The NYPD Took This Dog Into Custody Because His Owner Filmed the Police

[GMDino]

https://hellgatenyc.com/the-nypd-took-this-dog-into-custody-because-his-owner-filmed-the-police

Quote:Harvey’s owner is joined by 2,746 other humans who have been arrested for filming the NYPD in the last two years alone.

[color=var(--wp--custom--color--gray--65)]3:26 PM EDT on May 18, 2023[/color]
Harvey was taken into custody at the 79th Precinct (Photo: Legal complaint)


By Nick Pinto

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On May 3, 2020, Molly Griffard stepped out of her Bed-Stuy apartment to take her dog Harvey, a nine-year-old Yorkie, for a walk. They hadn't gotten far when Griffard saw police pulling a young Black man out of a bodega and around the corner, where they already had several other young Black men up against a wall.

"There were a lot of officers there, and they were acting very aggressive, so I pulled out my phone and I started recording," Griffard said. "I believed what I was seeing was an illegal stop, question, and frisk."

Griffard has some expertise in this subject. She's an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, where she works on police misconduct issues as part of a division dedicated to reforming the criminal legal system.

As she filmed from a safe distance, Griffard told Hell Gate, she called out to the young men lined up against the wall, informing them of their rights to a lawyer and to remain silent. "That's when one of the officers started pushing me back, even though I wasn't close enough to interfere with what the police were doing," she said. "He told me I had to cross the street."

Griffard did cross the street, but she also asked the cop who had pushed her for his business card, knowing that under the Right to Know Act passed by the City Council in 2017, he was legally obligated to provide it. But he didn't comply with her request. "Instead, he spun me around and arrested me and my dog," she said. 

Griffard was not pleased to be getting arrested, but she especially didn't want her Yorkie taken into custody. A co-worker who lived nearby arrived on the scene as Griffard was being arrested and offered to take the dog, but the officers on the scene wouldn't allow it. Instead, they took Griffard and Harvey to the 79th Precinct, where they separated the two and confiscated Griffard's phone, booked her for obstruction of government administration, and held Griffard in a cell for eight hours, initially without a mask. While she was locked up, officers refused to  tell her where they were holding Harvey or how he was doing, she said. 

Griffard was eventually released around 1 a.m. with a desk appearance ticket. Her charges were dropped even before her first day in court, and the young men she'd seen up against the wall were never even arrested. Griffard never got her phone, or the video on it, back from the police. Harvey was traumatized by the incident, Griffard says, and is now prescribed a low dose of Xanax to treat his anxiety disorder.
[color=var(--wp--custom--color--gray--65)]Harvey was traumatized by his time in police custody, a lawsuit alleges. (Photo: Legal complaint)[/color]


This month, she filed a lawsuit alleging false arrest and imprisonment, retaliatory arrest, and that her constitutional rights were violated, alleging that New York City has "a widespread policy, custom, and practice of obstructing and preventing concerned citizens from recording police activity in public locations, and of targeting and arresting citizens for recording police activity in public places, in violation of the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution."

To show there's a pattern of police arresting people who try to film them, Griffard's lawsuit points to a dozen previous lawsuits arising from incidents in which police arrested or allegedly interfered with people who had been filming them.

In New York City, it is everyone's legal right to film the police. That right is recognized in case law and codified in City law in the form of the Right to Record Act, and in state law in the Right to Monitor Act. But while the right exists on paper, it isn't always honored and celebrated. In 2020, police arrested and injured a grandmother who they thought was filming them in a precinct vestibule. The same year, Department of Homeless Services police arrested a man who had photographed them violating masking regulations.

It's also not a right that our mayor seems terribly enthusiastic about. Eric Adams devoted one of his early speeches as mayor to criticizing people who film the police, saying that often, they get too close to cops. “If an officer is on the ground wrestling with someone that has a gun, they should not have to worry about someone standing over them with a camera while they’re wrestling with someone,” Adams said in March of 2022. He added, "Stop being on top of my police officers while they’re carrying out their jobs. That is not acceptable, and it won’t be tolerated. That is a very dangerous environment that you are creating when you are on top of that officer, who has an understanding of what he’s doing at the time, yelling ‘police brutality,’ yelling at the officer, calling them names.”

