incredulity you have to the results of this current graph. If it does, I’ll tattoo it on my ass (tongue in cheek), then it will be worthy of this subreddit.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlkegb wrote
>I’m saying, put up the data that supports the incredulity you have to the results of this current graph
The original graphic strongly implies more training = less fatal shootings. It doesn't appear to take into account population size, number of officers, or state crime rate.
My problem is just that. It a very limited dataset that draws an unsupported conclusion (the 'regression' line).
So I have posted here a graphic using extra data that shows no correlation.
Feel free to either go tattoo this on your ass now, or tell me what issue you have with it? :)
Neutronenster t1_iwm22jf wrote
So basically, you found that states with more violent crime have less basic police training on average, which may explain the strong correlation between the training hours and number of fatal shootings? 🤔
Pithy_heart t1_iwn0cvq wrote
I’ve yet to see a correlation coefficient (r^2) to say anything being “strong” in correlation for either graph, and just eye balling it would say weak at best for both.
Also, my biggest critique, is that this simply isn’t beautiful, which is the point of this sub. If you knew, I really am trying to be helpful and not trollish.
Falxhor t1_iwngce9 wrote
Whether trained or untrained, most cops aren't actually that big a fan of killing other human beings. Crazy claim, I know. Combined with your graph, I'd say the it appears as though there is no correlation and it's easily explained why that is the case. Training isn't going to magically make cops not shoot people, and this is just my hypothesis/theory but if there's a situation where there is serious danger requiring drawing your weapon, you're usually past the point of deescalating the situation, which is what more training would mainly help you get better at. So I can imagine it wouldn't make the biggest difference in fatal police shootings. In fact, more training = more gun training so I suppose cops would be more accurate, and cops always go for the torso, not legs to immobilize the target safely, like some idiots think they do.
Fausterion18 t1_iwllhl7 wrote
>I think here, where I live, the cops training takes minimum of three years.
Press X to doubt.
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trikristmas t1_iwkv72i wrote
How on Earth can your response to the comment be, I'm not sure what you're saying? It can't be more clear cut. The graph can't be more clear cut. You have the perfect outliers either side and a scrap of no correlation for the rest of it.
burns_after_reading t1_iwkvpyh wrote
OP is being super defensive, which makes me feel like all this is just politically motivated.
tommytornado OP t1_iwkzpvh wrote
Not even in the slighest politically motivated. My motivation was to demonstrate the problems of attempting correlations from a dataset with two features.
tommytornado OP t1_iwkzkfr wrote
>So no correlation whatsoever
This was your response, which I found very confusing as it wasn't clear to me if you were referring to my graphic, or the original graphic in the post https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/yw5xb8/correlation_between_police_training_and_fatal/
trikristmas t1_iwl418o wrote
Wasn't my response. And why would anyone know a link to a different graphic unless you specifically mention it, something you have not done 🤷
Dmoored4 t1_iwkx4uo wrote
Isn’t the real problem unjustified shootings? As unfortunate as it is, if the bad guys are starting gunfights I want the cops to engage them effectively. This could be difficult because shootings that should not have happen still get justified, but I bet there would still be a major correlation. I’m thinking a chart which shows the hours of training on the X, and the ratio of unjustified to total shootings on the Y.
tommytornado OP t1_iwkzupf wrote
If someone could source that data it could easily be done but I suspect the data isn't readily available on a state level.
mceric01 t1_iwljr4p wrote
It’s because there are hardly any unjustified police shootings. They’re few and far between despite 60,000,000 police - citizen contacts per year
somethingwithbacon t1_iwlumm7 wrote
Police killed over 1,000 people in 2021. Almost 3/day, at a rate far higher than any other highly developed nation.
thestereo300 t1_iwlvzwr wrote
No other nation is as armed. So that stat is a bit moot.
somethingwithbacon t1_iwlxko7 wrote
The only states approaching 50% ownership are the Dakotas and West Virginia. Most of America’s guns are represented by gun nuts owning multiple. Regardless, gun ownership in the US is 3 times higher than ownership in Norway, yet the rate of fatal shootings by police in the US is 15 times higher. Cops are poorly trained in this country and we are far too accepting of cops killing citizens.
