March 15, 2016

"In the 1980s and 1990s, the politics of crime turned distinctly punitive and remained racially coded."

"Hillary Clinton’s reference to 'superpredators' when talking about crime (which has come up repeatedly in the current campaign) was made in 1996. On the campaign trail and in office, Bill Clinton worked to shore up his 'tough on crime' credentials. As the legal historian Ian Haney Lopez writes, 'Clinton flew back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of a mentally impaired black individual, Ricky Ray Rector,' and he advocated for a number of federal measures, including [the] federal 'three strikes' law."

From "From Wallace To Trump, The Evolution of 'Law And Order,'" by Marquette polisci prof Julia Azari at FiveThirtyEight.

That reminds me: At Sunday's Democratic candidates town hall, Hillary Clinton got a question from a black man named Ricky Jackson, who'd spent 39 years in prison, some of it on death row (and won freedom through the work of the Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati).

Ricky Jackson did not bring up the horrible Ricky Ray Rector case and the racial politics of 1996. I don't know who screened or wrote his question for him, but it was a tame invitation to justify the death penalty in light of the cases of innocence we've seen. The only racial element to Jackson's question was the visual, Jackson himself. And Hillary had a nice opportunity to express empathy for him and balance that with a demand for excellent judicial process and some targeted outrage over real crime (without using the word "superpredators").

What she did was take a hard shot at state courts: "[T'he states have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials that give any defendant all of the rights a defendant should have, all of the support that the defendant's lawyer should have."

State courts are incapable of giving any defendant a fair trial? Not only are all state court trials unfair, it's impossible for state courts to give a fair trial! That's a ridiculous statement. Presumably, she'll walk it back if confronted, but clearly, she had no compunction about stirring up anxiety that the courts that hear the vast majority of criminal trials are hopelessly unfair. That doesn't relate only to the death penalty, but to everyone who's convicted, now and in the future, in state courts.

But federal courts — federal courts are different. She doesn't discourse on the reason. (I'm familiar with it. It's a topic I teach. But it doesn't go so far as to portray the state courts as always and forever unfair.) She supports the death penalty — though she's still "struggling" with it — for "terrorist activities" — but maybe that's a "distinction that is hard to support." Note the weak hedging, even after the intemperate trashing of state courts.

Here's a Salon article from last July, "Bill Clinton’s gutsy apologies: Now he owes one to Ricky Ray Rector," quoting Margaret Kimberley at The Black Commentator:
[R]icky Ray Rector became world famous upon his execution in 1992. Then Governor Bill Clinton left the campaign trail in January of that year to sign the warrant for Rector’s execution. Rector’s mental capacity was such that when taken from his cell as a “dead man walking” he told a guard to save his pie. He thought he would return to finish his dessert.

I try to remember this story when I am told that all Black people love Bill Clinton or that he should be considered the first Black president. Clinton wasn’t Black when Rector needed him. He was just another politician who didn’t want to be labeled soft on crime.
AND: By the way, what's the historical origin — in American politics — of the stock argument that a candidate is "soft on crime"? Was it George Wallace in 1968?

88 comments:

Michael K said...

She is desperate for the black vote and pandering is not a strong enough word.

Rae said...

"I can assure you that there will NO law and order when I am elected. After I am one of you - a downtrodden black man, unfairly accused by racists! FIGHT THE POWER! BLACK LIVES MATTER!"

I can't do a faux African American accent in text, but imagine Hillary using hers.

rhhardin said...

Laws ought to be written so that every race violates them at the same rate.

Hagar said...

Forget it , Professor, it's Hillary!

David said...

"Is politics a system to be gamed?"

Can't wait for John Dickerson to ask her that question.

J. Farmer said...

"This conversation, research shows, has been characterized by avoidance of overt racial terminology but undergirded by an indelible linkage to race.

Umm, it is not just the "conversation" that has an "indelible linkage to race."

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

She's right about the state's courts are unable to give fair trials. The public defenders are a joke. They come to court with a stack of files taller than themselves. They dont know anyone's names or what happened. They just hand out pleas. The judges do the job of the prosecutors. Tell someone you didn't do it and everyone (lawyers, court employees, judges) gives you the stink eye.

It's bullshit.

Brando said...