While Adams may be frustrated with people who film the police, the NYPD is required under the Right to Record Act to publish statistics tracking how many people it arrests while they are trying to film police activity. According to those numbers, the NYPD arrested 2,746 people who were in the process of filming or trying to film police activity in the last two years alone. Of those arrested while trying to film the police, 55 percent were Black and 29 percent Hispanic, according to the NYPD's records. The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment on its Right to Record statistics or Griffard's suit.

"That's a lot of arrests," said Keegan Stephan, one of the lawyers representing Griffard in her suit. "The NYPD is arresting, on average, four people who are trying to film the police, every single day. We already have the Right to Record Act, but clearly we need something else. Some sort of court injunction would be a start."

Griffard says she's bringing the lawsuit in the hope it will help compel the police to follow the law. "We have a right to record the police in New York City, and a right to know who those police are. No one should be retaliated against for exercising their rights."

[SunsetBengal]

Why would she have any reason to believe that it was an illegal stop, when it was already in progress when she got around the corner?

[GMDino]

(05-19-2023, 12:47 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Why would she have any reason to believe that it was an illegal stop, when it was already in progress when she got around the corner?

She suspected because of her experience:

Quote:Griffard has some expertise in this subject. She's an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, where she works on police misconduct issues as part of a division dedicated to reforming the criminal legal system.

Better question is why the arrested her for asking their name, took her dog, kept her phone...and dropped all charges.

[Dill]

(05-19-2023, 12:47 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Why would she have any reason to believe that it was an illegal stop, when it was already in progress when she got around the corner?

She couldn't "know" the stop was illegal, only act on concern about the possibility. 

The reason for doing so would be her previous experience with the frequency illegal stops.

I'm sure she understood the stop COULD have been perfectly legal but, in case it were not,
filming would be useful if questions were raised later about police handling of the event. 

I would never think to do that, but I am not a NY attorney constantly dealing with Police misconduct
as part of my job, e.g., people stopped and frisked everyday according to "profiles." 

[Dill]

(05-19-2023, 01:11 PM)GMDino Wrote: Better question is why the arrested her for asking their name, took her dog, kept her phone...and dropped all charges.

Inadequate spin on this, Dino.

This is what happens in "Biden's America"! 

[GMDino]

(05-20-2023, 11:45 AM)Dill Wrote: She couldn't "know" the stop was illegal, only act on concern about the possibility. 

The reason for doing so would be her previous experience with the frequency illegal stops.

I'm sure she understood the stop COULD have been perfectly legal but, in case it were not,
filming would be useful if questions were raised later about police handling of the event. 

I would never think to do that, but I am not a NY attorney constantly dealing with Police misconduct
as part of my job, e.g., people stopped and frisked everyday according to "profiles." 

Plus it is legal to film the police.  It is legal to ask for their name and badge number.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-19-2023, 12:47 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Why would she have any reason to believe that it was an illegal stop, when it was already in progress when she got around the corner?

You get these types of people at almost literally every arrest now.  They are also very frequently aggressive and escalate the situation.  I wasn't there and we only have the plaintiff's side of this story, so we have no idea if that occurred here or the police were, on this occasion, in the wrong.  It is certainly not illegal to film the police, or anyone in public for that matter.  It is illegal to obstruct a peace officer in the course of their duty.  No criminal charges ended up being filed, which isn't uncommon even if actual obstruction occurred, so criminal liability is obviously not on the table.  As an aside obstruction charges are not often filed, unless they are grouped in with a larger filing because it's a low level misdemeanor and those types of cases almost never make it to court in a busy jurisdiction.  There just isn't enough time on the docket and the crime isn't serious enough.

[SunsetBengal]

(05-20-2023, 11:45 AM)Dill Wrote: She couldn't "know" the stop was illegal, only act on concern about the possibility. 

