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Speaker 1: Are you looking for brand new episodes of a short

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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works podcast that explains the everyday world around us,

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Speaker 1: then check out brain Stuff with me Christian Saga. New

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Speaker 1: episodes hit every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,

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Speaker 1: or anywhere else you get your podcasts from UFOs two,

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Speaker 1: Ghosts and Government cover Ups. History is riddled with unexplained events.

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Speaker 1: You can turn back now or learn the stuff they

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Speaker 1: don't want you to now. Greetings, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt and I'm Ben Weird here with

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Speaker 1: our super producer Noel sirens An Brown, which means that

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Speaker 1: this is stuff they don't want you to know. Oh good, Okay, Yes,

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Speaker 1: we're in the right place, and hopefully so are you.

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Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. Uh, Matt put story when I was younger,

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Speaker 1: when you were younger. I guess we're all younger if

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the past. There was a show on

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Speaker 1: television which I think might still be on, called cops

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Speaker 1: Ys Reloaded Now I believe, maybe not. I know I've

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Speaker 1: seen that somewhere on the TV. Guy And as a kid,

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Speaker 1: I had this superstition that if ever I sang the

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Speaker 1: theme song out loud, something bad would happen, like you

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Speaker 1: would summon police or criminals. I'm not too clear on it. Again,

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Speaker 1: I was a kid, just something bad, and it's something

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Speaker 1: that I've stuck with today. Now. I'm not bothered, of course,

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Speaker 1: if anybody else is singing around me or if I

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Speaker 1: hear it. But as as ridiculous as I know that

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Speaker 1: is intellectually, there's still just a little part of me

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Speaker 1: that hesitates because I, like most people in the United States,

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Speaker 1: want absolutely no problem with police officers. Absolutely. I have

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Speaker 1: a quick story. So the house that I lived next to,

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Speaker 1: I take my dogs out in the backyard. We have

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Speaker 1: a little fenced in area, and I noticed that my

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Speaker 1: house just next to mine, the back door to the

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Speaker 1: basement was wide open and the lights were on. This

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Speaker 1: is around eleven o'clock at night when I noticed this,

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Speaker 1: and I didn't think too much of it. You know,

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Speaker 1: maybe they're airing out the basement, maybe someone just working,

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Speaker 1: and so anyway, I just went back inside. Well, for

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Speaker 1: the next three nights, I noticed that it was in

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Speaker 1: the exact same state when I would take my dogs out,

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Speaker 1: and I started getting a little worried. You know what

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Speaker 1: if somebody in the house, you know, fell or something

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Speaker 1: and got hurt while I'm cleaning, you know. So I

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Speaker 1: ended up calling the police department, and I it was

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Speaker 1: the first time I've actually called the police department, um,

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Speaker 1: because I was a little nervous. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you would have been nervous, but I didn't want to

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Speaker 1: just walk into my neighbor's home to check and see

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Speaker 1: if everything is all right. Yeah, no, I don't. I don't.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that unless I knew them do well. Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe in the past I probably would have, especially if

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Speaker 1: I was a bit younger, but now for some reason,

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Speaker 1: my maybe it's just the amount of television shows I've

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Speaker 1: watched with police investigations. Like I didn't want my prints

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Speaker 1: to be in the house, like my footprints or anything

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Speaker 1: to be in the house in case anything bad had happened,

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Speaker 1: or if there was a crime scene, to do anything

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Speaker 1: to compromise it. Like I was terrified. So I called

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Speaker 1: the police and they came and they looked at the house. Um.

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Speaker 1: But I have to admit I felt really tense when

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Speaker 1: the police officers were there. Was it, Uh, what what

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Speaker 1: did they find? Just out to I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: I I didn't stay stick around. They dealt with me

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Speaker 1: very coldly, and I don't know that it was just

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Speaker 1: it was an experience that I don't know that I

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Speaker 1: would do it again. I would probably find the homeowners

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Speaker 1: association whatever if there isn't one where I live, but

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Speaker 1: something to that effect. And I don't think you could

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Speaker 1: call nine one one to report something suspicious. It would

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Speaker 1: have to be an emergency or like a crime and progress.

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Speaker 1: And I had no idea what the state was. Right, well,

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Speaker 1: I hope things were doubt did someone live at that house?

