John Lott discusses some of the pros and cons of using different standards for hiring police officers. His assessment is much more balanced than one I would give, but he makes a few good points. For instance, women and blacks are important for certain types of undercover work. And female victims may feel more comfortable talking to female officers.
Here’s where things get sticky: “The problem is that because of large differences in strength and size between men and women, different standards are applied to ensure that there are more female officers,” Lott writes. If anyone told me that men and women had to meet the same physical requirements while training at a police academy, I’d have to call that person a liar.
Lott wisely or unwisely, depending on your point of view, glosses over the exam pass rates between blacks and whites and focuses on the relatively weaker physical strength of women compared to men. Thankfully and rationally, he acknowledges that men and women are indeed different, despite PC rhetoric to the contrary.
I, personally, like being a woman, don’t want to be a man, and acknowledge that the average man is stronger than I am. I also contend that a dangerous criminal, especially one accused of raping a woman, would probably be delighted that my superiors were stupid enough to leave me alone with him even if I were carrying a rifle.
This is where things can turn deadly in a hurry:
Female officers are more likely to accidentally shoot people. Each 1 percent increase in the number of white female officers [Why white women specifically are a factor in the increase of shootings, I find interesting.] in a police force increases the number of shootings of civilians by 2.7 percent. Because of their weaker physical strength, female officers have less time to decide on whether to fire their weapon. If a man makes a mistake and waits too long to shoot a suspect who is attacking him, the male officer still has a chance of using his strength to subdue the attacker. Female officers (as was the case in Atlanta) will lose control of the situation at that point.
Again, common sense is the key here. Sadly, the people running things don’t seem to have any.
Update: John Lott responded to my e-mail. I asked in part, “Why does the number of shootings increase with the number of white female officers specifically?”
His reply: “If you look at page 21 in the pdf file that you can link to from the op-ed, you will see that black males have the lowest rate of accidental shootings, followed by white males, then black females. White females have the highest rate. These four rankings follow closely the relative physical strength of the officers in the four groups.”
To read the study, click on one of the PDF links on this page.
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Much like the sign at the ammusement park that says, “You must be this tall to ride”, all law enforcement applicants should be required to “overpower this man!” This man should be over six feet tall and weigh over 200 lbs.
If the NFL, NBA, and all the other sports organizations are free to select the candidates best suited for their positions why is it that we taxpayers are not? Why does Value For One’s Dollar have to stop at public employees?
This is usually the work of unelected judges and liberal suits crying “discrimination!” Over time our police forces become very similar to public schools; Ineffective!
We need police officers of all sorts. However I think police recruitment should based on the needs of the force and not any desired predetermined demographic outcome. So if you need female officers for undercover work, recruit them. Just do not recruit anybody to meet some arbitary demographic goal.
“I also contend that a dangerous criminal, especially one accused of raping a woman, would probably be delighted that my superiors were stupid enough to leave me alone with him even if I were carrying a rifle.”
maybe we ought to be testing the cognitive abilities of superiors, rather than applicants.
Superiors were once applicants, actus.
So….. black cops are physically stronger than white cops. Must be something wrong with the strength assessment tests. Let’s lower the standards so more white cops can be strong, too!
“Superiors were once applicants, actus.”
Maybe they need higher standards than regular applicants. Or higher standards than now.
It seems to me that the last to be hired and the first to be fired would be white women. The next in line would be under-sized white men. I’ve seen some of the female black cops on “COPS” and they seem fully capable of dealing with anything by themselves.
1st – all police officers are beat patrollers…but the assumption in so many of these post are that this is true…
2nd – if physical strength is the lowest common denominator in individuals perceptions on who should be a police officer, then what is the purpose of self-defense training…
My personal opinion is provide be subdue training which mitigates the extra strength of the average lay criminal who would not be trained in these techniques…similar to joyce gracie who at 5′10” 160 lbs was winning all the ufc tournaments againts 250 monsters….your average female cop appropriately trained, should be able to subdue an untrained male 50 or 60 lbs heavier…
I don’t think it should be a strength test…I think it should be a skills test…
LaShawn, is John Lott really saying in his reply that black women are stronger than white women and that black men are stronger than white? I think lot is off base with that. If what he says is true,then I think the difference might be due to intimadation factors based on how the different groups are viewed.