With Clinton, it's just a question of who she needs to pander to and when. Obviously when it was white moderates, she and her husband could scare up the specter of black predators who needed to be executed, pronto. When the black vote is the one thing that could stop the Sanders surge, you better believe she'll be disowning all that.

If an intelligent moderator had been present when Clinton was asked that question about state courts, they might have asked what she and her husband did during their 12 years in the governor's mansion in Little Rock to make Arkansas courts more able to give people fair trials. You can bet she wouldn't have had an answer to that.

MikeR said...

As usual, I am tired of the assumed moral superiority of those who take the morally corrupt position that murderers should not be executed.
They should be kept in a very expensive cage for the rest of their lives, that's better.
I am willing to take responsibility for innocent people occasionally being executed for murder, if opponents of the death penalty are willing to take responsibility for the people that die at the hands of convicted murderers. I'll come out way ahead.

Robert Cook said...

"Laws ought to be written so that every race violates them at the same rate."

How do you know they don't?

How do you know that blacks are arrested and imprisoned more than whites for certain crimes not because they are more blacks committing those crimes but because the police simply target blacks more often? How do you know that there aren't many white criminals out there who are simply getting away with their crimes because they are not being profiled by the police?


How do you know that the rate of arrests of blacks for certain crimes is not simply a function of racism by the police?

Don't be so quick to "know" the reasons more blacks are in prison than whites for certain categories of crime.

Michael K said...

I wonder what she would say if anyone asked her about the black men in prison falsely accused of rape ?

Robert Cook said...

"I am willing to take responsibility for innocent people occasionally being executed for murder...."

I'm sure the families of those innocents executed wrongly will appreciate your taking responsibility for the loss of their loved ones.

damikesc said...

Ill be blunt. I don't get the black community. They are unhappy both about crime ridden neighborhoods AND any efforts made to imprison criminals.

Anonymous said...

Michael K: She is desperate for the black vote and pandering is not a strong enough word.

And panderin' season hasn't even kicked in for real yet. She should hire these debate-team guys from the University of West Georgia to help out: Black students advocate white genocide at Harvard. (Debate topic was apparently "renewable energy".)

Tank said...

Brando said...

With Clinton, it's just a question of who she needs to pander to and when. Obviously when it was white moderates, she and her husband could scare up the specter of black predators who needed to be executed, pronto...


Not disagreeing generally, but I think that, at the time, the BLACK community was begging for more police protection from the crack crime epidemic in their community.

David Begley said...

AA, "State courts are incapable of giving any defendant a fair trial? Not only are all state court trials unfair, it's impossible for state courts to give a fair trial! That's a ridiculous statement."

Of course it is ridiculous. She will say anything to win.

What's her solution? Federalize all crimes?

Soon enough she will become way more familar with federal courts. At least her trial will be fair.

MikeR said...

"I'm sure the families of those innocents executed wrongly will appreciate your taking responsibility for the loss of their loved ones." Well, are you willing to take responsibility for the deaths you caused, by not executing them - far more? Or do you close your eyes to that?
And what about the families of those innocents who those people had murdered, who suffer because their relative is dead and the murderer is not? Their suffering may be just as great. Do you close your eyes to them as well?
As I said, morally corrupt and they think they're morally superior.

damikesc said...

Would it be wrong to notice that a black person would've gone to jail for crimes Hillary has almost no shot at jail time for? And it's all because black people are protecting her?

MikeR said...

"How do you know that the rate of arrests of blacks for certain crimes is not simply a function of racism by the police?" Because in many cities, a high percentage of policemen are black, and they have similar arrest rates? Spare me your incompetent studies; if you cared, you could have figured out the confounding factors that make them worthless. Show me a study that takes into account the income of those arrested as well as their race: rich black men vs. poor white men, or the particular neighborhood, or their previous arrest record. Show me a study that takes into account the race of the arresting officer.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Robert Cook said...

How do you know that there aren't many white criminals out there who are simply getting away with their crimes because they are not being profiled by the police?

I don't know any of that for certain. But if articles like the ones you linked are the best you've got, then you've got squat. Did you even read the first article? Did you think about it? Did you notice the glaring holes in it?

