How we built the largest database of police use of force in N.J. history
A database that lists the officers responsible for force by name, frequency and race. Resulting in neat graphs that strongly suggests that police violence is caused by two factors: individuals and/or race.<p>Police brutality is a serious problem and data like this should be available, but several things here are (maybe intentionally) provocative:<p>1. Listing the officers by name is a kind of online vigilantism that ultimately might threaten their personal safety. It doesn't sit well with me at least. This data should be anonymized.<p>2. The prominence of graphs that conflict race of officer with race distribution of the community. Race should really be stripped from this kind statistic.  Race is a social construct based on superficial attributes that does not carry any explanatory meaning. It mostly serves to underpin racist prejudice, which in turn serves to blur out the real reasons for a problem.