The reason for doing so would be her previous experience with the frequency illegal stops.

I'm sure she understood the stop COULD have been perfectly legal but, in case it were not,
filming would be useful if questions were raised later about police handling of the event. 

I would never think to do that, but I am not a NY attorney constantly dealing with Police misconduct
as part of my job, e.g., people stopped and frisked everyday according to "profiles." 

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm pretty sure that I read that violent crime went down under 'stop and frisk', and rose sharply once it was not in effect.  Are you able to confirm?

[GMDino]

(05-20-2023, 03:33 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm pretty sure that I read that violent crime went down under 'stop and frisk', and rose sharply once it was not in effect.  Are you able to confirm?

No.

At least not all crime.  It was actually having more officers in the high crime areas...not them randomly stopping people.

https://crim.sas.upenn.edu/fact-check/does-stop-and-frisk-reduce-crime

Quote:John MacDonald

Some politicians claim that the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) extensive use of stop, question, and frisk practices in the past are the primary cause of New York’s low crime rate. Is this claim supported by research?

NYPD’s deployment of extra police to high crime neighborhoods contributed far more to the crime reduction than the use of stop, question, and frisk. Research on the NYPD’s program of Operation Impact found that extra police deployed to high crime areas in New York was a major factor in the crime decline: a 12% to 15% reduction. The additional use of stop, question, and frisk made almost no difference. The stops only had a detectable impact on crime when the stops were based on probable cause, and these kinds of stops were very rare. Other research by Weisburd and colleagues also showed that stop, question, and frisk practices had only small associations with crime reduction (on the order 2%). And this study did not measure the effects of stops over and above increased officer deployment.


What can we conclude from this? Saturating high crime neighborhoods with extra police helped reduce crime in New York, but the bulk of investigative stops did not play a meaningful role in the crime reduction.
References
MacDonald J, Fagan J, Geller A (2016) The Effects of Local Police Surges on Crime and Arrests in New York City. PLoS ONE 11(6): e0157223. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0157223


Weisburd D, Wooditch A, Weisburd S, Yang SM. Do Stop, Question, and Frisk Practices Deter Crime?Criminology & Public Policy. 2015 Nov 1.

It did affect people's trust in the police though.

https://www.vera.org/newsroom/study-reveals-stop-and-frisk-significantly-impacts-trust-in-new-york-city-police

Quote:New York, NY–The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) today released a study that examined how being stopped by the police, and the frequency of those stops, affects young people and public safety in highly patrolled areas in New York City.  The Coming of Age with Stop and Frisk: Experiences, Self-Perceptions, and Public Safety Implications study found that 88 percent of young people surveyed believe that residents of their neighborhood do not trust the police, and only one in four surveyed would report someone whom they believe had committed a crime. Findings also revealed that young people who have been stopped more often in the past are less willing to report crimes, even when they themselves are the victims.


The study surveyed nearly 500 young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 and included in-depth interviews with a smaller, sample of 13 to 21-year-olds. Researchers focused exclusively on young people in highly patrolled, high-crime areas who have been stopped by police at least once in their lives. The study explored how often young people are stopped, the nature of stop and frisk and its consequences.

Quote:“Our research demonstrates that stop and frisk is compromising trust in law enforcement and discouraging young people from speaking up and reporting crimes, even when they are the ones that need help,” said Jennifer Fratello, research director at Vera’s Center on Youth Justice and the study’s principal investigator. “We can only improve public safety through cooperation between police and the community, which means we need to repair the damage caused by excessive use of stop and frisk.”

I don't know if any of those statistics include people arrested for filming the police legally and then having the charges dropped.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-20-2023, 03:33 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I'm pretty sure that I read that violent crime went down under 'stop and frisk', and rose sharply once it was not in effect.  Are you able to confirm?

