CPRC in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review: Comments on FBI Director James Comey’s recent speech on police and race

Feb 27, 2015 | Featured

John Lott’s newest piece in the starts this way:

FBI Director James Comey’s recent speech on police and race was about as politically incorrect a speech as you will get these days from a high-ranking government official. Comey acknowledges “the existence of unconscious (racial) bias,” but he doesn’t think that racism is responsible for so many blacks being in jail.

Unlike President Obama, he doesn’t see a need to change the way police are trained. Comey recognizes that there are real problems, but he believes they arise from drugs, underperforming schools and unemployment.

Comey’s comments are at odds with what blacks are telling pollsters. Compared with other Americans, blacks were 29 percent more likely to primarily attribute the disproportionate imprisonment of blacks to racial discrimination. Blacks are much more likely to say that police treat blacks less fairly than whites. And blacks are also more likely to believe that the police are dishonest. . . .

There is actually strong evidence that blacks trust police at least as much as whites do. What people say and what they do are often very different. . . .

The rest of the piece is available here.

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