AftyOfTheUK t1_iwm2z0u wrote
>The only states approaching 50% ownership are the Dakotas and West Virginia. Most of America’s guns are represented by gun nuts owning multiple.
I'm not sure why legal gun ownership rates have much bearing on this? If the people using guns for violent crime do not legally own them, why would we care in the about legal gun ownerships rates?
somethingwithbacon t1_iwm4op6 wrote
So your claim is that 80% of guns are owned illegally, and these guns account for all crime? They claimed the disproportionate deaths are due to rate of gun ownership. They’re not.
AftyOfTheUK t1_iwmi6tl wrote
>So your claim is that 80% of guns are owned illegally
Please quote me when you're attempting to voice my claims. I never claimed that.
thestereo300 t1_iwma6kf wrote
This country is 1000% more violent than Norway bruh.
Why? Who knows but it’s relevant as hell to this data.
Not only do Americans HAVE guns…. We use them. It’s a mix of super armed and super violent culture compared to other western countries.
Therefore you can’t trot out a simplistic comparison between our police and Norway’s without controlling for many more dangerous situations an American cop is going to see vs a Norwegian cop.
AftyOfTheUK t1_iwm2te4 wrote
>Police killed over 1,000 people in 2021. Almost 3/day, at a rate far higher than any other highly developed nation.
How does that have any bearing on how many unjustified shootings there are?
Given a raw number (1000) without context means nothing. If 999 of them are justified, that's a pretty good rate.
somethingwithbacon t1_iwm3xvz wrote
17% are unarmed, so start there.
AftyOfTheUK t1_iwmiaf3 wrote
>17% are unarmed, so start there.
I'm very interest to read the data behind this. Does "unarmed" mean did not have a firearm, or did not have a weapon of any kind? Or were not being violent?
somethingwithbacon t1_iwmk93q wrote
It means unarmed. In this case, a comparison between coroner reports, police reports, and death certificates. Source.
Sufficient-Cup4180 t1_iwocdny wrote
And they were mostly justified. You forgot that point.
somethingwithbacon t1_iwoci7j wrote
Legally justified and morally justified are not the same thing.
Sufficient-Cup4180 t1_iwodcfu wrote
Cool. I don’t care much about what you think is morally okay. I see a skewed reality on Reddit every day. Justified is what I’ll go off of. Thanks.
somethingwithbacon t1_iwoesci wrote
When the cost is a human life, 1/6 is an unacceptable failure rate. But pretend you’re on some moral high ground here.
Sufficient-Cup4180 t1_iwojvux wrote
I am not pretending on any high ground. Let’s say all 170 were not justified. That’s less than .01% of all LE contacts. This isn’t the epidemic you think it is.
UnderdogRising t1_iwogw14 wrote
The justified number isn't the real number. The legal system and all. It doesn't get it right every time. 17% unarmed. Some clearly unjustified cases getting deemed "justified" by courts.
To really know this you would have to somehow calculate the bias the justice system has towards its own enforcement.
Vesemir668 t1_iwls1ad wrote
Oh oh this will be unpopular on reddit.
Level3Kobold t1_iwmnebd wrote
Police from other nations are able to do their job without killing people.
Police from America kill many people.
The discrepancy is not proportional to gun ownership.
If you believe that the vast majority of those killings are justified, then what - in your opinion - makes Americans so much more deserving of death compared to other nationalities?
mceric01 t1_iwmntbw wrote
The discrepancy is proportionate to the homicide rate and levels. How often are police killed in other developed major countries that you’re comparing police killings?
Level3Kobold t1_iwmqb8g wrote
>The discrepancy is proportionate to the homicide rate and levels
Can you provide a source for this claim?
mceric01 t1_iwnuxv9 wrote
Well Germany averages 250-350 homicides per year and the UK averages 500-600. Are we trying to compare what the police in the US have to deal with as opposed to those countries where the homicide is more than 20 times lower?
Outrageous_Effect_24 t1_iwms52s wrote
Since every police killing is by definition a homicide, can you think of a way that police killings would not be proportional to the homicide rate?
jimtoberfest t1_iwn6crh wrote
Pretty sure there hundreds of millions of police interactions in the US every year.