The numbers did go up in some areas, but not by much and, as with anything, drawing a direct correlation isn't exactly simple.  What is interesting is that proactive policing is exactly what most citizens want.  It's far better to prevent a crime from occurring then to arrest the perpetrator afterwards.  The problem is that it takes experience to be good at it and it's instantly open to accusation of racism as high crime areas in large cities tend to be largely minority population.  You need look no further than our little sub-forum for examples, and these are people making this accusation third hand.  

A small example that any experienced LEO will confirm.  You see a person walking down the street.  The minute they see a uniformed officer they touch their waistband.  This is a huge indication that person is carrying a concealed firearm.  For people who aren't used to carrying, or are doing so illegally, there is a huge impetus to touch the firearm to confirm it's where it should be and not visible (we call it "printing").  Is this sufficient pretext to stop this person and give them a quick pat down?  I'd bet the answer would depend on the person being asked.  There are certainly people in this sub-forum who would say no.  But an experienced officer will absolutely approach the person, just to interact.  The vast, vast majority of the time this person will run, which makes the question easier to answer.  But even then I'd be willing to bet that some people here would still argue against that being probably cause.  Most of the time in those types of situations you'll be able to make out a shape that indicates a firearm, making the question moot, but what about situations in which that isn't the case? 

All of this makes proactive policing extremely difficult to pull off.  As it is subjective the line between reasonable and unreasonable suspicion can be hard to define, especially for those ill disposed towards law enforcement to begin with.  

[SunsetBengal]

(05-20-2023, 03:53 PM)GMDino Wrote: No.

At least not all crime.  It was actually having more officers in the high crime areas...not them randomly stopping people.

https://crim.sas.upenn.edu/fact-check/does-stop-and-frisk-reduce-crime



It did affect people's trust in the police though.

https://www.vera.org/newsroom/study-reveals-stop-and-frisk-significantly-impacts-trust-in-new-york-city-police



I don't know if any of those statistics include people arrested for filming the police legally and then having the charges dropped.

The info you posted said the reduction was a result of more LE bodies on the street.  However, it takes bodies on the street to implement stop and frisk.  Seems more like a chicken/egg debate than anything.  What I can deduct from any of that is that if stop and frisk causes more police to be on the street, thus resulting in a reduction in crime, than stop and frisk must be a fantastic policy.  

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-20-2023, 04:01 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: The info you posted said the reduction was a result of more LE bodies on the street.  However, it takes bodies on the street to implement stop and frisk.  Seems more like a chicken/egg debate than anything.  What I can deduct from any of that is that if stop and frisk causes more police to be on the street, thus resulting in a reduction in crime, than stop and frisk must be a fantastic policy.  

Actually pretty much every study shows that "saturation" (flooding an area with officers) only serves to push crime to neighboring areas not being saturated.  Every area has known "hot spots", for example there's a Lemon Tree Inn off the 10 freeway that is almost literally LA's version of Mos Eisly.  You could saturate that area, but the criminal element would just set up shop somewhere else. 

Just an FYI, if you ever visit Los Angeles please know that you don't want to stay anywhere near the 10 freeway unless you're at where it ends in Santa Monica.  Not that you would as it's nowhere near any place that's touristy, but it's still good to know.

[Dill]

(05-20-2023, 04:01 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: The info you posted said the reduction was a result of more LE bodies on the street.  However, it takes bodies on the street to implement stop and frisk.  Seems more like a chicken/egg debate than anything.  What I can deduct from any of that is that if stop and frisk causes more police to be on the street, thus resulting in a reduction in crime, than stop and frisk must be a fantastic policy.  

This is the kind of "debate" researchers can sort out rather easily, if increased police presence in one area sans Stop-and-Frisk produces the same drop in crime as police presence plus Stop-and-Frisk in another (this should be clear from Dino's post, which answered your original question pretty well),

 then it should also be clear that if increased police presence can appear without Stop-and-Frisk, the latter cannot be the "cause" of increased police presence. Rather both are equally a consequence of POLICY CHOICES, which should be under control of elected and accountable representatives of the people, who can easily implement the increased presence without the Stop-and-Frisk, should they so choose.  

