Eyewitness Evidence A Guide For Law Enforcement-Research Report: Fill & Download for Free

“https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/154193129103502030”“Bias in Police Line-ups and its Reduction by an Alternative Construction ProcedureThe present research examined whether eyewitness identification -produced by law enforcement personnel are biased or suggestive. Experienced police officers were asked to construct two six-face photographic line-ups, first using their usual (traditional) method, and second using an alternative method. The primary basis of the traditional method is that foils are selected based on their similarity to the target. The alternative method includes foils that are not only similar to the target but also similar to other foil faces in the line-up. Both types of line-ups were shown to subjects who had not seen the faces before (mock witnesses) and were asked to guess the respective targets. The results showed that mock witnesses selected the targets significantly more often than expected by chance (1/6 probability) when embedded in the traditional line-ups, thus demonstrating that these line-ups were suggestive. Mock witnesses did not select alternative-method targets more often than expected by chance. These results indicate that foil selection procedures incorporating foil-to-foil similarity produce fairer line-ups than those exclusively based on target similarity. Implications for forensic line-up construction procedures and for future research are discussed.ReferencesBrigham, J. C., Ready, D. J., Spier, S. A. (1990). Standards for evaluating the fairness of photograph lineups. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 11, 149–163.Google ScholarBuckhout, R. (1977). Son of Sam: Eyewitness descriptions. Social Action and the Law, 4, 19–23.Google ScholarDoob, A. N., Kirshenbaum, H. M. (1973). Bias in police lineups: Partial remembering. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 1, 287–293.Google ScholarEllis, G. D., Shepherd, J. W., Davies, G. M. (1980). The deterioration of verbal descriptions of faces over different delay intervals. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 8, 101–106.Google ScholarLaughery, K. R., Duval, G., Wogalter, M. S. (1986). Dynamics of face recall. In Ellis, H. D., Jeeves, M. A., Newcombe, F., Young, A. W. (Eds.), Aspects of face processing (pp. 373–387). Dordrect, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.Google ScholarLaughery, K. R., Jensen, D. G., Wogalter, M. S. (1988). Response bias with prototypic faces. In Gruneberg, M. M., Sykes, R., Morris, P. (Eds.), Practical Aspects of Memory: Current Research and Issues (pp. 157–162). Chichester: Wiley.Google ScholarLuus, C. A. E., Wells, G. L. (in press). Eyewitness identification and the selection of distractors for lineups. Law and Human Behavior..Google ScholarMalpass, R. S., Devine, P. G. (1983). Measuring the fairness of eyewitness identification lineups. In Lloyd-Bostock, S.M.A., Clifford, B.R. (Eds.), Evaluating witness evidence (pp. 81–102). London: Wiley.Google ScholarMalpass, R. S., Devine, P. G. (1984). Research on suggestion in lineups and photo-spreads. In Wells, G.L., Loftus, E.F. (Eds.), Eyewitness testimony: Psychological perspectives (pp. 64–91). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google ScholarMarwitz, D. B., Wogalter, M. S. (1988). Bias in photo-spreads of faces: A comparison of two lineup construction methods. Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 32nd Annual Meeting (pp. 541–543), Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.Google ScholarNavon, D. (1990). How critical is the accuracy of an eyewitness memory? Another look at the issue of lineup diagnosticity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 506–510.Google ScholarNosworthy, G. J, Lindsay, R. C. L. (1990). Does nominal lineup size matter? Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 358–361.Google ScholarOrne, M. (1962). On the social psychology of the psychology experiment. American Psychologist, 17, 776–783.Google ScholarShepherd, J. W. (1986). An interactive computer system for retrieving faces. In Ellis, H. D., Jeeves, M. A., Newcombe, F., Young, A. W. (Eds.), Aspects of Face Processing (pp. 398–409). Dordrect: Martinus Nijhoff.Google ScholarShepherd, J. W., Davies, G. M., Ellis, H. D. (1978). How best shall a face be described? In Gruneberg, M. M., Morris, P. E., Sykes, R. N. (Eds.), Practical Aspects of Memory. London: Academic Press.Google ScholarShepherd, J. W., Ellis, H. D., Davies, G. M. (1982). Identification Evidence: A Psychological Evaluation. Aberdeen, Scotland: Aberdeen University Press.Google ScholarUnited States v. Wade. (1967). 388 U.S. 218.Google ScholarWall, P. M. (1965). Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases. Springfield, IL: Thomas.Google ScholarWells, G. L., Luus, C. A. E. (1990). The diagnosticity of a lineup should not be confused with the diagnostic value of non-lineup evidence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 511–516.Google ScholarWogalter, M. S., Jensen, D. G. (1986). Response bias in lineups with prototypic faces. In Proceedings of the Human Factors Society 30th Annual Meeting (pp. 725–728), Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.Google ScholarWogalter, M. S., Marwitz, D. B., Leonard, D. C. (1991). Suggestiveness in photospread lineups: Similarity induces distinctiveness. Unpublished manuscript, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.Google Scholar”“https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/831750/RUSI_Report_-_Algorithms_and_Bias_in_Policing.pdf”“Data Analytics and Algorithmic Bias in PolicingSUMMARY• The use of data analytics and algorithms for policing has numerous potential benefits, but also carries significant risks, including those relating to bias. This could include unfair discrimination on the grounds of protected characteristics, real or apparent skewing of the decision-making process, or outcomes and processes which are systematically less fair to individuals within a particular group. These risks could arise at various stages in the project lifecycle.• Algorithmic fairness cannot be understood solely as a matter of data bias, but requires careful consideration of the wider operational, organisational and legal context, as well as the overall decision-making process informed by the analytics.