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Speaker 1: Someone did, but I think there were tenants and they

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Speaker 1: moved out. Okay, well maybe it was a squatter or something.

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Speaker 1: Who who knows. I have no information, but anyway, I

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Speaker 1: just wanted to reiterate my uneasiness and that I felt

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Speaker 1: even calling the police. And there have been generational attitude

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Speaker 1: changes toward law enforcement. Now, whether you think that is

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Speaker 1: a result of changing laws or incarceration rates, or whether

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Speaker 1: you think that's just something in pop culture the zeitgeist.

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Speaker 1: Either way it is, it is true that people have

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Speaker 1: changed their opinions. And today we are talking about a

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Speaker 1: topic that has been on people's minds for a number

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Speaker 1: of years. Recently in particular, right, but we're also going

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Speaker 1: to find that this is part of something that dates far,

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Speaker 1: far back in American history. What we're talking about today,

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Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, is law enforcement and race. And before

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Speaker 1: we jump into a bunch of statistics and stuff, I

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Speaker 1: want to make sure that people know this is not

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Speaker 1: a This is not a podcast intended to um take

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Speaker 1: pot shots at police officers, um, many of whom die

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Speaker 1: in the line of duty. Absolutely not. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember if you have any law enforcement in

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Speaker 1: your family, but I have some of my family. And

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Speaker 1: this is not nothing against law enforcement officers in general

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Speaker 1: at all. Right, what what we're talking about more today

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Speaker 1: will be the larger trends, the statistics, and uh possibly

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Speaker 1: the future. So Matt, let's just start off with some stats.

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Speaker 1: Huh Okay. According to the two thousand and ten US Census,

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Speaker 1: thirteen point six percent of the U s population identifies

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Speaker 1: as African American. That's less than one five of the

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Speaker 1: United States population as a whole. And when we did

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Speaker 1: our video on five frightening statistics about being Black in America,

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Speaker 1: we started with that as number one, which doesn't doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound that scary by itself, but yeah, it just gives

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Speaker 1: context for these other numbers that we're going to be

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Speaker 1: throwing out here, right, because we also found that despite

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Speaker 1: being a smaller segment of the population or a minority

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Speaker 1: part of the population, African Americans in general are disproportionately

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Speaker 1: more likely to be detained, arrested, or even prosecuted for

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Speaker 1: a crime. Yeah. At least seventy departments, UH police departments

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Speaker 1: from Connecticut to California arrested black people at a rate

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Speaker 1: ten times higher than people who were not black or

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Speaker 1: not African American. That's according to USA Today. And here's

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Speaker 1: a statistic from the a c L you that we

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Speaker 1: found marijuana usage. Cannabis usage is roughly equal among white

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Speaker 1: people and black people. However, black people are three points

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Speaker 1: seven three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

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Speaker 1: And if somebody is arrested for a crime, right, and

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Speaker 1: prosecution goes forward and they are convicted, then well, let's say, okay,

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Speaker 1: let's say that you have two friends, Joe and John,

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Speaker 1: and one of them is white, one of them is black.

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Speaker 1: They both get caught doing the same crime, both get convicted. Statistically,

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Speaker 1: the African American defendant will have a longer, harsher sentence.

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Speaker 1: According to the Wall Street Journal, prison sentences from black

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Speaker 1: men were nearly longer than those for similar crimes for

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Speaker 1: white men. And the Wall Street Journal, to be fair,

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Speaker 1: is not what you would consider a tree hugging, super liberal,

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Speaker 1: abolished money, closed all prisons kind of almost said, rag.

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Speaker 1: But it's it's a well respected newspapers record. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then we have more from the Sentencing Project as studies

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Speaker 1: that examine death penalty cases have generally found that the

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Speaker 1: vast majority of cases, if the murder victim is white,

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Speaker 1: the defendant is more likely to receive a death sentence

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Speaker 1: no matter who they are. In a few jurisdictions, mainly

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Speaker 1: the federal system, minority defendants, particularly black people, are more

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Speaker 1: likely to receive a death sentence in general. So what

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Speaker 1: what we're seeing here? Um and and of course these

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Speaker 1: are not fully uh fleshed out studies in a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways. But what we're seeing here is that the

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Speaker 1: identity of the person convicted or suspected of the crime