But even if Stop-and-Frisk, by itself, had produced phenomenal results, it raised a serious constitutional issue--the profiling of bodies by color.*

Some people were obviously ok with that because "they" commit more crimes. ("It's just a fact!") 

And one can probably find Fox/Newsmax segments interviewing some black and brown residents of targeted neighborhood who "wanted it."

However, Dino's second study suggests that blanket disregard of the human/civil rights of black and brown citizens, even because of "facts," also increases distrust of police, not just in targeted areas, and not just by black and brown people.  Imagine the effect of Stop-and-Frisk without the increased police presence. I don't know how much research has been done in this area, but I think it quite likely that increased distrust of police might correlate with many other negatives, including increased crime. (Increased presence of police who interact the community is likely to have the opposite effect, while also reducing crime.)

Aside from ineffectiveness, there is the fundamental Constitutional issue the policy raised--

very hard to argue that the law is color blind with police and city administration behind such policies. 

So while some in NYC and elsewhere were clearly comfortable with the targeting, Constitutional rights or not, and unconcerned whether "they" distrusted police so long as the police kept "them" under control (remember, it's a fact that "they" commit more crimes), it was declared unconstitutional, since fundamental rights in our democracy are not supposed to hinge on whether people in one's demographic category commit more crimes--or are poorer or whatever else makes them "them" to "us." 
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/why-stop-and-frisk-was-ruled-unconstitutional/454425/

And rightly so, I think. Stop-and-Frisk would have been wrong even if it had worked. 

*Doubtful that many officers would say "Yes, I targeted that guy based on race". Rather they would say the targeting was based on trained (but colorblind)  observation. The profiling is registered in statistical disparities which reveal large numbers of people of color targeted who were not committing crimes. In fact, "they" were only half as likely to have illegal weapons, as white people targeted. How was that possible if "trained (but colorblind) observation" was really all that guided targeting? The judge who ruled the policy unconstitutional was more impressed with this statistical fact, than with the more general "'they' commit more crimes." https://civilrights.org/edfund/resource/nypds-infamous-stop-and-frisk-policy-found-unconstitutional/

[GMDino]

(05-20-2023, 04:01 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: The info you posted said the reduction was a result of more LE bodies on the street.  However, it takes bodies on the street to implement stop and frisk.  Seems more like a chicken/egg debate than anything.  What I can deduct from any of that is that if stop and frisk causes more police to be on the street, thus resulting in a reduction in crime, than stop and frisk must be a fantastic policy.  

The info also cited two studies that that said the actual stopping a frisking didn't catch as many criminals as having the police in the high crime areas did.

The presence of the police helped because they were  there when crimes were occurring...versus them randomly stopping people and then not finding any crime had been committed.

It was pretty clear.

[Belsnickel]

Look, the issue with any analysis of policies with regards to law enforcement is that they are very hard to assess. I'm working on my master's and was just in a class where we went into program assessment. The professor's favorite area is in the criminal justice realm (specifically reentry, drug courts, things of that nature, but we ventured far and wide) and we looked at a number of different programs from around the country where there was published literature on the assessments done.

The big issue is that none of these assessments can ever meet the sort of rigor needed to claim causal implications. It's just not possible to do so. As a result there are a lot of conflicting data and analyses out there on the effectiveness of these programs. Depending on what agenda you are serving or pushing will determine what you conclude.

All that being said, I am somewhat of a community policing advocate. I just think there are some adjustments needed to it. It's also a bit of a weird sight given the vests so many departments use now--though I am happy they have them because I know it saves their backs. Like, not from stabbings or shootings, I am talking from the weight distribution of the gear.

[GMDino]

(05-21-2023, 10:03 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Look, the issue with any analysis of policies with regards to law enforcement is that they are very hard to assess. I'm working on my master's and was just in a class where we went into program assessment. The professor's favorite area is in the criminal justice realm (specifically reentry, drug courts, things of that nature, but we ventured far and wide) and we looked at a number of different programs from around the country where there was published literature on the assessments done.