• While various legal frameworks and codes of practice are relevant to the police’s use of analytics, the underlying legal basis for use must be considered in parallel to the development of policy and regulation. Moreover, there remains a lack of organisational guidelines or clear processes for scrutiny, regulation and enforcement. This should be addressed as part of a new draft code of practice, which should specify clear responsibilities for policing bodies regarding scrutiny, regulation and enforcement of these new standards.POLICE USE OF DATA ANALYTICS IN ENGLAND AND WALESUK police forces collect vast amounts of digital data, but have historically lacked the technological capabilities to effectively analyse this data to improve operational effectiveness and efficiency. However, police forces are increasingly adopting advanced analytical tools to derive insights from the data they collect, to inform decision-making, resource prioritisation and risk assessment in a range of contexts. The analytical tools used by police forces increasingly employ forms of machine learning, often referred to as artificial intelligence.However, this latter description is ambiguous and poorly defined, so for the purposes of this paper the technology in question is referred to as ‘machine learning’. Machine learning algorithms are currently used for various policing purposes, including: facial recognition and video analysis; mobile phone data extraction; social media intelligence analysis; predictive crime mapping; and individual risk assessment. This report focuses on these latter two applications of machine learning, which are frequently referred to as forms of ‘predictive policing’.However, many of the same legal, ethical and policy issues apply to other uses of machine learning in policing, including those linked to classification, explanation and resource allocation. While the use of predictive policing tools in the UK can be traced back to at least 2004, advances in machine learning have enabled the development of more sophisticated systems, which are now used for a wider range of functions. The use of algorithms to make predictions about future crime and offending raises considerable legal and ethical questions, particularly concerning the risk of bias and discrimination.DOES IT WORK ?Before discussing the risks of bias arising from predictive policing technology, it is important to address the fundamental question – ‘does it work?’ It is beyond the scope of this paper to critically assess the (dis)advantages of a risk assessment-focused approach to resource allocation, or to discuss the semantic nuances associated with defining ‘risk’. However, on the basis that police forces must target limited resources to places and people identified as posing the greatest ‘risk’ (of offending or victimisation), this paper’s starting point is to question whether algorithmic tools are effective in assisting the police to identify and understand this risk.Effectiveness and accuracy are intrinsically linked to ethics and legality: if it cannot be demonstrated that a particular tool or method is operating effectively and with a reasonable degree of accuracy, it may not be possible to justify the use of such a tool as necessary to fulfil a particular policing function. First, in relation to predictive mapping, empirical evidence has demonstrated that the deployment of predictive mapping software could increase the likelihood of detecting future crime events when compared to non-technological methods, resulting in net reductions in overall crime rates. Research shows that random foot patrolling has a negligible impact on detecting and preventing crime, because crime is not uniformly distributed in time and space.By contrast, ‘hotspot’ policing – whereby high-risk locations are identified and patrol resources concentrated in those areas – has been shown to result in crime suppression not just at the deployment location but also in surrounding areas. In the UK, field trials have found predictive mapping software to be around twice as likely to predict the location of future crime as traditional intelligence-led techniques (whereby analysts manually identify future hotspots). Despite its apparent effectiveness, the use of predictive mapping software by UK police forces has been limited. In many cases, its use has amounted only to short-term trials that did not result in full-scale deployment.The evidence is less clear when it comes to the accuracy of individual risk-assessment tools, largely due to a lack of research on the algorithms in use. Nevertheless, there is a large body of research dating back more than 60 years comparing the accuracy of ‘unstructured’ professional judgement and statistical (‘actuarial’) forecasting methods, which it is not possible to discuss here. Various meta-analyses and systematic reviews have found that – under controlled conditions – statistical forecasting consistently outperforms unstructured professional judgement in a range of decision-making contexts, including offender risk assessment.However, experts disagree over the predictive validity of statistical risk-assessment tools. Predictive validity can be understood as ‘the extent to which scores on an assessment tool are able to predict some outcome measure’. However, if a statistical tool is used to make predictions at the individual level, the uncertainty associated with any single event probability is very large. As summarised by Alan A Sutherland and colleagues, ‘predictive judgments are meaningful when applied to groups of offenders. However, at an individual level, predictions are considered by many to be imprecise’.Put simply, high accuracy rates at the group level can often conceal very low accuracy rates for specific individuals or groups of individuals within that larger group. All individual predictions are associated with a confidence interval (a margin of error), which is often not taken into account when reporting the overall ‘predictive accuracy’ of the tool. Academic experts interviewed for this study expressed reservations regarding the ability of algorithmic tools to predict future crime, indicated by comments such as ‘there are a lot of myths around machine learning tools and what they can do.One of the things that machine learning is really terrible at is predicting rare and infrequent events, especially when you don’t have loads of data’. With this in mind, the more infrequent the event the tool is trying to predict, the less accurate it is likely to be. Furthermore, accuracy is often difficult to calculate, because when an individual is judged to pose a risk of offending, an intervention is typically delivered which prevents the predicted outcome from happening.Authorities cannot know what may have happened had they not intervened, and therefore there is no way to test the accuracy (or otherwise) of the prediction. Independent, methodologically robust evaluation of trials is essential to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of a particular tool or method. If such evaluation does not demonstrate the tool’s effectiveness and proportionality, continued use would raise significant legal concerns regarding whether use of the tool was justified to fulfil a particular policing function, requiring the police force to review its design and operational use. Conversely, if there is evidence that a new capability is beginning to perform well, it is important to invest in building the evidence base for its effectiveness, with processes in place for ongoing evaluation.THE CURRENT LANDSCAPEIn England