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Speaker 1: seems to be having an impact beyond the actual letter

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Speaker 1: of the law for a crime and a punishment right

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Speaker 1: and even even the identity of the victim. Yeah. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: And this this is troubling stuff. I know that in

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Speaker 1: recent years, with like the Trayvon Martin case, with Michael Brown,

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Speaker 1: uh and numerous other instances, the American public became surprisingly divided,

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Speaker 1: and people are saying, well, this has become some sort

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Speaker 1: of liberal or conservative cause and started. I guess, I

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Speaker 1: don't know. It's strange how quickly things can divide a public, right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: and and both of those are very specific cases with

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Speaker 1: things that you can analyze, and a lot of time

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Speaker 1: that seems that those two cases in particular, or at

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Speaker 1: least recently, have been used to try and paint a

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Speaker 1: picture of this overall of a larger Yeah, of a

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Speaker 1: larger thing. And and of course, Matt, you and I

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Speaker 1: are not lawyers. Well, Noel does lot of stuff. No,

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Speaker 1: no one might do some law. I'm not sure. Maybe he.

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Speaker 1: He strikes me as someone who could definitely hold that

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Speaker 1: hold it down in the courtroom. So no does just

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Speaker 1: a touch of law. Between us, we are like point

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Speaker 1: three lawyer. But the reason we're saying that is that

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Speaker 1: we're not here to um, We're not here to for

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Speaker 1: try to force our own opinion on people and I

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Speaker 1: hope that we can both do a good job on

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Speaker 1: preaching to myself here. I hope we both do a

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Speaker 1: good job of separating our opinion from our facts. And

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Speaker 1: speaking of facts, let's look at some more. Another thing

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Speaker 1: we can look at is the likelihood of imprisonment for males.

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Speaker 1: And this is again from the sentence the Sentencing Project

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Speaker 1: dot org. One in seventeen, uh identify as white. So

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Speaker 1: if you are if you identify as white, you have

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Speaker 1: a one in seventeen chance of being in prison. If

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Speaker 1: you identify as black, you have a one in three

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Speaker 1: chance of going to prison at some point in your life. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And also one in nine four men overall, So if

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Speaker 1: you're a man, you have more than a ten percent

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Speaker 1: chance of being in jail at some point. Yeah. That's

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Speaker 1: that's pretty that's pretty frightening. And that's throughout the United States.

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Speaker 1: That's an average that takes in everybody from the top

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Speaker 1: one percent of income to you know, the bottom and below.

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Speaker 1: It makes me, I was going to say, a person,

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Speaker 1: but it makes me I want to follow every rule

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Speaker 1: as closely as I possibly can to avoid that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's another thing here. We'll we'll talk about the police shootings.

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Speaker 1: So despite being thirteen point six percent of the population, uh,

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Speaker 1: African Americans people identify as African Americans comprise about twenty

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Speaker 1: six percent of reported police shootings, and they are not

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Speaker 1: the most likely group to die in the course of

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Speaker 1: like a police arrest or detainment. Now, this was a

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Speaker 1: very surprising statistic that you found been the most likely

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Speaker 1: part of the population in the US to be killed

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Speaker 1: by police, our Native Americans. Right, yeah, the uh that's

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Speaker 1: point eight percent of the population, but one point nine

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Speaker 1: percent of the police killings. And these are based on

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Speaker 1: not the best numbers, no, but it's you know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of these numbers actually aren't based on the best

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Speaker 1: information out there because we don't have that information. We

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Speaker 1: you know, John Oliver talked about this. We've we've heard

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Speaker 1: this before. The tracking of of killings by law enforcement

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Speaker 1: is not up to snuff currently, at least from a

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Speaker 1: federal level. Right. Yeah, we found that federal databases that

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Speaker 1: do rack use of force or rest related deaths by

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Speaker 1: police are painting a partial picture. You know, you'll have

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Speaker 1: the FBI has a justifiable homicide list, right, and the

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Speaker 1: Department of Justice has a couple of different databases that

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Speaker 1: they maintain police departments individual police departments, and again these

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Speaker 1: can all be very very different, um within the state,

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Speaker 1: you know, not even considering what one state's kind of

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Speaker 1: police department approach would be to another one. In terms

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Speaker 1: of record keeping of the seventeen thousand, roughly police departments

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Speaker 1: across the United States, UM, many don't report or haven't

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Speaker 1: filed reports for these things, or have filed them in consistently.

