"Did you see the statistics for the police department? They're terrible. Compare the number of minority cops with the minority population. That's ridiculous!'
"It is, but not for the reason you believe."
"What?"
"The general population statistics include three-year-olds. You don't hire three-year-olds as cops."
"Okay then, just look at the adults."
"You mean the adult population which includes people in their seventies and eighties? You know, people like my Uncle Jack who smokes five packs a day?"
"Of course not. Look at the younger people."
"You mean the younger people in the civilian labor force."
"Right."
"But then we have to recognize that not all of those people are qualified to be police officers. They may not have the education or be able to pass the physical agility test or the background investigation."
"True. But let's look at the ones who could pass all of that."
"Fine, But we'll have to narrow the numbers even further because even if we focus on the people who could pass that screening, we're going to find that not all of them want to be police officers. As a result, they'll never even apply."
"Okay, that makes sense. So where are we now?"
"A long distance from the general population statistics."
1 comment:
I'm reading Thomas Sowell's The Vision of the Anointed: Self- Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, and this sort of thing seems to be the normal part of making certain progressive arguments for their preferred social and societal experiments. If you've not read it, I highly recommend it.
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