Four years ago, the city of Memphis decided to double down on a strategy of affirmative action policing that they had been practicing for decades.
Officially, the city’s theory was that black police officers are less likely to mistreat suspects, and more likely to do a better job, as compared to white officers. There was never any data to support that theory. If anything, there was a lot of data to suggest the exact opposite. Indeed, Memphis had long been one of the most dangerous cities in the country, despite all the diverse hiring they were doing. But in 2020, Memphis went for it. They reduced their hiring standards even further to attract more black police recruits. And it worked. As expected, more black people did sign up to become Memphis police officers.
The result of this grand experiment, as you might remember, wasn’t exactly what was advertised. Instead of racial…