I think you might be right, Eric. I haven’t had a chance to read the entire study. I will later today.
The reason Joyce Gracie is beating monsters is that it is a one-on-one tournament in a relatively safe ring and Brazilian Ju Jitsu is very good for that. Self defense forums have been widely skeptical about BJJ in real life because taking people to ground, especially when multiple opponents may be involved, is a very very bad idea.
In general I agree though, it should be about effectiveness not gender politics or sheer physical size. Hire the women that can do the job.
I don’t trust John Lott’s statistical research one bit.
He has already been shown to be a liar and fraud on his
gun research. And if you think he was debunked by flaming
anti-gun liberals, you would be wrong…
Both ultra-conservative Michelle Malkin and pro-gun libertarian Reason columnist Julian Sanchez have written on John Lott’s academic fraud:
Michelle Malkin’s column:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin020503.asp
Julian sanchez’s column:
http://reason.com/0305/co.js.the.shtml
I remember reading about this. Same guy, huh? Oh, well. Jab, do me a favor and be a little less strident. The tone of your comment is a little irritating. – Admin
“The reason Joyce Gracie is beating monsters is that it is a one-on-one tournament in a relatively safe ring and Brazilian Ju Jitsu is very good for that. Self defense forums have been widely skeptical about BJJ in real life because taking people to ground, especially when multiple opponents may be involved, is a very very bad idea.”
If there are “multiple” opponents that is when a gun should come into play…and self-defense ju-jitzu tactics are standard training in many of the law department now…my question is…
A) How many times does an officer legitimately have to take someone down
B) How good is the submission skills taught…and what is the level of achievement one needs to be legitimately ready to be one the streets…
To me this is not about sex or size but about skill…
I agree hirez, we need to get the best skilled people regardless of race or sex..
Size/strength will always matter, in the end.
The question is, how desperate must the situation be before it is the deciding factor (when all other elements are equal).
I know that when I played rugby, my small size (5′7″) made me a prime target. Given the choice between skirting past me, or the other wing who was 6′ or better, most people opted for me. Many times, being skilled and well muscled offset this, but I know that if was just as skilled but 7 inches taller (and the 20 lbs+ that goes with it), I’d have been a much larger threat on the pitch.
OK, I can’t keep my mouth shut. I have worked for a large So Cal metro PD for over 30 yrs here’s a couple of quick takes off the top of my mind.
Racial profiling in the true political sense does occur and should not be tolerated. A lot of good police work starts with profiling yes, but not necessarily “racial.” This is akin to the
concepts in Gaven DeBecker’s book “Gift of Fear.”
The police have a special frame of reference and personal experience that all comes into play. It’s that intuition that draws attention to someone or situation. What is not normal or out of the ordinary. The problem is alot of young cops don’t have the verbal skills to articulate the thinking process that goes into decisions whether to make contact with someone or when that person is lying or about to fight.
True racial profiling is not going to be stopped by any significant stat measurements because it is is being monitored and behavior will change. The problem is that”good police” work will be detered by those officers not wanting to be caught up in the political numbers game.
This is a bahavioral training issue that needs to be address in the hiring process and attitudes monitored by assessment surveys. The attitudes can be changed and those who don’t get with the program can be weeded out. The simplistic knee jerk reaction of most politicians is to legislate this out of existence. Compile traffic stop stats. It’s like throwing the baby out with the wash. You’re intended action has detrimental effects far beyond what you were trying to control.