200,000,000 interactions / 650,000 officers = 462 interactions per officer / 365 days = .8 interactions per day; seems plausible.
Vault-Born t1_iwljqkp wrote
Psst: It's not the hours, it's the training. It's the content. A thousand hours of warrior training is worse than 20 hours of HR seminars.
edvardsenrasmus t1_iwl6td7 wrote
The biggest problem here is that the violent crimes is just a per-state aggregate, and not tied to an actual fatal shooting by a cop.
The violent crimes could have no overlap with any of the fatal shootings by cops.
This graph doesnt capture the differences between "someone getting shot in a McDonald's parking lot by a cop, while a violent crime is committed somewhere else" and "someone getting shot in a McDonald's parking lot by a cop BECAUSE of that someone's violent crime".
tommytornado OP t1_iwlawvp wrote
I agree, there are problems linking the two sets together.
LetsGoGameCrocks t1_iwm2ugj wrote
Yes. A state with 100 violent crimes and 1000 innocent people unrelatedly shot by by police is the exact same as a state with 1 violent crime and 10 innocent people shot in this dataset. 990 innocent people shot completely ignored by this irrelevant normalization.
This is a misleading analysis
sourcreamus t1_iwlgkzb wrote
It would be reasonable to assume that in places with lots of violent criminals there would be more interaction between violent criminals and police. That would lead to more police shootings. So the violent crime rate is a proxy for justified shootings.
You could go through the databases of cop shootings and categorize them into justified and unjustified. Then compare the unjustified rate with cop training. The problem with that is the low numbers would mean very noisy data.
edvardsenrasmus t1_iwlhzgb wrote
I don't think this violent crime rate data goes well with fatal shootings by police, if we want to contrast it to hours spent in training.
Your latter suggestion sounds reasonable, however, albeit more tedious to get the data, as you said yourself.
MajorTom360 t1_iwq8new wrote
There's no correlation. That's a math rule.
tommytornado OP t1_iwkm0d6 wrote
In response to the recent post https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/yw5xb8/correlation_between_police_training_and_fatal/ I felt I needed to quickly create this to highlight some issues with the data used and its interpretation.
The original post implies a correlation between police training and fatal police shootings. i.e. they are implying that the less training police receive the more likely they are to be involved in a fatal shooting. Whilst this *may* be true it is not at all proven by this graphic, nor this data.
I found, quite easily, the same stats as the source of this graphic, however if I add some other features like violent crime rate per state (incidents which are more likely to result in violent responses) the resulting graph changes completely. Using this new data I can easily create a feature which is the rate of shootings per million / violent crime per million.
Now you can see that Alaska, for example, isn't unusual. In Alasaka perhaps there are more police fatal shootings because there are more violent crimes per capita, and it has nothing to do with their training?
Thsis graphic was knocked up in 10 minutes in python using pandas and matplotlib using these data sources:
Washington Post shooting database - https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/
US States by population - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
(Violent) Crime Rate by State - https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/crime-rate-by-state
Police training requirements by state - https://www.trainingreform.org/state-police-training-requirements
CosmoKramerJr t1_iwl2e8a wrote
Am I right in saying that you added violent crime committed by non-cops into the mix, and the correlation disappeared? So, doesn’t that just imply that there’s not a correlation between non-cop violence and training? If that’s true, that’s actually a bit surprising, since I’d actually think/hope that the areas with higher violent crime rates would train their cops more, given that they’re more likely to be put into difficult situations… which leads us to a possible reason why there was a strong-ish correlation in the original chart: cops aren’t necessarily trained enough for what they’re going to experience.
PietOnTheRoad t1_iwlqi30 wrote
Thanks for the additional perspective on that type of data.
As an European, I guess the actual reason for all the shootings incl police shootings is very much connected with culture. You guys love your weapons and carry them around. And then, whether it’s a police encounter or a bar fight, you don’t use your fists but your weapons.
Look at Switzerland, every household has a weapon, but nobody is carrying it. Look at a lot of countries with low weapon ownership, typically also low number of shootings. And look for countries where a lot people carrying weapons, they encounter similar problems as the US.
I don’t think it’s police training (maybe plays a part in here, though) but it’s culture.