The big issue is that none of these assessments can ever meet the sort of rigor needed to claim causal implications. It's just not possible to do so. As a result there are a lot of conflicting data and analyses out there on the effectiveness of these programs. Depending on what agenda you are serving or pushing will determine what you conclude.

All that being said, I am somewhat of a community policing advocate. I just think there are some adjustments needed to it. It's also a bit of a weird sight given the vests so many departments use now--though I am happy they have them because I know it saves their backs. Like, not from stabbings or shootings, I am talking from the weight distribution of the gear.

I'm not going to take issue with how hard it is to analyze.

**Edit to add: Statistics was NOT my favorite college course! LOL! No matter how much I loved numbers and number crunching!**

But if they made 1000 stops and 10 arrests vs making more arrests after an actual crime and solving more crimes because they had feet on the street that at least shows that randomly stopping people wasn't as effective.

I am FOR having more neighborhood policing.  Let the people know each other and that will help reduce crime/solve more crimes IMHO.  Something they never should have gotten away from.

I am against randomly stopping people and frisking them because you are sure you have enough experience to "know" that they are suspicious.  Too many "resisting arrest" charges getting laid out for people who were doing nothing wrong but got stopped anyway.

Or, as in the case of the OP, "obstruction of government administration" which conveniently gets an advocate off the streets for awhile until the charges are dropped and no officer is reprimanded for it.  Even in the story the men being stopped were not charged with anything.  


To me that is a waste of resources.

[Dill]

(05-21-2023, 10:03 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: The big issue is that none of these assessments can ever meet the sort of rigor needed to claim causal implications. It's just not possible to do so. As a result there are a lot of conflicting data and analyses out there on the effectiveness of these programs. Depending on what agenda you are serving or pushing will determine what you conclude.

Not sure I understand exactly what you mean by the bolded, but if it's a statement of principle I think it is wrong. 

If it were true, then social-scientific research could never "really" show a reliable causal link between highway fatalities and lower drinking age,
or between segregated schools and poorer test scores, or deny such links between, say, marijuana and heroin use, or zero tolerance and school safety. 

I think it quite possible that the "agenda" many researchers "push" is to gain the kind of understanding of social phenomena which makes for
good policy--i.e., policy which accomplishes the goals for which it is implemented. To be taken seriously by other researchers, it must be designed so it can be confirmed or disconfirmed by later/more research, regardless of "agendas."

There certainly are questions which cannot be answered by such research, both in principle and in fact, and it does draw quackery where it affects politics, but I don't see why the effectiveness of policies like Stop-and-Frisk and community policing should fall into those categories, even if research is partial or murky or incomplete at the moment. 

If you are right, then that is indeed good news for those who don't like the results of social research, and assign it all, Limbaugh-style, to the second "Corner of Deceit." There is no justification for publicly funding such research or teaching its results, if it all really just comes down to "opinion" and indoctrination. https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/04/29/the_four_corners_of_deceit_prominent_liberal_social_psychologist_made_it_all_up/

[Dill]

(05-21-2023, 10:19 AM)GMDino Wrote: Or, as in the case of the OP, "obstruction of government administration" which conveniently gets an advocate off the streets for awhile until the charges are dropped and no officer is reprimanded for it.  Even in the story the men being stopped were not charged with anything.  

One can exercise quite a bit of personal power just arresting people and taking them "downtown" or wherever.

Even if they are never charged, you just bent someone's life out of shape on a whim. 

And they know you can do it again if they don't shut up and follow your orders RIGHT NOW!

I remember watching police in Mubarak's Egypt stopping people for whatever they wanted to, with no 
evident consequences or controls. Not good to give police a sense they can just do that as a matter
of policy.

I have some personal experience of this too, as in 1971-72 I was stopped and frisked three times by police for, apparently, looking like
a hippy, which resulted in two arrests. In one case that meant spending a week in jail until the charges were 
dropped in court,* and in the other I was charged** and spent a week end in jail, though for some reason
that arrest does not appear on my record (i.e., did not turn up in the increasingly thorough security clearances required by the U.S. military
and the state of Qatar back in 2006 and 2010, though a hitchhiking charge did and almost tanked my clearance for the Qataris.)
All this came to mind as I read about the woman being taken downtown--even her dog, then charges dropped. No harm done.