My soapbox of late is why harass elderly ladies at airport term gates. The relative risk of them being Islamofascist suicidal terrorists is longer than winning the Calif lottery. However we are spending millions of dollars for “feel good” sense of security that we are doing something meaningful to prevent another 9/11 attack. We could learn a thing or two from the Israelis by simply asking some open ended questions that can’t be anticipated and other subtle techs.
Let’s face it police work in any urban environment is a demanding job. You are the front line of the establishment and the societal status quo enforcers. This inherently creates conflict and no-win situations.
I’m not going to agrue that some cops play the John Wayne tough guy image. But a lot just want to go home safely at night. The image projected is one of control over the situation. constantly monitoring the situation for slight moves, glances, and other indicatiors that a person may physcially challenge you or bolt. While the person being stopped may not know this that the cop has to be on their toes all the time. You can’t afford to show weakness or let your guard down until you have accessed the situation and decided (sometimes wrongly) that there is no danger present.
This inherently causes image problems when encountering “nice” people. Problem is making that determination quickly. All the while knowing that parolees constantly lift weights and practice gun takaways in prison yards day in day out. They constantly monitor the officers they come in contact with for signs of inattention to get that break to overpower them.
Just some venting. It’s not as cut an dried as what may believe. I would venture (no valid data) but white female officers because of their size are more inclined to equalize a situation with a gun sooner. Knowing if they are physically assaulted they may be overpowered. I’m all for defensive techs but most agencies are strapped for manwpower and it takes time away from the street to have meaningful ongoing conditioning programs.
I will end with most people never or seldom come into contact with the “real” police. The preception in their mind is what is protrayed by the media like CSI and all the police shows.
Please remember this are fiction and no way are a accurate reflection of reality. Nothing get’s resolved in 60 mins, there are endless supply of officers around, all detectivs are not Lts and there is never any paperwork.
Unfortunately the public’s perception and expectations are driven by this false image, so when they encounter the real police there is a reality adjustment. No everyone doesn’t have a personal det or policemen available to respond on a moments notice. This is something your politicians will not tell you and it’s left to the boots on the ground to make these reality adjustments. Just remember all police are recruited unfortunately from the human race . We don’t have “Gort’s” from, “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
A good book for all the “liberals” out there that will undoubtedly have “What about? Why ? and Why not?” Go read this book, “Signal Zero” where a oollege professor took up the challenge of his students and went and became a real cop. There are times when the sound of a “shotgun racking” sends a strong message to those who are ready to attack you. The professor never thought he would have to resort to that as he could negotiate/reason folks into doing the right thing. He soon learned he was WRONG!
The problem, sensitivity, with starting to describe racial differences among our human species is that someone, somewhere, will paint the comments ‘racist’ or thereabouts…HOWEVER, there ARE physiological differences among specific races of humans (d’oh) and in this situation, specifically, they are key to understanding the results.
“Black people” have greater muscle mass as humans than do other races. It’s a fact of physiology. Caucasians have less melanin in their skin than do other races, and on and on. These are differences expressed by our biology that categorize all races that make up our human species.
Females of all races express different physiology than do males, and vice versa and among females who are “black,” they’re going to have, physiologically, greater muscle mass than most females of other races (on standard, not always, but by the standard, given that there are always individuals from any racial type that display unique physiology), and sometimes they’re going to have greater muscle mass than males of other races by and determined by their physiology when compared with that of males/females of other racial types.
It’s just biology.
As that impacts certain activities where a physical standard is required to do what job, on the average, I’d say that a large human being (most males are on average larger than most females and most males of all racial types have greater muscle mass and greater skeletal structure than do most females) makes for a better law enforcement individual than a smaller statured person. There’s room for variations of all applications but the idea that you can assign a 5/4″ (or thereabouts) Asian or Caucasian female, on average, to “guard” and enforce some form of social standard physically when confronted by a larger male (of any racial type) isn’t completely sensible.