Saxit t1_iwn0xt6 wrote
> As an European, I guess the actual reason for all the shootings incl police shootings is very much connected with culture. You guys love your weapons and carry them around. And then, whether it’s a police encounter or a bar fight, you don’t use your fists but your weapons.
The Czech Republic has had shall issue concealed carry for about 30 years, and a majority of gun owners there has a permit for that. Their police does not shoot any more people per capita than the British police does (CZ has a lower homicide rate than the UK as well).
tommytornado OP t1_iwlqy9d wrote
All of this. Plus I suspect deep down fear plays a big part but that in itself is probably quite tightly related to crime rates and gun ownership.
DJ_Die t1_iwn9w5n wrote
>And look for countries where a lot people carrying weapons, they encounter similar problems as the US.
They do not. Here in the Czech Republic, almost all gun owners can carry guns and we have no such issues. In fact, Czech police kill fewer people per capita than the police in the UK.
EffeteTrees t1_iwleip8 wrote
This is a graph showing no correlation between a concocted metric & training hours data. Makes no sense to post- not beautiful data.
CosmoKramerJr t1_iwlsbql wrote
This is the right response. The y-axis data doesn’t make any sense. You may as well throw auto fatalities in there, since we’re just combining random-ass data. Training police more will probably have the same amount of impact on auto fatalities as it will violent crime.
LetsGoGameCrocks t1_iwm3jxn wrote
Thank you. Incredibly misleading analysis normalizing by violent crimes. Many untrained people won’t notice this either, making this actually feel manipulative
tommytornado OP t1_iwli20i wrote
- That there is no correlation is exactly my point in reply to the original post to which this is a reply - https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/ywowl8/us_states_police_training_v_shootingsviolent/
- What you're calling a 'concocted' metric is actually a derived metric and is perfectly valid.
narcolepticdoc t1_iwlp45g wrote
Still a correlation. Weaker looking one, but it’s there. Strike out the three obvious outliers and concentrate on the central data points.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlpowv wrote
Doesn't look like a clear one to me. What would you say the correlation is exactly?
narcolepticdoc t1_iwlspqn wrote
It’s not a great correlation but it’s there. Strike out the big outliers, (VT, CT, and HI). You’re left with a range around 400-1000 of training. If you look at the derived metric of shootings/ crime there’s a definite weight towards more shootings at the lower end of the training scale compared to the top.
Granted, the bulk of the dataset shows that by that metric the majority of states have relatively low numbers, but those that are elevated are all on the lower end of the 400-1000 scale and the magnitude of the elevation is weighted towards the lower end.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlw6a4 wrote
This is a kernel density plot with the 'outliers' CT, HI, MN, ND, VT removed to clarify that central section.
Agreed, there does seem to be a bulge in the centre - around 650 hours, but still doesn't fully support the assertion that more training = less fatal shootings
[deleted] t1_iwlt7sd wrote
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LetsGoGameCrocks t1_iwlnqk1 wrote
Shootings/violent crimes is a pointless statistic for the argument you’re trying to indirectly push. Violent criminals being shot isn’t the huge problem - it’s nonviolent criminals being unjustly shot
tommytornado OP t1_iwlofiw wrote
I'm directly pushing the argument that there's isn't a direct correlation between police fatal shootings and hours of training.
Unjust/just shootings have no bearing on this at all.
LetsGoGameCrocks t1_iwlp0qg wrote
I completely disagree. You’re ignoring the context of the data in a society where unjust police brutality frequently makes headlines. This is either intentionally or ignorantly misleading analytics
tommytornado OP t1_iwlpx62 wrote
What has that got to do with the original assertion that more training equals less fatal shootings?
LetsGoGameCrocks t1_iwlsakf wrote
It has literally everything to do with it? The assertion that more training = less shootings is only relevant because there have been many high profile incidents of cops shooting nonviolent individuals. You’re literally exempting all of these high profile - relevant - examples from your analysis.
An analogy:
Person A presents a graph showing that more driving training correlates to safer driving. This is pretty obvious because trained drivers are more prepared to drive under less than ideal circumstances like traffic, rain, etc.