This was an easy fix though: I cut my hair. Haven't been frisked since. Plus society loosened up a bit for hippies. 
NY targets of stop and frisk had no easy fix though, beyond rescinding the policy. Society had tightened up for them.

*Turns out the "drugs" found on me were over-the-counter cold medication or caffeine. They sent my SS card to a crime lab to
check for heroin, because years earlier, my mother had washed my billfold in my pants leaving the card with a bluish hue. Never got the
card or my billfold back. I also had a pipe which "looked like" a dope pipe to the arresting officer's trained eye, but turned out to
contain tobacco residue. Didn't get that back either. I had been hitchhiking home from the East Coast, and had sent my suitcase 
home ahead of me. The police in South Dakota, where I was detained, alerted the police in Montana, who called my father 
(to whom the suitcase was addressed) into the local station and opened it in front of him, having been alerted that he might be
receiving 44 lbs of marijuana. Turns out he was not.  A few weeks later, a friend asked him: "Someone said you were selling
marijuana on the reservation--is that true?" So my arrest led to false rumors and family humiliation hundreds of miles away.

**A police officer grabbed my arm without warning to "look for tracks." I reflexively pulled it away, 
and that was resisting arrest. Once arrested he said I had to show him my arm, which miraculously
had no tracks. And I was wearing a t-shirt; all anyone had to do was just look. But I still went to jail for "resisting." 
Lost a job because I could not show up for work.

[Belsnickel]

(05-21-2023, 10:50 AM)Dill Wrote: Not sure I understand exactly what you mean by the bolded, but if it's a statement of principle I think it is wrong. 

If it were true, then social-scientific research could never "really" show a reliable causal link between highway fatalities and lower drinking age,
or between segregated schools and poorer test scores, or deny such links between, say, marijuana and heroin use, or zero tolerance and school safety. 

I think it quite possible that the "agenda" many researchers "push" is to gain the kind of understanding of social phenomena which makes for
good policy--i.e., policy which accomplishes the goals for which it is implemented. To be taken seriously by other researchers, it must be designed so it can be confirmed or disconfirmed by later/more research, regardless of "agendas."

There certainly are questions which cannot be answered by such research, both in principle and in fact, and it does draw quackery where it affects politics, but I don't see why the effectiveness of policies like Stop-and-Frisk and community policing should fall into those categories, even if research is partial or murky or incomplete at the moment. 

If you are right, then that is indeed good news for those who don't like the results of social research, and assign it all, Limbaugh-style, to the second "Corner of Deceit." There is no justification for publicly funding such research or teaching its results, if it all really just comes down to "opinion" and indoctrination. https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2013/04/29/the_four_corners_of_deceit_prominent_liberal_social_psychologist_made_it_all_up/

As much as we try in program assessment, it is almost impossible to get to a point where our experimental design would allow for truly causal statements. The real world is messy and accounting for confounders is tough. I have never found a study on this sort of stuff that I could not go through their design and find issues with it where I could say that it would potentially impact the results. It is the nature of these sorts of assessments.

This isn't to say that it is the same for all of social science, but in these sorts of assessments it is just generally the case. But keep in mind that program assessment is also relatively small when it comes to the social sciences. It hasn't had the sort of researcher attention that many other fields have had for much longer.

[grampahol]

The excuse that life is hard is hardly an excuse. Yeah, life IS hard and messy and then you die anyway regardless of what you do.  Just because it's "hard" to catch criminals should never be the excuse to harass and detain perfectly innocent people on the off chance that you MIGHT catch a bad guy doing something they shouldn't be doing.  Supposedly you're innocent until proven guilty, but get yourself arrested for anything and go sit in the county jail and talk about innocence. Nope! You're definitely guilty until proven innocent or until released because the arresting officer is a creep who doesn't know his ass from a hole in the wall. Been down that path a few times..