Meaning, we have racial differences combined with gender differences in how our bodies develope, ON AVERAGE. Certain tasks require, to be blunt, mere “brute force” or the promise of greater brute force than an adversary and I can’t see any problem in taking these things into consideration.
I happen to find it far easier to interact with males than most females so I can understand and appreciate that males tend to deliver better law enforcement than females (personal perspectives here) but that doesn’t discount that females can serve in law enforcement in other areas that don’t require physical presence or ability to commit force when necessary. I think it’s just common sense…use what is available to the best application possible. The racial aspects become later clouded with one thing or another, but it’s really an issue of who can accomplish what to the best possible end by what means.
How about you, La Shawn? Do you have more muscle mass that the average white female? (jk…and probably a very bad one!)
stan: I wrote about facts of human physiology…aspects of biology that is accepted as fact about our biology. It’s not a personal opinion that “blacks have greater muscle mass than do other races…” no more than skin color is a matter of opinion or other differences experienced by our various human races.
It’s a part of “Negroid” physiology that they have greater muscle mass than do other human races. It’s just a difference. I could otherwise express it this way: Caucasians have less muscle mass than do Negroids, Asians have even less muscle mass than do Negroids and Caucasians…
I really am loathe to attempt to share discussions about racial differences from a biological perspective because someone always, always, works that toward the icky ‘racist’ theme. It isn’t. It’s just a discussion about what makes for racial differences on a biological basis, and since I believe we are created by God, I’d say that he created some exceptionally pretty jewels and we later labelled them “races.”
-S-,
It was just a lame joke…I watch track & field…it’s just that some of these differences have been used by racists in the past to imply that blacks have superior sexual prowess, less intellectual capacity, more “brute” strength, etc. I know this isn’t what you meant…sorry for the offense.
La Shawn
Saying women shouldn’t do police work is just nonsense.
But common sense would dictate specific jobs – like accompanying 250 pound rapists.
I am impressed at the sex differences in police shootings. Perhaps White women are not trigger happy, but the others are too hesitant to shoot when they should.
Frank, you know I didn’t say women shouldn’t do police work. But no woman, I don’t care how large, shouldn’t “guard” a violent thug. This whole conversation is too strange to be true. Considering the differential between male/female strength, it’s a given that big strong males are better suited for watching over other big strong males. One of the many reasons I write this blog is to say what other people are too PC or too afraid to say.
I’m not afraid.
Right On! Go Girl!
La Shawn there is a point at which we become too PC!
That was the point I was trying to make with the airport terminal “warm and fuzzy” stuff. We’re wasting a lot of money on something that doesn’t provide any real security. AQ will ram this up where the sun don’t shine!
Don’t think for a minute are enemy in the GWOT doesn’t know this and will exploit it whenever possible.
With the small female officer left to guard a big “Thug” this is where too PC get’s people hurt.
Bottom line is use a little “COMMON SENSE.” I would find it poor tactical planning to leave a big guy no matter what race to guard a determined crook who’s intent is to overpower the officer.
Intelligent design of bldgs, interior secure passage ways, and other things limit exposure to where the crook thinks he has an opportunity to win.
That COMMON SENSE and has nothing to do with PCism.
LaShawn–the thread is certainly interesting, and I read Mr. Lott’s study in its entirety when it first surfaced on Michelle Malkin’s site. I tend to agree with his findings, in that I have no evidence that would otherwise dispute it. However, the notion of ‘physical strength’ being the only criteria to judge a police officers qualifications is just plain wrong–particularly in this case. I am a retired Lieutenant from the NYPD. I can tell you from my personal experience working side by side and supervising females in the NYPD, female officers can be every bit as good–or incompetent, for that matter–as their male counterparts. Mistakes were made that fateful day in Atlanta–but it had very little to do with the escorting officer’s gender. Why was this man–with a history of violence–allowed in the courtroom unshackled escorted by ARMED officers? I’ll tell you why. Because we have become a nation gripped by ‘political correctness’–where even the savages among us are allowed to roam free–lest we ‘unduly influence’ a potential jury into possibly thinking the man is guilty of what he’s been hauled into court for. The sheer stupidity of that weakness in judgement cost innocent lives that day. What a shame. It had nothing to do with the officer’s strength. It had everything to do with the fact that she was armed with a gun, escorting an unsecure prisoner.