Person B (you) presents a graph showing that in clear weather with no traffic, additional driving instruction doesn’t have much correlation with safer driving. This is obviously true, but erroneously presenting it as evidence that training has no correlation with safety is misleading.
Under ideal circumstances the training doesn’t matter as much. What society cares about is the fringe cases where training actually matters. You’re completely ignoring the important cases and trying to present the boring obvious leftovers as if they’re important.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlsmo9 wrote
What makes you say I'm ignoring the important cases? My data includes all police shooting fatalities.
LetsGoGameCrocks t1_iwlxldh wrote
But you’re regularizing on something irrelevant. Your data views a state where 1000 innocent people are shot and 100 violent crimes occur the exact same as a state where 10 innocent people are shot and 1 violent crime happens. Those are the same data point in your set. Do you not see how insane that is? 990 more innocents killed in the first state, completely ignored because there’s more violent crimes?
tommytornado OP t1_iwlyzqr wrote
I'm no longer sure what point you're trying to make exactly. Better leave it there perhaps?
LetsGoGameCrocks t1_iwlz9u0 wrote
My point is that this is a pointless and misleading dataset because you’re regularizing on something nonsensical. If you can’t understand that then I advise you to revisit it your notes from your Stats 101 class
tommytornado OP t1_iwlztc1 wrote
I'm finding you quite rude and I'm going to ignore you from now on.
CosmoKramerJr t1_iwmedsp wrote
No you’re not. You’re combining random data on the y axis to obfuscate the correlation from the original post.
Aqueilas t1_iwkwj5b wrote
I think it would be much more telling to compare cross-national
tommytornado OP t1_iwkzwto wrote
When you say cross-national do you mean various countries?
Aqueilas t1_iwl7dg0 wrote
Yes. I think even 1200 hours of training is pretty low for a police officer, and way below what's required to learn the necessary skills to handle difficult situations as well as learning all the other police training, like the rights of citizens, self-defence training, firearm training etc.
What would be much more interesting is to compare the data with European countries where it takes much longer to become a cop.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56834733
​
It's hard though, because to properly compare, you need to have a lot of control variables simply because the US and EU are very different.
There are a few ways to tackle the problem in question - The effect of police training have on shooting incidents - does more training = less shootings?
​
E.g. using a most similar systems design to compare two or more states in the US, that are very similar in demographic, GINI, poverty, mental illness, gun ownership etc. but differs in police training hours.
I think you don't get any meaningful correlation here because you are comparing every state without controlling for other variables.
MantisBePraised t1_iwlfz2q wrote
I like the thought of comparing countries, but I don’t think using broad data for training is a good idea. The main reason I do not think it is wise is because I think the term training is different enough in countries such that European “training” and American “training” do not come from the same population. However, that led me to the realization that if someone could find or create a data set specifically looking at the number of hours in deescalation training for various states and countries valuable results could be produced.
Neutronenster t1_iwm3zme wrote
The US is quite unique as far as gun ownership and gun usage is concerned, so it would be impossible to draw meaningful conclusions from a comparison between the US and Europe.
I live in Belgium and gun ownership is rare, but gun usage by the police is rare too and strictly regulated. For example, the police are not allowed to draw a gun on someone wielding a knife in Belgium, because that would be a disproportionate amount of violence. Because it’s a rare occurrence, every death by the police is covered in the news and from the past decade I can only remember 3 deaths by the police in the past decade, of which only one was by guns. There could have been more of course, but our number of fatal police shootings is almost negligible when compared to the US.
jrm19941994 t1_iwl59el wrote
Most fatal police shootings are justified. What we really need to look at is WRONGFUL police shootings vs hours of training.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/30/us/daunte-wright-shooting-kimberly-potter.html
Like this one, clearly a training issue.
CertainHawk t1_iwocci8 wrote
Good luck teasing out justified vs. wrongful shootings. Most sites aggregating this data have an anti-police agenda. There's no attempt at evaluating the nuance of each circumstance.
jrm19941994 t1_iwpocn0 wrote
I would say the fact that we so rarely find evidence of wrongful deaths like Kimberly Potter Case, the George Floyd case, etc. when the media has tremendous incentive to find wrongful death cases, is quite telling.
throwy4444 t1_iwl9zh0 wrote
Are these state police or a city/town police? If the latter, that can vary from city to city.