and Wales, a small number of police forces have developed machine learning algorithms to assess reoffending risk for known offenders in the force area, to inform prioritisation of operational activity and to assist decision-making at the entry point to the criminal justice system. For instance, Durham Constabulary’s Harm Assessment Risk Tool uses random forest forecasting (a form of supervised machine learning) to classify individuals in terms of their likelihood of committing a violent or nonviolent offence over the next two years.The purpose is to assist officers in assessing offenders’ eligibility to participate in the Checkpoint Programme, a voluntary out-of-court disposal scheme designed to reduce reoffending by addressing the underlying factors causing individuals to engage in crime. Avon and Somerset Constabulary uses similar technology to assess factors such as likelihood of reoffending, likelihood of victimisation/vulnerability, and likelihood of committing a range of specific offences. Through an app on their mobile devices, neighbourhood officers can instantly access the risk profiles for each offender registered in the force area, which are recalculated on a daily basis.West Midlands Police are developing a similar offender assessment system as part of their Data Driven Insights project, while Hampshire Constabulary is developing a machine learning predictive tool to assess risk of domestic violence offending. The current technological landscape was described by one police officer interviewed as a ‘patchwork quilt, uncoordinated and delivered to different standards in different settings and for different outcomes’.However, the use of analytics and algorithms by police forces in England and Wales is likely to grow in both scale and sophistication in the coming years. It is essential to build a stronger evidence base on the effectiveness and reliability of different systems, and to develop a clearer legal, policy and regulatory framework to ensure proportionate and ethical use of this increasingly powerful technology.EMERGING FINDINGSInterviews conducted to date evidence a desire for clearer national guidance and leadership in the area of data analytics, and widespread recognition and appreciation of the need for legality, consistency, scientific validity and oversight. It is also apparent that systematic investigation of claimed benefits and drawbacks is required before moving ahead with full-scale deployment of new technology. As one law enforcement practitioner commented, ‘there’s as much value in understanding what doesn’t work, as what does’, but to achieve this, controlled space for experimentation is required, recognising that ‘policing is about dealing with complexity, ambiguity and inconsistency’.Lessons can be learned from recent trials of live facial recognition, particularly concerning the need to demonstrate an explicit legal basis for the use of new technology, the need for clearer guidance relating to trials and evaluation, and the importance of meaningful public engagement during the development and testing phase. The development of a draft Code of Practice provides an opportunity, not only to consider bias, but to improve understanding of the application of data analytics in different contexts, and of methods of assessing potential benefits and intrusions. It will be incumbent on users to evidence such assessments when determining whether use of a particular tool can be deemed ‘necessary’, in order to decide whether there are less intrusive means of achieving the same policing aim.Any new code of practice for algorithmic tools in policing should establish a standard process for model design, development, trialling, and deployment, along with ongoing monitoring and evaluation. It should provide clear operationally relevant guidelines and complement existing authorised professional practice and other guidance in a tech-agnostic way.86 Existing surveillance codes and related inspections were suggested by a number of interviewees as a potential model. The new code should ensure sufficient attention is paid to meeting legal and ethical requirements throughout all stages of the product lifecycle, from project inception through to model procurement, development and testing, including ongoing tracking and mitigation of discrimination risk when the tool is deployed operationally, and oversight of the ultimate decision-making process the analytical insights are feeding into.A new code should specify clear roles and responsibilities regarding scrutiny, regulation and enforcement, including the roles of the College of Policing, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and the Home Office, and potentially other regulatory bodies such as the Information Commissioner’s Office and Investigatory Powers Commissioners. The code should also establish standard processes for independent ethical review and oversight to ensure transparency and accountability and facilitate meaningful public engagement before tools are deployed operationally, and oversight of the ultimate decision-making process the analytical insights are feeding into.A new code should specify clear roles and responsibilities regarding scrutiny, regulation and enforcement, including the roles of the College of Policing, the National Police Chiefs’ Council, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and the Home Office, and potentially other regulatory bodies such as the Information Commissioner’s Office and Investigatory Powers Commissioners. The code should also establish standard processes for independent ethical review and oversight to ensure transparency and accountability and facilitate meaningful public engagement before tools are deployed operationally”.“ Evaluating Line-ups ““ Evaluating Line-ups You Or Others Have Created.The basis for evaluating the fairness of line-ups is outlined briefly in Rule 3 of the APLS White Paper:“The suspect should not stand out in the line-up or photospread as being different from the distractors based on the eyewitness’s previous description of the culprit or based on other factors that would draw extra attention to the suspect.“ (page 24)This concept was reinforced in the report of the Technical Working Group on Eyewitness Evidence, in the National Institute of Justice:“Select fillers who generally fit the witness’ description of the perpetrator. When there is a limited/inadequate description of the perpetrator provided by the witness, or when the description of the perpetrator differs significantly from the appearance of the suspect, fillers should resemble the suspect in significant features.”