Police officers are significantly more likely to give white people breaks on speeding tickets

The US-based economists Felipe Goncalves and Steven Mello have both had the police give them a break. It gave them a brilliant idea for uncovering racial bias in policing.
Both Goncalves and Mello had been stopped for driving above the speed limit, and when a police officer wrote their ticket, it was for less than the speed they were actually driving. The officer in both cases was being lenient. By reducing their official speed, they received a lesser fine. This kind of “speed discounting” is fairly common practice across US police departments.
Goncalves and Mello, PhD students at Princeton University who use economic analysis to study police misconduct, had stumbled on a test they could use to see if the police treated people of different races in this particular context. Were certain groups less likely to be treated leniently when caught driving over the speed limit? In a recently released paper (pdf), the researchers show that minorities are 50% less likely to get this kind of break.
In order to uncover this bias, Goncalves and Mello analyzed nearly one million tickets given out by Florida Highway Patrol from 2005-2015. They chose Florida because the state is particularly open with its fines data.
In Florida, like most states (pdf), the size of a speeding fine depends on the magnitude of the violation. In Florida, driving 6-9 miles per hour (mph) over a posted limit carries a fine of $125; 10 mph over, and it’s a minimum of least $200. Florida Highway Patrol officers give an inordinate amount of 9 mph tickets—more than 30% of all tickets were for going exactly 9 mph above the speed limit, indicating that the highway patrol does tend to be pretty lenient overall.
If racial bias plays a role in the likelihood of getting a break, we would expect minorities to get fewer 9 mph speeding tickets. That is exactly what Goncalves and Mello found. About 35% of all speeding tickets for drivers self-identifying as white are 9 mph tickets, while only 25% of tickets for minority drivers fall in that category.
Goncalves and Mello found the disparity has two causes: direct racial bias and regional differences.
“If you forced every officer to treat minorities the way they treat white people,” Goncalves told Quartz, the leniency disparity would drop, but only slightly. He and Mello found the majority of police officers actually don’t exhibit any bias at all. Their analysis suggests only 20% of officers are more lenient to a particular race—and though the majority of bias benefits whites, some officers are actually more lenient towards minorities. Women, younger officers, and minorities are all less likely display bias.
There are regional differences, though, that hide an insidious form of bias, explains Goncalves, that is powerful enough to have about twice the impact on the leniency disparity as direct racial bias. “Minorities tend to live in areas that are less lenient towards everybody,” he says. If all people in a 90% white area are given breaks, but all people in a 90% minority are not, it amounts to huge difference in actual experience, even if no individual police officer is acting biased.
What’s to be done? After they analyzed the impact of various policies, such as firing biased officers and hiring more minorities and women, Goncalves and Mello came to the conclusion that the most impactful policy would be to put more of the lenient officers in areas with large minority populations. In other words, give everybody an equal chance at a break.

Pictures of the Day: 9 April 2017

People watch the sunrise at Mam Tor, Peak District on what is to be the hottest day of the year so far.

Explosion at Egyptian church during Palm Sunday service kills 21, injures dozens

A bomb blast at a church north of Cairo killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens who had gathered for Palm Sunday mass, state media reported, in the latest apparent attack on Egypt's Coptic Christians.
Some 40 people were wounded in the blast, which struck at a Coptic Church in the Nile Delta City of Tanta, 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of Cairo, the reports said.
Palm Sunday is one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar, marking the triumphant entrance of Jesus to Jerusalem.
The state-run Nile television channel said the blast struck the Mar Girgis Coptic Church in Tanta just before 10:00am (0800 GMT).
Provincial governor Ahmad Deif told the channel that at least 42 people were wounded and that the explosion occurred inside the church.
"Either a bomb was planted or someone blew himself up," Deif said, adding that security forces had searched the church and surrounding areas for additional explosive devices.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's blast.
Copts, who make up about one tenth of Egypt's population of more than 92 million and who celebrate Easter next weekend, have been targeted by several attacks in recent months.

 

Jihadists and Islamists accuse them of supporting the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, which ushered in a deadly crackdown on his supporters.
In December, a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group killed 29 worshippers during Sunday mass in Cairo.
The bombing of the church within a compound that also holds the seat of the Coptic papacy was the deadliest attack against the minority in recent memory.

A spate of jihadist-linked attacks in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula, including the murder of a Copt in the city of El Arish whose house was also burned, have led some Coptic families to flee their homes.
About 250 Christians took refuge in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) released a video in February calling for attacks on the religious minority.

 

Egypt's army is waging a counter-insurgency against an Isil affiliate in Sinai, which has claimed scores of attacks against police and army positions.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as army chief helped the military to remove Morsi, defended his security forces in a televised address soon afterwards.
"(The attacks aim to) destabilise the fabric of Egypt... to give the impression that one group isn't protected as it should be," Sisi said at the time.
Following Morsi's ouster, mobs attacked dozens of churches and Christian properties.
Pope Francis is due to visit Cairo on April 28-29 to show solidarity with Egypt's Christian community.
The pontiff will visit the site of the December church attack next to Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral - the seat of Coptic Christian Pope Tawadros II.
On Sunday the Pope condemned the blast.
"I pray for the dead and the victims. May the Lord convert the hearts of people who sow terror, violence and death and even the hearts of those who produce and traffic in weapons," he said at the end of his Palm Sunday Mass before tens of thousands of people in St. Peter's Square.