Also, it would be interesting to see results when accounting for other variables such as crime levels overall, economic conditions, and poverty levels.
This says no training for Hawaii, but this makes no sense:
https://www.apexofficer.com/police-training-requirements
Apparently Hawaii has a police academy so they must be training something:
https://policeacademyhub.com/hawaii-police-academy-requirements/
marigolds6 t1_iwllpep wrote
Each state has a minimum level of training to be a license peace officer. That would appear to be what is in the chart. Beyond that, individual departments will have their own academies and their own requirements, as well as separate continuing education requirements.
This is part of why department certification is important. That certification has minimum internal standards for what the department must requirement and must teach in their own academies. Unfortunately, few US departments are certified (though most large cities).
siddartha08 t1_iwlcdv1 wrote
There was a great study done on probability of unreported police violence. OK was the worse but the south lit up like a Christmas tree. GA should be higher.
Edit: found the link https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01609-3/fulltext
Alantsu t1_iwli78w wrote
For comparison, my wife’s license to cut hair required 1500 hours of training. This chart doesn’t even go that high.
thestereo300 t1_iwlw78l wrote
One key issue is this does not control for the crime rate of each state.
I’m going to assume more shit goes down in Texas than Iowa.
More violent crime means more possible violent interactions with law enforcement.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlwc5a wrote
I have tried to account for that by including data for violent crime rate per state.
thestereo300 t1_iwmar9u wrote
Ah ok did not see that you mixed police and citizen violence together.
Now I’m left wondering what are attempting to measure?
What does hours of training for police have to do with how violent the non police citizens are? Wouldn’t introducing this skew everything?
DopamineDeficits t1_iwnapas wrote
Feels like they aren’t trying to achieve anything except being a bootlicker.
[deleted] t1_iwl3t3x wrote
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druffischnuffi t1_iwlf0t7 wrote
CT: well trained, no need to shoot people HI: they shoot but always miss
siddie75 t1_iwlh1vc wrote
Hawaii is not too bad for not having little training.
Roaming_Cow t1_iwlq615 wrote
Or none as it appears to be dead on the 0?
SimpleMaleWallflower t1_iwlh4uh wrote
Would be great to see data color-coded by region (NE states blue, Midwest orange, west purple, etc)
tommytornado OP t1_iwlinli wrote
If you can point me in the direction of that data (which says which region a state is in) I can do that.
SimpleMaleWallflower t1_iwm9g0y wrote
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_United_States#Standard_Federal_Regions Wikipedia for accessibility. Could be simplified by combining pairs of adjacent regions to reduce noise, but really it’s just adding a subjective categorical piece of information in order to account for regional differences. Like the comment about Hawaii, I can imagine HI, AK, FL, and ME all have large cultural differences that may have an impact on the data.
poopapat320 t1_iwlhnhv wrote
Does Hawaii not require any sort of basic training before they give a police officer their badge?
[deleted] t1_iwlo5po wrote
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jettison_m t1_iwlocjv wrote
Where did the training hours come from? And what kind of training was it? I know that TX's is much longer than MN so that doesn't seem to line up here. Training usually includes class time like law and penal code training, then there is de-escalation training, defensive tactics, shooting, driving, etc. I wonder if you split those out...that could change things to. Every academy has their own types of training.
tommytornado OP t1_iwlonlc wrote
The sources are all in my first comment on the post and there's no breakdown of types of training.
L_knight316 t1_iwloigu wrote
Again, I'm pretty sure local culture is more a factor to police shootings than training hours. If I remember right, the majority of police shootings are pretty concentrated. Like the majority of shootings in general, in comparison to the number of gun owners
ExterminatingAngel6 t1_iwloj7t wrote
I was thinking officer involved shootings
[deleted] t1_iwlp6tv wrote
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MitchTJones t1_iwlrg9e wrote
conclusion: American cops are untrainable
gaxxzz t1_iwlv71b wrote
Looks like a best-fit line would have a positive slope.