Here are two:
1) The arrest rates listed are for all ages, while the surveys are only for adolescents. There is no reason to assume the rates stay the same for adults.
2) The surveys count the number of people who sell drugs, but not how frequently they sell them. There is a huge difference between selling to a few friends every week or two and selling on a street corner every day. ( Not a difference in the legality, but in the amount of crime committed. )

Robert Cook said...

I.I.B.

Your response offers no statistical evidence, but merely presumption.

Robert Cook said...

"Because in many cities, a high percentage of policemen are black, and they have similar arrest rates?"

This doesn't have to do with the race of individual police officers, but with the profiling methods used by police departments to achieve particular arrest rates. It has to do with the institutional racism.

MayBee said...

The crime of the 70's drove the changes of the 80's and 90's, but I do think we've gotten more and more punitive. We've gotten really life ruin-y about a lot of things.
But it's weird because I never saw racial coding, especially not in terms like "super predator". I do my own racial profiling in my own head, and I picture different races and ages for different crimes.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Robert Cook said...

Your response offers no statistical evidence, but merely presumption.

I apologize. I was wrong to presume that you were capable of thinking about the articles to which you linked.

Beyond that, what did I presume? I was pointing out holes in the linked article based on their presumptions. That requires no presumption on my part. I stated quite clearly that I didn't know the answers for certain. That puts me a big step ahead of the author of the linked article.

Brando said...

"Not disagreeing generally, but I think that, at the time, the BLACK community was begging for more police protection from the crack crime epidemic in their community."

I think blacks benefit more from cracking down on crime--they are after all more likely to be victims of violent crime--but politically it seems the "tough on crime" rhetoric resonates more among whites. The black establishment has successfully raised the idea that the police are unfair towards blacks (as was the case in the Jim Crow days) and that "anti-crime" was a secret code for "anti-black". Nonsense, but effective nonsense.

"But it's weird because I never saw racial coding, especially not in terms like "super predator". I do my own racial profiling in my own head, and I picture different races and ages for different crimes."

That's the thing that's so offensive about the far left--they hear "thug" and THEY immediately think "you're using code for black people!" This really says more about their own bigoted assumptions than it does about those of us who say "thug" and mean "violent" with no racial connotation.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

By the way, Robert-

If I was as sloppy with my presumptions as the author of the first article you linked, I would point out how clearly the graph shows that increasing arrests on drug charges greatly reduced the amount of property crimes.

But I'm not.

So I won't.

Danno said...

Brando said, "If an intelligent moderator had been present when Clinton was asked that question about state courts, they might have asked what she and her husband did during their 12 years in the governor's mansion in Little Rock to make Arkansas courts more able to give people fair trials. You can bet she wouldn't have had an answer to that."

And you know The Donald would be asking that before she even finished her sentence.

MikeR said...

"This doesn't have to do with the race of individual police officers, but with the profiling methods used by police departments to achieve particular arrest rates. It has to do with the institutional racism." In other words: You like your conclusion better than the truth, and you found a way to explain that to yourself. I guess the contempt you've shown to black police officers is just collateral damage.

MikeR said...

"The surveys count the number of people who sell drugs, but not how frequently they sell them." Thanks - I had missed that, and it's a very good confounding factor.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...


I think blacks benefit more from cracking down on crime--they are after all more likely to be victims of violent crime--but politically it seems the "tough on crime" rhetoric resonates more among whites.


Interesting point. Why wouldn't blacks be for something that benefits them? Maybe you guys need to get out more and see the reality in the poor communities.

Have you ever been stopped for jaywalking and searched for drugs?

Have you ever been stopped for not using your turn signal for 500'?

Did you know if is dealing narcotics to get your mother's pain pills from the pharmacy and take them to her? How many suburban housewives been sent to prison for this type of dealing?

How many of your friends and family been hassled by the cops and when they complain they get arrested for "contempt of cop?" Sure probably no conviction but you sure as shit lost your job because you Sat in jail for 3-4 before your bond was paid.

How much marijuana, coke, heroin, and dealing is going in at college. Let's set up a special aggressive rules of enforcement in colleges and then check back in 20-30 years and see how that community is doing.

Mark Caplan said...

damikesc said: I don't get the black community. They are unhappy both about crime ridden neighborhoods AND any efforts made to imprison criminals.

Great point. Many inner city blacks have friends and family members who were murdered and other friends and family members who are locked away in prison, so they live in a cognitively dissonant world in which they are simultaneously predator and prey.