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Speaker 1: And it kind of goes back to the question, you know,

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Speaker 1: is this a is this some sort of purposeful effort

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Speaker 1: people have to actually go fight crime. You know, you

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Speaker 1: and I are no no strangers to just piles of

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Speaker 1: work that you have to get to, and I can

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Speaker 1: only imagine what that must be like. You know, you

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Speaker 1: need to track everything that happens within your police department

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Speaker 1: at all times. Every single police officer that's out on

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Speaker 1: the street has to make records of what they did

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Speaker 1: that day, and I can only imagine just what that

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Speaker 1: must be like to tackle, at least from a managerial perspective. So,

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Speaker 1: if the question is uh, is the black mail part

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Speaker 1: of the US population more likely to go to jail

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Speaker 1: to be to be killed in the course of an

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Speaker 1: arrest or to have a harsher sentence than someone else

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Speaker 1: than than The answer is yes, there is clear racial

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Speaker 1: disparity in various factors of law enforcement. And this is

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Speaker 1: not a controversial thing to say, and it's not a

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Speaker 1: new thing at all. No, and it's noticeable today. Um

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Speaker 1: in New York, San Diego, Las Vegas, the percentage of

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Speaker 1: black people killed by police was at least double that

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Speaker 1: of their share of the city's total population. That's a

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Speaker 1: study by a group called color Lines, And we'll talk

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Speaker 1: more about that after a quick word from our sponsor.

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Speaker 1: Deep in the back of your mind, you've always had

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Speaker 1: the feeling that there's something strange about reality. There is

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Speaker 1: hire any death, must nanopartic, mechanical messiahist, conch evolution. On

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Speaker 1: our award winning science podcast Stuff About Your Mind, we

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Speaker 1: examine neurological quandaries, cosmic mysteries, evolutionary marvels, and our trans

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Speaker 1: human future. New episodes come out Tuesdays and Thursdays on iTunes,

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Speaker 1: Google Play, Spotify, and anywhere you get your podcast. But

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Speaker 1: there's a silver lining here, if you want to call it. That.

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Speaker 1: The number of police killings or violence by police officers

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Speaker 1: has dramatically decreased since nineteen sixty. According to the Center

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Speaker 1: on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, the the police killings of

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Speaker 1: African Americans over the age of has decreased by since then.

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Speaker 1: And there's this is such a such an interesting and

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Speaker 1: kind of disturbing thing. I I do agree that it

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Speaker 1: is what what was your phrase of silver lining, but

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Speaker 1: it hasn't dropped to zero, Yeah, and and absolutely is

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Speaker 1: not enough. However, it's when you take into context the

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Speaker 1: way this stuff is reported on sometimes that number to

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Speaker 1: me was at least a bit I don't I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Um made it feel a little less like there's a

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Speaker 1: dark cloud and it was kind of moving away, slightly

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Speaker 1: well going. And also considering that this number accounts for

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Speaker 1: the sixties, you know, in the civil rights movement, Uh,

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Speaker 1: there was probably also a spike violence. Um, so that

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Speaker 1: might be that might be part of it. Uh. You know,

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Speaker 1: earlier we said that someone identifying as African American as

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Speaker 1: a one one in three chance of going to jail

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Speaker 1: for something at some point in in his life. That

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Speaker 1: to make it a little more immediate, a black male

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Speaker 1: born in in this country has a chance of going

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Speaker 1: to prison at some point. That's compared to uh sixteen

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Speaker 1: percent for Latino or self identifying and for white males

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Speaker 1: four per cent. So there's a clear, clear disparity here.

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Speaker 1: And you know, when we first started looking at this UM,

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Speaker 1: you know, we we were concerned because we didn't want

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Speaker 1: to be out there vilifying an entire organization or even

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Speaker 1: uh lionizing leonizing um a group of people like people

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Speaker 1: commit crimes and people and be corrupt because they're people, right.

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Speaker 1: And we'll talk some more about the state of police

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Speaker 1: and the government and the people that the police in

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Speaker 1: the government are supposed to be working with, and four

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Speaker 1: which has also changed. We talked about this in SWAT teams.