[deleted] t1_iwmbm55 wrote
I wish we had a reliable standard to go off for justified vs unjustified. It would be cool to see this graph broken down. Would also like to see one based on annual development training hours too because while in 2020 basic training might be a certain length, but the officer involved might have been trained in a time where there was considerably less.
bitcornwhalesupercuk t1_iwmtoq2 wrote
Make both ranges bigger so they don’t clump.
Terrible_Ad3534 t1_iwmw71c wrote
Watch first 48 or any of those other TV shows that follow police officers. We hear about the worse cases of police brutality or abuse but damn we have some troubled, dangerous people in the US
bloonail t1_iwnauis wrote
This is a companion to the previous graphic and illustrates the problem the previous graphic had. That graph indicated a trend in deaths vs hours of training. There is no trend. Basic training has no relationship to # of deaths.
AllIceNoDrink t1_iwnq45m wrote
Is there a data source for this? There are a lot of gaps in how some of these incidents get reported so I’m not sure this tells a complete story. The analysis is only as good as the underlying data
tommytornado OP t1_iwowbf2 wrote
There are 4 data sources. Check my first comment on this post.
dean_musgrove t1_iwnyqdh wrote
Vertical axis label doesn't make sense. It says it indicates fatal police shootings per violent crime. Even in America that seems high.
protectthrowandcatch t1_iwo6ggi wrote
This chart doesn't inform anything at all. A few tweaks could be interesting though...
HPmoni t1_iwo8b9i wrote
Hawaii: Almost no training, almost no shootings.
Hawaii crime shows done lied to me!
yourmamaman t1_iwp7qwd wrote
This is an example of what it looks like when you can not take any conclusions from the data
tommytornado OP t1_iwp9js7 wrote
Very true, and exactly why I did this to show that the previous graphic makes an assertion that isn't demonstrable with this data.
However it's worth noting that even though the thing we were looking for (the correlation) isn't possible here, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Also even though the data looks useless it's usually possible to gather even more questions from the results (if not the answers yet).
[deleted] t1_iwku47o wrote
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Vault-Born t1_iwlkdd3 wrote
Something not mentioned in the graph is that not all training is created equal. The issues with police in this country is how they are trained, specifically "warrior" training, John Oliver has a piece about this. There's also a 6-minute New Yorker piece on YouTube about it that I cannot link for some reason. It's called " The police trainer who teaches cops to kill" subtle title I know.
CaptainHindsight92 t1_iwkwe6w wrote
This is an interesting graph and highlights the complex relationship between training and police shootings. It would be great to see the same graph split with other variables, such as the overall crime rate and the number of officers. I notice that in your references, violent crime includes four specific crimes: aggravated assault, robbery, homicide, whether intentional or accidental and rape. While crimes such as rape are undoubtedly violent, I can't see any connection to police shootings like robbery or homicide and the inclusion of this might hide correlations. For instance of Alaska's violent crime rate of 837, 147 of these are rapes (sadly it has the highest rate in the country).
tommytornado OP t1_iwl04la wrote
Indeed, for crime rates I was looking for a more general set of data and this is all I found at short notice. What I ideally wanted was an number of 'crimes' per state. But now I'm writing this again I'm not sure exactly what I mean by crime. Should I compare a petty theft to a mass-murder?
Fausterion18 t1_iwllz90 wrote
Robbery is probably the best one to use because it's an inherently public act.
CaptainHindsight92 t1_iwn2mz6 wrote
I guess aggravated assault and homicide are also relevant in many situations if a dangerous weapon is involved... it is a tough one OP.
marigolds6 t1_iwlm3r2 wrote
You want to look at the NIBRS dataset, or prior to that the UCR dataset.
They break down crime reports all the way to the department level and classify crimes by type and severity in several ways.
ackillesBAC t1_iwlnocr wrote
Going by crime rates is a problem, because crime rates are reported by police. If they want more funding they report more crimes.
Personally like someone else said I think the issue is the content of the training. Would be interesting to see a graph based on what training courses they took.
[deleted] t1_iwlg6th wrote
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Dracovius1988 t1_iwoxzgd wrote
Please keep in mind that "per million" looks really bad for vermont because we have less than a million people.
nico87ca t1_iwkr7nz wrote
Instead of deaths per million population, you should have had death per total amount of police officers