[Bartweiss]

There are a lot of different questions here, though. This study only addresses one.

There are lots of ways for the system to be racially skewed/biased without being a product of personal bias - so many that I think the focus on "racist police" makes it hard to recognize a lot of easily-provable problems.

Stop-and-frisk is my go-to example of a system that produces bias regardless of the race or biases of the officers involved. In theory, it's an efficient use of limited police resources, it can be implemented race-blind, and it "only catches criminals". There's room to talk about harassment of non-criminals, but at least regarding the people who get arrested its an understandable idea.

In practice, criminality is a product of conviction. Stop-and-frisk mostly catches 'possession' crimes like personal-use drugs and illegal weapons (and since a 3-inch pocketknife is illegal in many cities, we shouldn't mistake this for violent intent). As a result, living in a stop-and-frisk area massively increases your odds of being charged with a low-grade crime - it's not as though carrying marijuana or a Leatherman is rare among un-policed groups. Even if you attempt a crude race-blind implementation, like policing based on neighborhood crime rate, you end up with a vicious cycle where crime rates are high because enforcement is high.

So I think we do a disservice when we limit our discussion and investigation to officer bias. Even when it's not present, it's still easy to build an unequal system.