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Speaker 1: But first, for anyone who has not heard this yet,

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Speaker 1: if you're listening to our show, then we assume you

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Speaker 1: already kind of knew about this. But let's have a

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Speaker 1: word about incarceration in the United States. Okay. Well, as

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Speaker 1: many of you know, the United States of America is

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Speaker 1: a world leader when it comes to incarceration. We've even

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Speaker 1: branched out to you know, putting four nationals in jail

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Speaker 1: as well. Sure, yeah, um, black sites across the planet. Chicago,

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Speaker 1: anybody the Chicago, UM, which I think was I think

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Speaker 1: that was a dark site for local protesters. Maybe maybe

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Speaker 1: who knows. Guantanamo, of course, And I believe that the

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Speaker 1: private the private prison company c c P is UH

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Speaker 1: is looking to branch out into creating immigration holding centers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they wanna expand. Oh man, I was gonna come with

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Speaker 1: some euphemism for business, but I'm not even gonna go there.

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Speaker 1: Um that CCP If any of you don't know, CCP

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Speaker 1: UH is one of the topics that we've covered before

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Speaker 1: in the past, and I highly recommend you check out

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Speaker 1: some of our videos on I forget exactly what the

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Speaker 1: titles are, but there's some of our classic videos on

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Speaker 1: incarceration and UH privatization of prisons. That's exactly what it's

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Speaker 1: privatization of prisons. So we we know that it's it's

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Speaker 1: weird because we're looking at this and I don't want

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Speaker 1: to make light of this, but for a long time,

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Speaker 1: everybody has said that, well, the United States is the

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Speaker 1: number one country when it comes to imprisoning people in

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Speaker 1: front of UH. It beats China, it beats the former

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Speaker 1: Soviet States, it beats on I don't know what's another

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Speaker 1: country that people say has a lot of prisoners. Well,

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Speaker 1: we just talked about North Korea. It beats North Korea.

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Speaker 1: I think, um and it and you know, maybe that's

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Speaker 1: just because it has more people to incarceerate. But we're

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Speaker 1: actually number two depending on the way you measure it,

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Speaker 1: which I I don't subscribe to, but technically, yes, number

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Speaker 1: one is h l um. The the strange thing about

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Speaker 1: that is that it's such a small places, such a

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Speaker 1: it's an island country. It's such a small place that um,

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Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a fair comparison. But according

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Speaker 1: to the INN double A c P from to two

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Speaker 1: thousand and eight, the number of people incarcerated in America

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Speaker 1: quadrupled just just from just from a few years, from

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Speaker 1: roughly five hundred thousand to two point three million people

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Speaker 1: behind bars, which makes us well, okay, here's the biggest

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Speaker 1: fact that stands out to me. The United States and

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Speaker 1: its territories make up five of the world's population. However,

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Speaker 1: we have of the world's inmates right, and this means

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Speaker 1: that combining the number of people in prison or jail

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Speaker 1: currently with the people who are under parole or probationary

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Speaker 1: supervision gives us number one in every thirty one adults.

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Speaker 1: That's three point two percent of the population under some

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Speaker 1: form of I think the phrase that's often used as

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Speaker 1: correctional control. Yes, that sounds kind of euphemisic everything from

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Speaker 1: the ankle bracelets up to federal penitential. And of the

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Speaker 1: two point three million incarcerated people in this country, to

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Speaker 1: bring it back around, how many would you guess are

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Speaker 1: African American? Well, here is the tough truth. African Americans

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Speaker 1: right now constitute nearly one million of the total two

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Speaker 1: point three million incarcerated of the in the population. So

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Speaker 1: that's an incarceration rate nearly six times the rate of

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Speaker 1: white citizens. And even though African Americans and people identifying

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Speaker 1: as Hispanic or Latino make up about one quarter of

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Speaker 1: the US population, they comprise fifty eight percent of all

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Speaker 1: prisoners at least in two thousand eight. So if if

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Speaker 1: this group, if if we went by these like ethnic lines, right, um,

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Speaker 1: then or this these categories, then uh, if everybody was

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Speaker 1: treated the way that uh the current correctional system treats

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Speaker 1: white citizens, then the incarceration rate and the prison jail

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Speaker 1: populations would decline by approximately fifty for sent It's it's strange.