He expressed his "deepest condolences" to all Egyptians and to the head of the Coptic Church, who is due to be one of his hosts on the April 28-29 trip.

 

Syria crisis: Russia raises prospect of war if it is given G7 ultimatum as it mocks Boris Johnson's no-show

Boris Johnson will lead talks with the G7 nations over Syria Credit: Reuters

• Gordon Rayner, Political Editor
• Kate McCann, Senior Political Correspondent

9 April 2017 • 8:59am

Russia has raised the prospect of war with the West as it mocked Boris Johnson for cancelling a trip to Moscow in the wake of the Syrian nerve gas attack.
The Russian Embassy in London posted a series of provocative tweets on its official account in which it suggested that "a conventional war" could be one outcome if the G7 group of nations presents it with an ultimatum later this week.
The Embassy also said it was "deplorable" that Mr Johnson was "unable to stand Western ground" by attending talks with his Russian counterpart.

It came as Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, warned Russia it is responsible for the deaths caused by the Syrian chemical weapons attack "by proxy".
Mr Johnson had been due to fly to Moscow tonight for a series of meetings with Russian diplomats tomorrow, but after speaking to the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson he decided to cancel the trip and allow Mr Tillerson to take the lead with a visit to Moscow later in the week.
Instead, Mr Johnson will attend a meeting of foreign ministers of the G7 nations in Italy on Monday and Tuesday, where he will try to build a consensus for  demands to Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull his troops out of Syria and end his support for President Bashar al-Assad.

 

The Russian Embassy suggested that if President Putin was given an ultimatum, the outcome would be either a "war of clowns, war of muses, a conventional war or mix of the above".

The Foreign Office did not respond, though sources pointed out that the Russian Embassy in London has a history of tweeting provocative comments that come to nothing.

 

 

Writing in the Sunday Times Mr Fallon said: "Russia must show the resolve necessary to bring this regime to heel. The Russians have influence in the region.
"They helped broker the original deal to put chemical weapons out of commission. This latest war crime happened on their watch…
“By proxy Russia is responsible for every civilian death last week. If Russia wants to be absolved of responsibility for future attacks, Vladimir Putin needs to enforce commitments, to dismantle Assad’s chemical weapons arsenal for good, and to get fully engaged with the UN peacekeeping progress."
In a fresh development over the weekend Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, signalled a hardening of the Trump administration's attitude towards Syria by calling for regime change in an interview which will be broadcast today.

 

“There’s not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime,” she  said, while reiterating that defeating Isis was still the number one policy goal. “If you look at his actions, if you look at the situation, it’s going to be hard to see a government that’s peaceful and stable with Assad.”
This will bolster Mr Johnson's  hopes of  persuading  Donald Trump to commit to regime change after his surprise decision to launch air strikes on Assad forces after a chemical weapons attack killed more than 80.

It marked a major departure from the criticism of US military intervention and apparent support for Russia’s role in Syria that Mr Trump voiced during his election campaign.
However internal disagreements in the White House appear to be playing out after a string of mixed messages over Syria in recent days.

 

Mr Johnson announced the cancellation of his trip to Russia - the first a Foreign Secretary would have made in half a decade - by a statement posted online.
“Developments in Syria have changed the situation fundamentally,” Mr Johnson said, adding he would instead focus on building “coordinated international support for a ceasefire on the ground and an intensified political process”.
He said attempts to secure a “clear and co-ordinated message to the Russians” over Syria will be the focus of the G7 meeting.
The group - made up of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and America - had included Russia under the G8 label until 2014, when it left after the annexation of Crimea.

 

A Foreign Office source said: “It has been noticeable this week that both Tillerson and Trump have said there is no future for Assad. One strand of what could come out of the G7 is that we say Assad has to go."
Mr Johnson would be “hitting the phone” to ensure a “very strong and very hard-hitting” statement over Russia’s involved in Syria is agreed, the source added.
The Foreign Secretary had been due to fly to Russia today and hold talks and a press conference with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Monday.

 

His allies privately conceded that appearing alongside Russia ministers just days the Syrian leader they support was accused of using chemical weapons was not advisable. However critics jumped on the cancellation.

On Saturday the Russian Embassy’s official Twitter account suggested Mr Johnson's “theatrics” hid a “lack of argument” over Syria.
The message linked to a rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, written to commemorate Russia’s famous defeat of Napoleon that year.

 

Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “Boris has revealed himself to be a poodle of Washington, having his diary managed from across the pond.”
Renewed focus on Britain's military efforts in Syria has followed Mr Trump’s air strike, which saw 59 Tomahawk missiles hit the al-Shayrat air base near the city of Homs.
Ministers have played down the likelihood of the UK launching its own air strikes on Assad forces, which they believe would need to be approved by MPs through another vote.

  

In a show of defiance at Jeremy Corbyn, 25 Labour MPs have signed a motion demanding tougher action on the Assad regime, including imposing a no-fly zone.
“Where chemical weapons are used, and where civilians are harmed, we must demonstrate to the perpetrators that such actions will not be tolerated,” the statement reads.
“Inaction has consequences too, and we cannot allow the slaughter to continue, and that is why we support immediate action to prevent further atrocities.”