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The Center for American Progress reports
Congress [just] passed a bill that could result in complete, national data on police shootings and other deaths in law enforcement custody.
Right now, we have nothing close to that. Police departments are not required to report information about police to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Some do, others don't, others submit it some years and not others or submit potentially incomplete numbers, making it near-impossible to know how many people police kill every year. Based on the figures that are reported to the federal government, ProPublica recently concluded that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.
Under the bill awaiting Obama's signature, states receiving federal funds would be required to report every quarter on deaths in law enforcement custody. This includes not [only] those who are killed by police during a stop, arrest, or other interaction. It also includes those who die in jail or prison. [Additionally,] it requires details about these shootings including gender, race, as well as at least some circumstances surrounding the death.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Tuesday December 16 2014, @10:07PM
One can pacify a restless group of people by showering it with taxpayer money. Another way is to not report crimes. Yet another way is to change the ways the statistic is calculated. Yet another way is to shift the population in such a way that criminals live in ghettos and kill each other, and nobody cares. (This shift happens naturally, as potential victims leave dangerous areas.)
As no single person can be sure, based on his personal recollection, how it was "back then," anything that is printed on paper or in the Internet can be accepted as truth. For example, the phenomenon of the "knock-out game" did not exist 20 years ago - and it is responsible today for some percentage of violent crime. On the other hand, wars between mafias were waged decades ago - but not today.
The most basic rule of thumb here is simply the count of idle hands. People who are working every day have little energy left for breaking into houses during the night; and they have little reason to do so. Working people are also more social, and more educated to understand life in the adult world. Not to say that crimes won't happen within a society with 100% employment - domestic disputes will take its toll; but property crimes, and violence for sake of violence will be greatly reduced.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday December 17 2014, @07:05AM
While you have a point that crime usually increases with unemployment, it does not follow that violent crime increases. Statistics from most of the Western World show a decrease in violent crime over the last 30 or 40 years, not just American statistics and some governments such as mine who run on a law and order platform really want the statistics to show the opposite so they can more easily expand the law and prison segments of society and especially get rid of those pesky civil rights like our equivalent of your 4th amendment and snoop on everyone while being the most secretive government in memory.