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Speaker 1: It's clearly, it's clearly there, and it's it's tragic that

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Speaker 1: this often gets boiled down in the media into some

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Speaker 1: sort of um dare I say it's some sort of

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Speaker 1: them or US idea? When when we did our video

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Speaker 1: on this earlier this week, um, one of the things

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Speaker 1: that that really stuck with me was this idea that

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Speaker 1: how the government or the police, because really, when we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the police, what we're ultimately talking about is

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Speaker 1: the government that right, some level of governance that is

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Speaker 1: supposed to be for the people of the country, right. Um.

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Speaker 1: But when when we were doing that video, one thing

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Speaker 1: that that I remember clear as day is uh noting

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Speaker 1: that how the government treats any American citizens should be

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Speaker 1: the concern of every American citizen and and you know,

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Speaker 1: residents as well. Like what we've heard horror stories before

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Speaker 1: foreign nationals visiting the States on vacation or to see

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Speaker 1: family members and having having a really where family shows

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Speaker 1: I'll say messed up time. Well, it makes me think

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Speaker 1: of that show Locked Up Abroad, I think is the

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Speaker 1: name of it that shows you, oh man and this

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Speaker 1: this prison was so terrible in this other country, and

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Speaker 1: the experiences of American citizens when they were abroad. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: It makes you feel like we need to have an

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Speaker 1: inverted version of that somewhere, and I wonder if there

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Speaker 1: is one. There may well be, but uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad that we don't live in a country that

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Speaker 1: has an official death penalty for some of the things,

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Speaker 1: where with their there are countries where it's still the

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Speaker 1: death penalty if you are a homosexual. Is the death

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Speaker 1: penalty if you get caught with um any kind of marijuana? Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a different podcast. And one thing that we're running

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Speaker 1: into when we look at this this idea is uh

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Speaker 1: that we're we're finding strings that connect to other things,

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Speaker 1: some of which we've covered, like, uh, the the idea

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Speaker 1: of privatized prisons, some of which we haven't. Like is

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Speaker 1: there a purposeful churn to the cycle of poverty? Right?

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Speaker 1: We looked at income intoequality, that might be a different question.

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Speaker 1: So now it's time for us to talk about the

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Speaker 1: the arguments or the the allegations of conspiracy here. Um

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Speaker 1: Like the media is making out these cases of unarmed

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Speaker 1: black men being shot to be more than they are. Uh,

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Speaker 1: that's that's one of the arguments and they talk about

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Speaker 1: the bias in reporting. Hey, I'm Chuck and I'm Josh

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Speaker 1: and we're the host of Stuff. You should know the

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Speaker 1: podcast that's right, And if you're into understanding cool and

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Speaker 1: unusual and seemingly ordinary and even boring things that are

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Speaker 1: made interesting, you should check us out, please and thank you.

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Speaker 1: We're on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, anywhere you get podcasts. Okay,

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Speaker 1: I can kind of see this situation where the media,

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Speaker 1: you know, when a tragedy like this happens, it is

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Speaker 1: a story. It is not only a tragedy, is also

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Speaker 1: a story, and it is something that can keep a

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Speaker 1: twenty four hour news cycle going for a long time

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Speaker 1: because there are a lot of different parts. There's the

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Speaker 1: initial investigation, there's the trial, uh, there's all the things

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Speaker 1: that happened in splinter off. Because of that, I can

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Speaker 1: see how maybe in today's world, where there are just

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Speaker 1: hundreds of news channels and websites and vlogs and podcasts

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Speaker 1: like ours, even that will take something like the Michael

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Speaker 1: Brown case and would expand it out into this huge

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Speaker 1: thing when really, you know, at the crux of it,

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Speaker 1: it was a man that got shot by a law

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Speaker 1: enforcement officer, in the case of Michael Brown specifically, this

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Speaker 1: is this is the young man who was who was

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Speaker 1: shot by an officer named Darren Wilson in Ferguson suburb

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Speaker 1: in Missouri around August fourteen. And one thing that we

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Speaker 1: found is, you know, Ferguson became the site of protests,

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Speaker 1: and the US government came down pretty hard to the

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Speaker 1: point where the airspace was controlled. There were there were

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Speaker 1: there were all kinds of rumors flying back and forth

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Speaker 1: about what the police may or may not be doing.