S – States
“Black people” have greater muscle mass as humans than do other races. It’s a fact of physiology. Caucasians have less melanin in their skin than do other races, and on and on. These are differences expressed by our biology that categorize all races that make up our human species.”
I did a study with a professor at UNL and he began with the same assumption. But here is the flaw…
Are you distinguishing between the “african-american” or between “negroids” as a whole…because there is a big difference which you most definitely are not making…at least in this post…the so-called negroid comes in a vast array of size and shape, depending on where they are born, what culture they are from, (IE Pigmy to Dinka) and other variables…to attempt to homogenize ‘negroids’ into one uniform group, is the same as trying to homogenize ‘asians’ into one uniform group…have you considered the Polynesian or the Samoan? Who are predisposed to be very large as opposed to Filipino’s who are very small?
Secondly, how is “muscle” mass determined? According to the study it is not “mass” but muscle density which seems to be the differientation between american blacks and american whites…meaning that on average a black and white with the same overall muscle ‘mass’ will not be equally as strong because the black tends to have more muscle ‘density’ (mass per volume higher cross-sections in muscle fiber)which indicates greater strength….
As for the original topic…
Why should one person no matter how large guard one highly violent prisoner?
Regarding black muscle mass, blacks also have, on average, 10-15% more testosterone than whites. Again, it’s just biology.
The reason people flip out over this sort of a thing can be found in Stan’s comment:
“it’s just that some of these differences have been used by racists in the past to imply that blacks have superior sexual prowess, less intellectual capacity, more “brute strength, etc.”
Well, brute strength is just physical strength. So yes, if blacks have more muscle mass and more testosterone on average than whites, than they will have more “brute” strength than whites. Am I racist?
And come to think of it, if blacks can be stronger, on average, than whites as a result of genetics (and it seems pretty clear to me that testosterone levels and muscle mass are largely tied to genetics – yes you can work out to gain mass and psychological events can influence testosterone production, but in both cases there is nevertheless a significant and undeniable genetic component), why can’t whites and Asians be more intelligent than blacks on average for similar reasons?
Logically, if you believe that blacks are stronger than whites on average AND also as intelligent as whites on average, you actually believe that blacks are the master race. On the other hand, if you believe that blacks are generally stronger than whites but also generally somewhat less intelligent, you believe that there has been an evolutionary tradeoff between brains and brawn and that no race is superior to the another, overall. Which is the more racist sentiment?
Hirez-
Not to be picky, but I don’t think pygmies are classified as “Negroids” just because they live in Africa. They are too genetically different, and make up their own classification.
Good points, though. There is significant genetic diversity within races themselves. Still, if the overwhelming majority of East Asians – Chinese (all 1 billion of them), Japanese, Koreans and so on – are generally low-testosterone, you can make a qualified generalization about “East Asian” muscle mass.
Gay like a Fox…
At the risk of redundancy, with the assumption that you did not read my post…I will ask you two questions…
1st – What does it mean to be “black” with the follow up of what does it mean to be “negroid”…
2nd – What does it mean to be “white”…
Secondly in regard to intelligence and evolutionary trade offs…what is intelligence, how is it measure and defined?
Hirez-
Black and white are not scientific terms, so they mean different things to differnt people. If we’re going to get technical we ought to use caucasian, negroid and mongoloid. These are the three major racial divisions of man, with other possible races being African pygmies and Australian aborigines.
There are different facets of intelligence but when most people speak of intelligence they are speaking of “G”, or “general intelligence”, which is measurable and is measured through IQ tests. Childhood “G” correlates very strongly with social-economic status in adulthood. “G” is measured by the army in admissions to weed out insufficiently intelligent recruits.
