2018 Census Data vs Local Police Forces

Wikipedia defines critical thinking in this manner.  

"Critical thinking is the analysis of facts to form a judgment. The subject is complex, and several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, unbiased analysis, or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking."

Count me in the group who are normally skeptical, require unbiased analysis and factual evidence. This is especially true in matters of media reports and political statements.

Keep in mind that this is just a blog post and not a peer reviewed data study. However, I will provide sources. In order to keep things simple, my sources are: 

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/all?q=Race%20and%20Ethnicity&tid=ACSDP1Y2018.DP05&vintage=2018&hidePreview=false 

https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=71 (Local Police Departments, 2016: Personnel, Full Report)

I will start this blog with the question..."How many White people, Black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, Native American people, mixed race people and Native Hawaiians should we have in our local police forces?"

According to the latest Census, specifically 2018, we should have the following percentages:

• Black or African American - 12.3%
• White - 60.2%
• American Indian or Alaskan - 0.7%
• Asian - 5.6%
• Native Hawaii or Other Pacific - 0.2%
• Hispanic - 18.3%
• Two or more races/other 2.7%

Then, I wanted to compare what the 2016 Bureau of Justice Statistics says about local police forces. Here is what I found.

• Black or African American - 11.4%
• White 71.5%
• Hispanic - 12.5%
• Other/Unknown 4.7%

This local police study did not exactly correlate with the Census numbers, but I was amazed at how closely the local police forces tracks our overall Census population. Remember, we are taking a macro or helicopter view meaning we are just looking at the entire population of the United States versus the entire population of local police forces.

Where is the problem? If anything, I would say that Hispanics and Asians are underrepresented. Blacks or African Americans are pretty representative with a 12.3% versus 11.4%. 

My critical thinking conclusions would be that we need more Hispanics and Asians in the local police forces across America. Further, I feel that the distrust of local police forces in Black and Hispanic communities probably contributes to them being under represented. More so for Hispanics, than Blacks. Asians, at the risk of sounding racist here, teach their children that their education is the most important thing in life. Asian parents expect exceptional educational performance from their children. It stands to reason that local police force education requirements and the compensation that goes with it conflicts greatly with what Asian families teach their children.

I do not really think we have a problem as far as race and ethnicity is concerned with local police forces. Now, if you disagree with that, then you must answer this question:  

"What is the correct percentage for each race that should be employed by local police forces?" 

You cannot answer that question. All you can do is make an assumption that there is a problem that requires "fixing." If you do make an assumption, then I would conclude your critical thinking skills to be lacking. Show me your data to back up your assumption. When you do that, then you have begun to think critically.

I majored in Criminal Justice, in case you were wondering why I have a blog post like this one, plus my father was a former Chief of Police in California and Arkansas.