(page 29)Wells et al. (1998) continue:“[The] extent to which Rule 3 has been met in a given line-up can be tested using a "mock witness" procedure. …. Mock witnesses are people who have never seen the culprit but are given the eyewitness’s verbal description of the culprit, shown a picture of the line-up or photospread, and asked to select the person they think is the suspect in the case. If Rule 3 has been sufficiently met, a mock witness should not be able to select the suspect at a level that exceeds chance expectations based on the number of choices (number of line-up members) that could have been selected. If mock witnesses can deduce who the suspect is under these circumstances, then a concern is raised about whether an eyewitness’s selection was a product of true recognition memory or was due merely to the same deduction process that the mock witnesses apparently used.”Since the foundational paper by Doob and Kirshenbaum (1973) disinterested persons have been used as participants in research studies to evaluate eyewitness line-ups. The process is described in some detail by Malpass, Tredoux & McQuiston-Surrett (2007). Here is a thumbnail description of the process and an example of some ways to represent the results to make them more amenable to interpretation. The basic form of the evaluation is provided for each of the line-up evaluations displayed on this website, but for pedagogic purposes below we provide an extended example from a recent case. It will become apparent that the consequences of bad fillers are failure of the safeguard and inflation of the innocent suspects risk of false identification.Thumbnail description of the mock witness procedure.1. Select your population of participants. It is best to choose participants of the same ethnicity as the original witness(s).2. Provide the information you have chosen to give the participants.The choice of information given to participants is important. Doob and Kirshenbaum (1973) gave them the description given by the witness – that the offender was “very good looking”. The most gross departures from fairness will probably be detected without providing any information, simply saying that the line-up contains a police suspect in a case involving the particular offense in question, and asking participants to choose the line-up member who is the police suspect. For a more sensitive evaluation participants can be given the verbal description provided by the witness. Some aspects of appearance are difficult to capture in facial feature descriptions but easy to denote in other language - like “very good looking”. That information also can be included in a verbal description. The single witness in a recent case described the offender as “he looks like a waiter”. Giving line-up evaluation participants only that information allowed them to choose the suspect at an above chance rate, and line-up fillers were chosen substantially below the expected rate.3. Give whatever information you will provide individually to at least 30 (and preferably 50) participants. Don’t display the line-up and the information you provide at the same time: if you do, the identification process may simply be a feature by feature comparison among faces. Then show participants the line-up and ask them to indicate which line-up member is the suspect. Since this is an informal procedure, simply record their response indicating which line-up member was chosen as one of the numbers 1-6 in the line-up, upper left to lower right.4. Summarize the findings in the manner shown in the Line-up Evaluation Spreadsheet, which you may download here. What follows refers to the spreadsheet.There were three kinds of information given the participants in this case, and combined for analysis. The resulting identification frequencies are these, for line-up positions 1-6 (left to right).21311493The suspect was in position 4 and received the largest number of identifications (14 of 42 = 33%), twice the number expected if only chance factors are influencing participant choices. This identification proportion can be submitted to a statistical test for bias by use of a spreadsheet downloadable from the Eyewitness Identification Research Laboratory website. For guidance in its use and interpretation consult someone in your organization familiar with basic statistics, or call the eyewitness laboratory at 915-539-0510. In this example, the probability of an identification proportion of .33 occurring by chance, rather than some systematic process (bias), is very low (.01232), which is statistically reliable. Some systematic process or influence is very likely to be at work. The results can be presented in graphic form, as shown below. There is one "super filler", in position 2, which is identified at a rate nearly equal to the suspect, which is far above the choice frequency expected by chance.It is obvious that three of the fillers are chosen well below the rate expected if only chance factors are involved. The number of fillers which fulfill their role as safeguards to an innocent suspect can be tested quantitatively through Tredoux' E'. A spreadsheet containing the calculation can be downloaded from the Eyewitness Identification Research Laboratory website. But evaluation of the fillers can most easily be understood by examining them in the order of their identification frequency, (L – R) as shown below.14139321Note that the 3 least frequently chosen fillers total 6 choices, which taken together do not add up to the identification frequency (7) expected of 1 fully appropriate filler. That's nearly one filler but since it takes three to make it up, there are two whole fillers effectively missing. Count the number of persons in the line-up. We have the 3 most frequently chosen plus about 85% of another. Rather than the 6 person line-up that should have been used, we instead have a line-up containing about 3.85 persons. You may think that this is not particularly serious, but consider this: the risk of a false identification has gone from 1 in 6 (16.7%) to 1 in 3.85 (25.9%). There is no one I know who would prefer to bet their freedom on a 26% risk rather than a 17% risk.This illustrates two important points for the analysis of line-up fairness:1. Line-up bias is often produced by inadequate fillers.2. The effectiveness of the line-up as a safeguard against false identification focuses sharply on the effectiveness of the fillers and the setting of risk of false identification that results.ReferencesDevlin, Hon Lord Patrick (1976). Report to the Secretary of State for the Home Department of the Departmental Committee on Evidence of Identification in Criminal Cases. HMSO.Doob, A. N. & Kirshenbaum, H. M. (1973). Bias in police line-ups — partial remembering. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 18, 287-293.Malpass, R. S, Tredoux, C. G. & McQuiston-Surrett, D. E. (2007). Line-up construction and line-up fairness. in R. Lindsay, D. Ross, J. D. Read & M. P. Toglia (Eds.), Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology (Vol. 2): Memory for People. Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates.Scheck, B., Neufeld, P., & Dwyer, J. (2001). Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong And How To Make It Right. New York: Doubleday.Technical Working Group on Eyewitness Evidence (1999). Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice (i-x, 1-44).Wells, G.L., Small, M., Penrod, S., Malpass, R.S., Fulero, S.M., & Brimacombe, C.A.E. (1998). Eyewitness identification procedures: Recommendations for line-ups and photospreads. Law and Human Behaviour, 23(6) 603-647 “.