My point remains that intelligence is real, strength is real, and if we are going to say that if the members of one race are generally stronger than another, then why can we not say that the members of one race are generally more intelligent than another? Why can the races differ in average strength but not intelligence? The bran is an organ like any other, subject to sexual selection and genetic drift…
Gay like a Fox,
Wow! If you’re right in that “Asians” have lower-testerone, then my hats off to them, especially the Chinese. There are 1.3 billion of them in China and millions more in every city of the world. To have reproduced in this fashion against all genetic odds…and to have us buying all their stuff so that we have a massive trade debt with them…to be filling our colleges and universities…to be excelling in gymnastics and diving…and leading the American League in hitting… What is it that whites do well any way? And hats off to La Shawn and other black bloggers, liberal and conservative, who have overcome their mental deficiencies. My vote is for the Chinese as the master race. Zhonguo ren, women ai nimen.
“My point remains that intelligence is real, strength is real, and if we are going to say that if the members of one race are generally stronger than another, then why can we not say that the members of one race are generally more intelligent than another? Why can the races differ in average strength but not intelligence? The bran is an organ like any other, subject to sexual selection and genetic drift… ”
According to Darwin – “Man has been studied more carefully than any other animal, and yet there is the greatest possible diversity amongst capable judges whether he should be classed as a single species or race, or as two (Virey), as three (Jacquinot), as four (Kant), five (Blumenbach), six (Buffon), seven (Hunter), eight (Agassiz), eleven (Pickering), fifteen (Bory St. Vincent), sixteen (Desmoulins), twenty-two (Morton), sixty (Crawfurd), or as sixty- three, according to Burke. This diversity of judgment does not prove that the races ought not to be ranked as species, but it shews that they graduate into each other, and that it is hardly possible to discover clear distinctive characters between them.”
No modern geneticist or sociologist worth his salt believes in the four divisions as you mention, this is an old 19th century theory that has been debunked…
A more salient example is myself…9/16 white 6/16 black and 1/16 native american…am I a caucazoid or negroid?…
There are whole populations and people groups of “mixed” heritage, such as the Northern Sudanese who are a composite of arabic (which would be considered mongolian) and african (negroid) what are they?
Those are just a few examples, more could be named…
That is why I asked you what is “black” because most of the studies on muscle density are done on african-AMERICANS who are uniquely different than African’s proper because of the tremendous racial diversity in the background of the African American.
So as we discuss genetic diversity and the phenotypes, it is important to recognize that there is no large group homogeny amongst “races”.
In terms of IQ…this myth has been debunked as well in studies that show IQ is as much related to environment, the nature of the test, if not more so than genetics. References can be provided although that is outside of the scope of this thread.
I mistakenly implied that the fellow who led the AL in hitting was Chinese. Of course he was not, he is Japanese. But hey…who cares? They’re all under-sized Asians anyway.
Jab,
Liberals who do not like Lott’s findings in his numerous studied related to firearms have been trying to discredit him for years. They have not (let me repeat that, they have NOT) been able to do so.
I would like to know specifically where you have obtained information (actual viable information, not some liberal snow job) that proves that John Lott has ever perpetrated any acedemic fraud in any of his work.
In fact, I can verify that much of what he has found in his numerous studies parallels what I and other career police officers have found to be the case both anecdotally and through direct experience.
The racial aspect not being discussed is the race of the suspects. In today’s racial climate, I would expect a black suspect (male or female) to show less respect to a white officer (m/f) and a white suspect (m/f) to show less respect to a black officer (m/f), especially when the suspect (either race) is poor and uneducated.
Thus, if the criminal suspects in the study were predominately black (I believe the study was focused on urban centers) then I would expect a more aggressive stance against white officers which would result in a higher use of firearms.
Likewise, if the study focused on areas with a smaller black population, I expect that the black officers would have greater need of their firearms.
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