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Speaker 1: And we really saw the potential for how much power

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Speaker 1: government can bring to bear on the people if it

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Speaker 1: wishes yes. And we also saw, you know, the reaction

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Speaker 1: of h a whole group of people there that were

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Speaker 1: protesting because they saw something that they thought was a

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Speaker 1: pattern that actually seems to be a pattern. Did you

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Speaker 1: see some of the leaks that were not leaks, but

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Speaker 1: some of the information coming out about the Ferguson Police Department, Uh? Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: They Ferguson is, at least from this perspective for what

428
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Speaker 1: we're talking about, a bad place to be right. Uh.

429
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: I think there were pretty good statistics that indicated even

430
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 1: in areas where where a black person would be by

431
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 1: far the minority in this situation. They were also by

432
00:28:30,600 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 1: far more likely to be pulled over, to be detained,

433
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: to have the threat of use of force. Right. Uh.

434
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: And there was one statistic where the the findings indicated

435
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 1: that white members of the community were more likely to

436
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: be driving with guns or something, driving with unlicensed guns

437
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: or something, and carrying drugs and carrying drugs. So yeah,

438
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: that's the one and far less likely to be pulled over.

439
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: This is this is something that leads people on the

440
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: other their side to say, on the other side of

441
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: the argument, to say, the government is actively working to

442
00:29:06,520 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: suppress Black America, especially males. And unfortunately this has historically

443
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 1: at least been the case slavery Jim Crow laws right,

444
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: arguably the prison system today, the especially with the use

445
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 1: of contracted out labor. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean I

446
00:29:30,080 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: hate to say it, but voting rights restrictions. Voting rights restrictions. Yeah,

447
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,760
Speaker 1: you cannot vote if you were a felon. So what

448
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 1: what this leads us to is um and you know,

449
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: again we'll say police are people too. They're often constrained

450
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: by top down rules. And one of the arguments that

451
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: you will hear in in favor or maybe as a

452
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: mitigating factor for police is that they're frequently put in

453
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: fight or flight situations. Uh. These are life and death

454
00:29:56,720 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: things where seconds really can make the difference. Um. With

455
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: with that being said, uh, there's there's a question here

456
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: that ties into militarization of police. Are the current training tactics, Uh,

457
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 1: the hardware and the vehicles that are being increasingly distributed

458
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 1: to domestic law enforcement places, are they teaching these professionals?

459
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: Are training these professionals rather to see every citizen as

460
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: a potential threat and lethal force. A lot of the

461
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: weaponry and systems that are being provided for these police

462
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: departments are based upon lethal force unless you look at

463
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: some of the like the tactical not it's not l

464
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 1: RED system, but it's the sound I forget with the

465
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: name of it, but it's the the sonic pain thing. Yeah,

466
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: it makes you feel like your skin is on fire. Yeah.

467
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: And there's also the one that just has that really

468
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: piercing loud sound that we saw in ferguson um and

469
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: it just makes you wonder how much more non lethal

470
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: force could be used. However, on the other side, again,

471
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: if you're going in with non lethal force against somebody

472
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: who was, you know, going to attack a police officer

473
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: with lethal force. I mean, what do you do there? Well,

474
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: those uh, those non lethal weapons, you know, they're they're

475
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: non lethal asterix right unless you're you know, ill or

476
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: have a bad heart or yeah, they're definitely still weapons

477
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 1: and those are for crowd control more than an individual. Um.

478
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: But this this brought up some questions that that we

479
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: had for you out there listening, Um, what what do

480
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 1: you think about this, this racial discrepancy in in law enforcement,

481
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 1: in uh sentencing? What what do you think the future

482
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: of the police and race in America is going to be?

483
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: You know, Matt, this makes me think of, um, some

484
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: some interesting stuff because remember we did net neutrality recently,

485
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: and we had so many letters from you guys saying, well,

486
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,920
Speaker 1: net neutrality or this Open Internet Order is just a

487
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: backdoor version of SOAPA, which was what was SOAPA meant.