Denial Of The HolodomorPhoto credit: Alexander WienerbergerThe last Saturday in November, Holodomor Remembrance Day, honors the millions of Ukrainians who died of forced starvation at the hands of the Soviets in the 1930s.[1] Some 80 years later, and a quarter-century after the Soviet Union’s dissolution, the Russian government still denies that this atrocity constitutes a “genocide.”[2]Holodomor means “death by hunger,” formed from 2 words in Ukrainian: “holod” meaning hunger or starvation, depending on context; and “mor” meaning death or plague.[3] It is likely that the word derives from the expression “moryty holodom” which means “to inflict death by hunger.”[4] That’s exactly what happened to the people of Soviet Ukraine and primarily ethnically Ukrainian areas in the Northern Caucasus from 1932 to 1933, during a famine masterminded by Joseph Stalin.The Ukrainian independence movement actually predated the Stalin era. Ukraine, which measures about the size of France, had been under the domination of the Imperial Czars of Russia for 200 years.[5] With the collapse of the Czarist rule in March 1917, it seemed the long-awaited opportunity for independence had finally arrived. Optimistic Ukrainians declared their country to be an independent People's Republic and re-established the ancient capital city of Kiev as the seat of government.[6]The Hunt for Ukraine’s Toppled Lenin StatuesHowever, their new-found freedom was short-lived. By the end of 1917, Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union, sought to reclaim all of the areas formerly controlled by the Czars, especially the fertile Ukraine.[7] As a result, four years of chaos and conflict followed in which Ukrainian national troops fought against Lenin's Red Army, and also against Russia's White Army (troops still loyal to the Czar) as well as other invading forces including the Germans and Poles.[8]By 1921, the battles ended with a Soviet victory while the western part of the Ukraine was divided-up among Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets immediately began shipping out huge amounts of grain to feed the hungry people of Moscow and other big Russian cities.[9] Coincidentally, a drought occurred in the Ukraine, resulting in widespread starvation and a surge of popular resentment against Lenin and the Soviets.[10]A family with starving children 1921 (The Holodomor: Stalin's Genocidal Famine that Starved Millions in the 1930s)At the time of the famine, many witnesses recorded the tragedy, and some of them even hinted at its criminal nature.[11] But the passage of time dulled the memory of succeeding generations, and subsequent publications dealing with Ukraine and the Soviet Union said little of substance about this particular disaster.[12] This event, the first man-made famine in the Ukraine, set the stage for the catastrophic famine of 1932–1933.To lessen the deepening resentment, Lenin eased martial law throughout the Ukraine, restricted the export so much grain, and even encouraged a free-market exchange of goods.[13] Subsequently, people's burgeoning interest in independence facilitated a national revival movement celebrating their unique folk customs, language, poetry, music, arts, and Ukrainian orthodox religion.Joseph Stalin in an authorised image taken in 1937 and used for state publicity purposes (Joseph Stalin - WikipediaWhen Lenin died in 1924, he was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, one of the most ruthless humans ever to hold power. To Stalin, the burgeoning national revival movement and continuing loss of Soviet influence in the Ukraine was completely unacceptable. [14] To reassurt Soviet dominance, he employed the same methods he had successfully used within the Soviet Union.In 1928, Stalin introduced a program of agricultural collectivization that forced farmers to give up their private land, equipment and livestock, and join state owned, factory-like collective farms. Stalin decided that collective farms would not only feed the industrial workers in the cities but could also provide a substantial amount of grain to be sold abroad, with the money used to finance his industrialization plans.[15]Many Ukrainian farmers, staunch advocates for independence, refused to join the collective farms, which they considered a return to the serfdom of earlier centuries. In response, Stalin introduced a policy of “class warfare” in the countryside in order to break down resistance to collectivization.[16] The successful farmers, or kurkuls, (kuraks, in Russian) were branded as the class enemy. Brutal enforcement by regular troops and secret police were implemented to “liquidate them as a class.”[17]Who were the kulaks? + ExampleThe publication of Joseph Stalin’s article “The Year of the Great Break” in 1929, marked the start of the Ukrainian genocide.[18] Beginning in 1929, over 5,000 Ukrainian scholars, scientists, cultural and religious leaders were arrested after being falsely accused of plotting an armed revolt.[19] According to the Ukrainian Quarterly of Autumn 1948, 51,713 intellectuals were sent to Siberia in 1931.[20] It is conservatively estimated that at least 75 percent of the Ukrainian intellectuals and professional men in Western Ukraine, Carpatho–Ukraine and Bukovina have been brutally exterminated by the Russians.[21]Those arrested were either shot without a trial or deported to prison camps in remote areas of Russia. The deportations culminated in the devastating forced famine that killed millions more innocent individuals.After the year of mass starvation, the genocide continued for several more years with the further destruction of Ukraine’s political leadership, the resettlement of Ukraine’s depopulated areas with other ethnic groups, the prosecution of those who dared to speak of the famine publicly, and the consistent blatant denial of famine by the Soviet regime.[22]CollectivizationBy mid 1932, nearly 75 percent of the farms in the Ukraine had been forcibly collectivized.[23]Wth the opening of Soviet archives to public, Soviet direction of the “famine” undeniable. In a December 1932 directive, Communist officials ordered regions placed on the “black list” to endure the “immediate cessation of delivery of goods” and the “complete suspension of cooperative and state trade,” including “farm trade.”[24] The abundant crops Ukraine had produced were requisitioned or sometimes left to rot. Soldiers ransacked whole villages for their edible goods before blockading their residents and denying them the right to buy food.[25]On Stalin's orders, mandatory quotas of foodstuffs to be shipped out to the Soviet Union were drastically increased in August, October and again in January 1933.