Police Shootings: lack of overtime & high unemployment, it's deeper than that

By D. Large

Okay, I know I fell asleep in statistics class. But I know I didn't do a Rip Van Winkle the whole semester. And I still know when somebody is trying to sell a crock of crap using faulty logic which is what Gary Blankinship, Houston Police Union President, is attempting in his explanation for the increase in police shootings in Houston. Here are the statistics and then his observation.

Shootings of citizens by Harris County law officers already this year have overtaken the number of shootings last year, as well as the year before. As of Sept. 24, a total of 44 police shootings have occurred, up from 35 in all of 2008, and 32 in 2007.

The Houston Police Department has the highest number of shootings, with 24 this year, up from 21 in all of 2008, and 19 in 2007. The Harris County Sheriff's Office has been involved in six shootings so far this year, down one from the seven logged in 2008.

Deaths are up, as well. As of last Thursday, 20 people had been killed in police shootings, up from 16 killed in all of 2008, and 12 the year before.

Mr. Blankinship's Obsevation:

“We were able to keep some controls on it with overtime, and now they've (city council) cut it out,“ said Gary Blankinship, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, referring to recently restricted overtime pay. “But now unemployment is up, they're not working, they have idle time, they run out of money, they start stealing and doing drugs.”

So in one paragraph Mr Blankinship provides us with 2 reasons (or two independent variables) he attributes to the increase in police shootings.

First he states that due to overtime cuts meaning less time to provide officers to be on the streets he attributes to the increased numbers of police shootings. Then in the same breathe he says because of increased unemployment in the city that is another reason for the increase in police shootings in the city..

So he attributes a correlation between these two independent variable, the lack of overtime available to officers and the fact more people are unemployed, as a cause of increased police shootings.

Wait a minute isn't that a Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Or in layman terms a logical fallacy which states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one."

Mr. Blankinship can you show us the statistical correlation in a decrease of police shootings based on high overtime and low unemployment. How would and high overtime hours and high unemployment effect the number of police shootings?

Police officer shootings are affected by more than the police Chief cutting overtime pay and the number of people standing in the unemployment line. What about factors like stress on the police officers, proper understanding of use of lethal force policies and time of the day the shootings occurred. Shootings which occur in the day versus night.

If Mr. Blankinship's assessment that a cut in overtime paid contributed to police officers involved in more shootings then we could also challenge that assumption by pointing out that working less overtime should reduce the amount of stress police officers experience. That being the case wouldn't we expect to see less police shootings? But that's not what the shooting statistics reveal.

Restatement of examples:

With a decrease in the number of overtime hours, there has been an increase in police shootings over the same period.

Therefore, police shootings are caused by a lack of overtime.

The example illustrates the logical fallacy of assuming that correlation equals causation.

Example:

Since 2008 increased unemployment levels and police shootings have increased sharply.

Hence, high unemployment causes police shootings.

The above examples arguably makes the mistake of prematurely concluding a causal relationship where the relationship between the variables,(cut in overtime and high unemployment) if any, is so complex it may be labeled coincidental. The two events have no simple relationship to each other beside the fact that they are occurring at the same time.

Determining causation:

David Hume argued that causality is based on experience, and experience similarly based on the assumption that the future models the past, which in turn can only be based on experience - leading to a vicious circular logic.

In conclusion he asserted that causality is not based on actual reasoning (what you did Mr. Blankinship) only correlation can actually be perceived.

Intuitively, causation seems to require not just a correlation, but a counterfactual dependence.

A major goal of scientific experiments and statistical methods is to approximate as best as possible the counterfactual state of the world.

For example, one could run an experiment on identical twin police officers who were known to consistently get the same grades on their tests. One twin is sent to study for six hours while the other is sent to the amusement park. If their test scores suddenly diverged by a large degree, this would be strong evidence that studying (or going to the amusement park) had a causal effect on test scores

In this case, correlation between studying and test scores would almost certainly imply causation.

In the case of police shootings it is necessary to look at more variables that affect police officer performance of their duties. More specifically others factors like years of experience, training and ability to access situations where legal force is require would be better measurements in understanding causes in increased police shootings.

Mr. Blankinship you can not make blanket statements (no pun intended)like cuts in overtime and high unemployment to explain the increased incidents for police officer shootings without looking at other factors.

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