488
00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: SOPA was something that did get passed by the House

489
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:25,840
Speaker 1: of Representatives a little while ago, at least I think

490
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: I can't remember the sober people the one was passed

491
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: by a House and then shut down by the Senate. Anyway,

492
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: it was it was failed legislation that was going to

493
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: do a lot of things to control the Internet, and

494
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 1: there it was mostly for corporations to benefit corporations, and

495
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 1: then also for the government to have control over the

496
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: Internet if they needed if they needed it. So we

497
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:51,800
Speaker 1: received some letters about about this saying, you know, arguing

498
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 1: that the Open Internet Order was essentially a trojan horse.

499
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: And then it makes me wonder if we could find

500
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: a future where the where the answer to uh, discrepancy

501
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: or or prejudice in law enforcement would be something like

502
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 1: robot police, right, robotic police who who have some sort

503
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: of access to your history already and can objectively make

504
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: a decision about, you know, if you're breaking a law,

505
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: or what about what about pre crime? What about using

506
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: big data to predict the future, which is something we're

507
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about later. I think that's something we're

508
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: going to see you whether we like it or not,

509
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: whether or not it's actually effective, I guess we'll find

510
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: out by the statistics that will be made up. Yeah.

511
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: It reminds me of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series um where

512
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:50,800
Speaker 1: this guy named Selden invents something he calls psychohistory, and

513
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: the idea is that if you take a large enough

514
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: population size, you can begin to predict the future, and

515
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: it doesn't work for individuals right to the big system

516
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: only works for big systems exactly. And I wonder if

517
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: we could be in that kind of situation, if that

518
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: will be what is presented as a solution to to

519
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 1: what is a real problem. But with pre crime, Ben

520
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,360
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before. If you arrest someone for

521
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: a crime they were imminently going to commit, there is

522
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: no way to prove that they were actually going to

523
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: commit that crime, even if you have data showing that

524
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: they they most likely or with probability, would have committed

525
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 1: the crime until there's a legal precedent set. Then after

526
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 1: that Katie bar the door. Or if there we can

527
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 1: somehow buffer reality, so there's like a ten minute buffer

528
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: on real time where this system operates ten minutes in

529
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:53,879
Speaker 1: the future. I'm sorry, I'm just I mean if that

530
00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: was if that's possible, then one thing human history has

531
00:34:57,040 --> 00:34:59,440
Speaker 1: shown us is the first thing people will do is

532
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: use it as some kind of snooze button. It won't

533
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 1: be used effectively. It'll be like an extra ten minutes

534
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:09,399
Speaker 1: to sleep. I yeah, I'm cool with it too. Um.

535
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: So we've delved into statistics and some facts and some

536
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: statements and some analysis. And one of the most devilishly

537
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: difficult things about this again was that there was so

538
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 1: little comprehensive data. You know, we've got little pieces of

539
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 1: the pie, we've got little pieces of the puzzle. But

540
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: if there is some group or institution, you know, maybe

541
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 1: the n essay, Hi, guys, if you're listening, if if

542
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: they're tracking building a comprehensive database of of these sorts offenses,

543
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:45,279
Speaker 1: then it's something that needs to be out in the

544
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:49,399
Speaker 1: public eye. People. People need to know. Yeah, but how

545
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: effective is it if it's in the public eye, Ben,

546
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: I don't know. We should take a road trip to Utah.

547
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: Let's do it. So everyone, we want to hear from you.

548
00:35:59,080 --> 00:36:02,839
Speaker 1: Are you along enforcement officer and have experience with this

549
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: type of stuff, please write to us. We would love

550
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: to get some perspective. Um. Also, if you've had run

551
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: ins with law enforcement and you want to tell us

552
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: about that, please do. We'd love to hear from you.

553
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: You can find us on Facebook, you can find us

554
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 1: on Twitter where conspiracy stuff on both of those And

555
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: if you don't want to do the social media thing,

556
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: you want to write directly to us, you can reach us.

557
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:32,799
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com. From

558
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: more on this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot

559
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:40,479
Speaker 1: com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch

560
00:36:40,520 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff. Are you

561
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,800
Speaker 1: looking for brand new episodes of a short how stuff

562
00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:07,440
Speaker 1: Works podcast that explains the everyday world around us, then

563
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:11,320
Speaker 1: check out brain Stuff with me Christian Sager. New episodes

564
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: hit every Monday and Wednesday on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify,

565
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