[26] Small stockpiles of supplies were unable to feed the already starving people of the Ukraine.A corpse of a Famine Victimon the streets of Kharkiv, 1933 (1933 Ukrainian Famine Photos from Ammnede's 1936 'Human Life in Russia'.)Much of the hugely abundant wheat crop harvested by the Ukrainians that year was dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Stalin's Five Year Plan for the modernization of the Soviet Union and also to help finance his massive military buildup.[27] If the wheat had remained in the Ukraine, it was estimated to have been enough to feed all of the people there for up to two years.Holodomor (Ukraine) " World Without Genocide -Ukrainian Communists urgently appealed to Moscow for a reduction in the grain quotas and also asked for emergency food aid. Stalin responded by denouncing them and rushed in over 100,000 fiercely loyal Russian soldiers to purge the Ukrainian Communist Party.[28] The Soviets then sealed off the borders of the Ukraine, preventing any food from entering, in effect turning the country into a gigantic concentration camp.[29]Soviet police troops inside the Ukraine also went house to house seizing any stored up food, leaving farm families without a morsel. All food was considered to be the "sacred" property of the State. Anyone caught stealing State property, even an ear of corn or stubble of wheat, could be shot or imprisoned for not less than ten years.[30]Starvation quickly ensued throughout the Ukraine, with the most vulnerable, children and the elderly, first feeling the effects of malnutrition. The once-smiling young faces of children vanished forever amid the constant pain of hunger. It gnawed away at their bellies, which became grossly swollen, while their arms and legs became like sticks as they slowly starved to death.Ukrainian refugees from the 1932-33 famine (Commentary: Ukraine's Never-Ending Trauma)Mothers in the countryside sometimes tossed their emaciated children onto passing railroad cars traveling toward cities such as Kiev in the hope someone there would take pity.[31] But in the cities, children and adults who had already flocked there from the countryside were dropping dead in the streets, with their bodies carted away in horse-drawn wagons to be dumped in mass graves.[32] Occasionally, people lying on the sidewalk who were thought to be dead, but were actually still alive, were also carted away and buried.Survival was a moral as well as a physical struggle. A woman doctor wrote to a friend in June 1933 that she had not yet become a cannibal, but was “not sure that I shall not be one by the time my letter reaches you.” The good people died first. Those who refused to steal or to prostitute themselves died. Those who gave food to others died. Those who refused to eat corpses died. Those who refused to kill their fellow man died. Parents who resisted cannibalism died before their children did.[33]While police and Communist Party officials remained quite well fed, desperate Ukrainians ate leaves off bushes and trees, killed dogs, cats, frogs, mice and birds then cooked them. Others, gone mad with hunger, resorted to cannibalism, with parents sometimes even eating their own children.[34]Ukraine Democracy InitiativeMeanwhile, nearby Soviet-controlled granaries were said to be bursting at the seams from huge stocks of 'reserve' grain, which had not yet been shipped out of the Ukraine.[35] In some locations, grain and potatoes were piled in the open, protected by barbed wire and armed GPU guards who shot down anyone attempting to take the food.[36] Farm animals, considered necessary for production, were allowed to be fed, while the people living among them had absolutely nothing to eat.At the time of the Holodomor, journalists, diplomats, and other observers could only guess at the numbers of victims, and estimates varied from 1.5 to over 10 million. Officially, the Soviet government denied that the famine occurred, and death records could not list starvation as a cause death.[37] Later, scholars were hampered by such falsified and inaccessible records and by the criminalization of famine memory.As many as 25,000 people died every day during the famine.[38] Initial estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials vary greatly. In the first large-scale academic study of the famine, the 1986 Harvest of Despair, Robert Conquest estimated 5 million deaths from famine for the period 1932-33 in Ukraine.[39] More recently, demographers with better access to records and with the latest acceptable demographic methods have estimated that specifically for the years 1932-1934, specifically within the borders of Soviet Ukraine, nearly 4 million people died of famine related causes (not counting average annual deaths.)[40] Adding the unborn to this total yields 4.5 million.What is especially shocking is how such a great number of people succumbed over a very brief period of time: 2 million persons in just 3 months: May-July 1933; 28,000 per day in June of 1933. [41] According to higher estimates, up to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians were said to have perished as a result of the famine.[42] A U.N. joint statement signed by 25 countries in 2003 declared that 7–10 million perished.In the former Soviet Union millions of men, women and children fell victims to the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime. The Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), which took from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives and became a national tragedy for the Ukrainian people. ... as a result of civil war and forced collectivization, leaving deep scars in the consciousness of future generations. ... we deplore the acts and policies that brought about mass starvation and death of millions of people. We do not want to settle scores with the past, it could not be changed, but we are convinced that exposing violations of human rights, preserving historical records and restoring the dignity of victims through acknowledgement of their suffering, will guide future societies and help to avoid similar catastrophes in the future. ...[43]Research has since narrowed the estimates to between 3.3 and 7.5 million.[44] According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kiev, in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million direct famine deaths, and a further 6.1 million birth deficit.[45]As far as the Soviet Union was concerned, the death of around four million Ukrainians was either propaganda or mass delusion.[46] During the Holodomor, Ukraine was essentially isolated from the world, as borders remained sealed. The Western world didn’t know the full extent of the famine and genocide until it was too late.[47] The few survivors who managed to escape Ukraine after the famine compiled their stories into an archive that was immediately dismissed.[48]Denial of the famine by Soviet authorities was echoed at the time of the famine by some prominent Western journalists, like Walter Duranty.“Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda. There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.”(as reported by the New York Times correspondent and Pulitzer-prize winner Walter Duranty)[49]The Soviet Union adamantly refused any outside assistance because the regime officially denied that there was any famine.[50] Anyone claiming the contrary was accused of spreading anti-Soviet propaganda. Outside the Soviet Union, Western governments adopted a passive attitude toward the famine, although most of them had become aware of the true suffering in Ukraine through confidential diplomatic channels.[51]Josef Stalin and Franklin Roosevelt atthe Tehran Conference, 1943 (On This Day: United States and Soviet Union Establish Diplomatic Relations)In fact, in November 1933, the United States, under newly elected president Franklin D. Roosevelt, chose to formally recognize Stalin’s Communist government and also negotiated a sweeping new trade agreement.[52] The following year, the pattern of denial in the West culminated with the admission of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations.[53] Stalin’s Five-Year Plans for the modernization of the Soviet Union depended largely on the purchase of massive amounts of manufactured goods and technology from Western nations.[54] Those nations were unwilling to disrupt lucrative trade agreements with the Soviet Union in order to pursue the matter of the famine.It wasn’t until the anniversary of the famine in 1983 that Western scholars began to look more closely at the events of the Holodomor.[55] Even then, denial was rampant. It was endlessly debated whether the Holodomor had been a conscious attack on the Ukraine or just a consequence of policy gone wrong.In 1988, American historian James Mace compiled volumes of information on the Holodomor that finally forced people to confront the reality of this tragic occurrence in Ukraine’s history.[56] Although the Holodomor could no longer be dismissed as a fabrication of Ukrainian refugees, the millions of Ukrainian deaths from the famine were only written into the history books after Ukraine gained its independence in 1991.[57]In Soviet Ukraine, of course, the Holodomor was kept out of official discourse until the late 1980’s, shortly before Ukraine won its independence in 1991.[58] With the fall of the Soviet Union, previously inaccessible archives, as well as the long suppressed oral testimony of Holodomor survivors living in Ukraine, have yielded massive evidence offering incontrovertible proof of Ukraine’s tragic famine genocide of the 1930’s.On November 28th 2006, the Parliament of Ukraine passed a decree defining the Holodomor as a deliberate Act of Genocide.[59] Although the Russian government continues to call Ukraine’s depiction of the famine a “one-sided falsification of history,”[60] it is recognized as genocide by approximately two dozen nations, and is now the focus of considerable international research and documentation.The first thing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich did after his February 25 2010 inauguration was delete the link to the Holodomor on the president’s official Web site. [61] Yanukovich’s predecessor, Viktor Yushchenko, had made the Holodomor—the famine of 1932–33 produced by Joseph Stalin and responsible for the deaths of millions of Ukrainian peasants—into a national issue, promoting what Czech novelist Milan Kundera famously called “the struggle of memory over forgetting” as part of his attempt to move the country toward democracy.[62] That Yanukovich turned his back so dramatically on this movement to rehabilitate Ukraine’s tragic past indicated the extent to which the recent election was as much about identity as it was about politics.As recent as 2017, the Russian government continues to deny the extent of the Holodomor and their role in creating a policy driven famine and genocide.In 2017, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova told the international press that the Ukrainian government’s use of the phrase “the genocide of Ukrainians” is “politically charged” and “contradicts historical facts.”Furthermore, the U.S. State Department’s statement calling the Holodomor a “Soviet-manufactured tragedy” allegedly “disparaged the memory of the victims of that famine who belonged to other ethnic groups.” She described the Holodomor as merely the result of “severe drought and forced [farm] collectivization” which “hit Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Volga region, the North Caucasus, West Siberia and the South Urals.” Thus, Zakharova perfectly illustrated why the State Department condemned “efforts to deny it as a historical fact.”[63]Footnotes[1] Holodomor Remembrance Day: Why the Past Matters for the Future[2] Russia still denies the Holodomor was ‘genocide’[3] Holodomor - Wikipedia[4] Memory, Conflict and New Media[5] The Ukrainian Crisis: In Russia's Long Shadow[6] The Ukrainian Revolution of 1917 and why it matters for historians of the Russian revolution(s) |[7] The Hunt for Ukraine’s Toppled Lenin Statues[8] Ukrainian War of Independence - Wikipedia[9] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41035958?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents[10] The first man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine 1921-1923 (11/06/88)[11] Eyewitness Accounts[12] The first man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine 1921-1923 (11/06/88)[13] The 'Law' of Diminishing Returns[14] http://acienciala.faculty.ku.edu/communistnationssince1917/ch3.html[15] Collectivization in the USSR: How the Russian peasantry was smashed[16] Genocide in the 20th Century: Stalin's Forced Famine 1932-33[17] Liquidation of the Kulaks[18] Depression Stalinism: The Great Break Reconsidered[19] Stalin in Control[20] SOVIET GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE[21] Why the deadly famine occurred, or comprehending the Ukrainian Holodomor[22] Red Famine by Anne Applebaum review – did Stalin deliberately let Ukraine starve? [23] Holodomor 1932-33: Famine genocide in Ukraine Information website[24] Grain problem[25] 100 years of false religion[26] Holodomor (Ukraine) " World Without Genocide -[27] The Results of the First Five-Year Plan[28] The Ukrainian Week[29] Seven million died in the 'forgotten' holocaust[30] Devastation[31] Grappling With Holodomor[32] https://www.jstor.org/stable/23611464?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents[33] Grappling With Holodomor[34] From The Archive: Famine Survivors Recall Horrors[35] https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.economics-sociology.eu/files/14_20_Nefedov.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjyq8WokN3fAhUixoMKHXT9CjAQFjALegQIBhAB&usg=AOvVaw1ATmUDHFFgYurWLMtP1l5b[36] Holodomor: The Secret Holocaust in Ukraine[37] Holocaust by hunger: The truth behind Stalin's Great Famine[38] So how many Ukrainians died in the Holodomor? |[39] 'HARVEST OF DESPAIR' BARES SOVIET POLICIES, INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL, FOR WHAT THEY ARE[40] Commentary: Ukraine's Never-Ending Trauma[41] So how many Ukrainians died in the Holodomor? |[42] http://Wheatcroft, Stephen G. (2001a). "Current knowledge of the level and nature of mortality in the Ukrainian famine of 1931–3" (PDF). [43] http://repository.un.org/bitstream/handle/11176/246001/A_C.3_58_9-EN.pdf[44] http://Snyder, Timothy (2010). Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. London: The Bodley Head. [45] http://Rosefielde, Steven (1983). "Excess Mortality in the Soviet Union: A Reconsideration of the Demographic Consequences of Forced Industrialization, 1929–1949". Soviet Studies. 35(3): 385–409. [46] Holodomor: World Reaction, Propaganda and the Media[47] How Stalin Hid Ukraine's Famine From the World[48] Commentary: Ukraine's Never-Ending Trauma[49] New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty | The New York Times Company[50] Holodomor - RationalWiki[51] Education - Holodomor Research and Education Consortium[52] 'Roosevelt and Stalin' details the surprisingly warm relationship of an unlikely duo[53] USSR joins the League of Nations[54] 83 years ago: The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations[55] USSR joins the League of Nations[56] Deleting the Holodomor: Ukraine Unmakes Itself[57] Holodomor (Ukraine) " World Without Genocide -[58] Historian Anne Applebaum Details Stalin's War Against Ukraine: 'I Believe It Was Genocide'[59] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800658_pf.html[60] History, Identity and Holodomor Denial: Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine | EUROMAIDAN PRESS[61] Deleting the Holodomor: Ukraine Unmakes Itself[62] Deleting the Holodomor: Ukraine Unmakes Itself[63] Marking the 84th Anniversary of the Ukrainian Holodomor

I have got too many irons in the fire — many of them other Quora issues — to read all of these answers, but it is important to call attention to the inaccuracy and deliberate slanting of events — not so much by the media, but by some of the Quora responses to this question.The flaws I saw were related to protests and violence that have occurred this summer in the U.S.A. Whether other subjects under this question have undergone the same kind of distortion, I do not know. As the saying goes, if the shoe fits….My concern with the whole Quora discussion of the BLM demonstrations and the violence by both left and right-wing extremists is that so many individuals — not everyone by any means, but too many — cannot resist the chance to say SOMETHING, even if they have no real information to offer.Interlaced with serious postings that actually educate or make a reader think, there are too many hair-trigger, cavalier rushes to judgment by people who manifest much passion, but supply no actual reason for anyone to believe their arguments.Their profiles often show no relevant credentials [degrees or work experience in sociology, public safety, law enforcement or law and courts, or direct eyewitness observations from the current happenings]. They have blocked comments a disturbingly high percentage of the time, thus hobbling Quora’s strongest reason for existence, namely, the chance that someone with a really breakthrough fact or idea might arise to corroborate or correct a posting. And some of them are quick to delete any comment on their own posts that they take offense to, no matter how valuable it might be.Worst of all, in my opinion, is how vanishingly rare it has become for Quorans to supply research to back up their views, by which I mean citations of books, magazines or news media specific enough that readers can find and access them; links to websites, preferably specific, detailed, official pages when police and court reports are involved, but in any case, to some place where we can all see what the poster is talking about.Also desirable are coherent lines of reasoning that justify why a poster reached his or her conclusions. Far too many — WAY too many — posts on Quora these days are characterized by vituperation rather than information. Intemperate language is spewed, sometimes constituting almost the entirety of some posts. BNBR? Not much of that in these politically charged posts.Some people don’t hesitate to say that other people — whose names, backgrounds and actual behavior they don’t even know [or have heard only distorted partisan reports about] — deserved to die because they were leftists, or because they were right-wingers, or because they took no sides at all.How do they know? Why don’t they care enough to find out and to include their justification in their posts? I see so many two, three or four-line posts now that I cannot help but suspect that some of the writers just don’t want to do the work that needs to be done before one lectures hundreds, maybe thousands of people, on a prominent medium like Quora.com.Heck, I sometimes think most of the people I know “need killing,” as they like to say down here in Texas. [See photo of gunfighter Clay Allison’s tombstone at the bottom of my answer.]The difference between civilization and barbarism is that in civilized societies, you are not allowed to kill people merely because they deserve it.There has to be more — hard evidence of an actual imminent threat to the killer’s physical health, without justification, by the person you killed.And that, as only one other person seems to have mentioned in passing, must be determined in court, by due process of law, BEFORE any conclusion is drawn about guilt.In most cases, this vital procedure has not been completed yet. And still, people shoot straight for the conclusion they want to believe.Reckless words are not as dangerous as reckless firearms use…except that sometimes people who utter loose words, or hear them too much, will lose control and reach for a gun. Words may or may not be more powerful than the sword, but they can certainly inspire and guide those who use the sword.In any case, even when no one gets physically wounded, loose language always reflects the same barbarous mental processes as combat:[1] a reluctance to wait for facts;[2] a distaste for difficult, subtle thinking;[3] an inability to cope with gray zones that is so overwhelming that its victims will FORCE their interpretation into black or white, depending on their prejudices rather than on evidence and logic;[4] a reckless propensity for conclusion jumping.And that is why a white supremacist or anarchist can put on a black jacket with crudely printed letters on the back spelling “antifa,” get his photo taken throwing a brick, and 250 million people watching on television or the World Wide Web instantly KNOW, without any doubt in their minds, that “those damned liberals are destroying the country again.” Of course, such “false flag” activities could be done by both sides, but right now federal, state and local terrorism experts say the extreme right-wing is more deadly than the extreme left.Why am I the only one who believes the experts over strangers on the Internet?