Additionally (trigger warning: this might sound borderline racist), blacks prefer the African or Islamic system of justice over the white man's system. In African justice, the aggrieved party takes revenge directly by giving the offender an ass whoopin'. In the white man's system, a neutral party, the state, exacts justice on behalf of the victim.

Peter said...

If you truly want more justice in state criminal courts then you might start by doing away with plea bargains. After all, it's not that hard to explain why, even if you didn't do the crime, you might plead guilty to a reduced charge with a short sentence in order to avoid risking decades in prison. Although if this were ever mandated the likely result would be that few cases would go to trial and most arrestees would be released, as prosecutors and courts would lack the resources to take more than a few cases to trial.

Nonetheless, how can one discuss the intersection of crime and race in America without noting that crime rates are vastly disproportionate across racial, ethnic, and sex boundaries? Are criminal laws to be invalidated (or not be enforced) when they inevitably produce disparate impacts?

And if so, can we at least recognize that most crime victims are also racial minorities, and that although many violent criminals are racial minorities, most of those who live in high-crime neighborhoods, although of the same race as these criminals, are mostly law-abiding and just trying to get by? And that it is they who are victimized when law enforcement and criminal justice will not or can not maintain law and order?

Is it perhaps all too easy to have unrealistically romantic views of crime and criminals when one has the means to live where one can be secure in one's home, and streets and other public spaces can be presumed to be reasonably safe at all hours of the day?

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

"[T'he states have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials...

Right. All State laws should be repealed and replaced by National laws. Do away with State Police, County Sheriffs, City Police. FBI, CIA, CBP, DEA, IRS, etc. should be given charter are the only fair and just agencies. Only exception should be School District Police Forces. Replacing these with a Federal School Police can be the center piece of Hillary's 2020 re-election campaign.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

MayBee said...

We've gotten really life ruin-y about a lot of things.

I often wonder if we would do better to replace prison sentences with public floggings. Painful, humiliating, but over quickly. No lost jobs, no broken families, no putting young novice criminals into a system where, for their own personal safety, the must ally themselves with more senior, more violent, career criminals.

Brando said...

"Interesting point. Why wouldn't blacks be for something that benefits them? Maybe you guys need to get out more and see the reality in the poor communities."

I don't disagree that that is a large part of it--despite being more likely a victim of crime, blacks often feel the police aren't there to help them. And while I don't live in a poor community, I pass through them on my way to and from work (unfortunately there's no easy way to get to my office except via West Baltimore). Part of the reason crime is so bad in those places is the police don't trust the locals and vice versa. It means crime is more likely tolerated by the locals who have more to fear from thugs than from the law, and the police lack the eyes and ears on the street that the locals could provide. It also explains why even in equally poor white and Hispanic communities, violent crime is much lower than in black communities. As long as the distrust continues, the problem won't be fixed.

I don't really have an answer--the police need to be aggressive and effective, and get the cooperation of the locals, and the locals need to do more to straighten out their own kids. But how that happens is anyone's guess.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

To clarify, I don't mean to do away with all prison sentences. Just for non-violent or minimal violence type crimes. We would still lock people up if they were a significant threat to the general public.

Big Mike said...

Note that the article says Bill Clinton should apologize for Ricky Rector, not that he did. What he actually apologized for was his signing the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Even a Dumbocrat realizes that there's no way to apologize to Ricky Rector, not to mention that the real issue was that mental impairment -- per the Supreme Court no less! -- was not at that time recognized as a reason not to execute an individual. (For all I know it still isn't recognized as a reason not to execute someone.)

The writer, Paul Rosenberg, is sort of a dingbat. He wants to blame the current situation in Iraq on Bush, though Bush handed a war that was essentially won to his successor -- and Obama and Biden took the victory laps -- and then they preceded to lose it to a "JV Team."

Getting back to Hillary Clinton and state courts, the point of a federated system of government was to recognize that different states have different cultures. Texas, notoriously, is harder on criminals than California. If you believe, as probably Hillary Clinton does, that there should be a single set of standards for punishment, then who is to say that New York or California should be the model? Why shouldn't it be Texas?

GRW3 said...

I suspect part of the problem is that tough law enforcement did reduce the crime in middle and upper class areas but ignored the poorer, mostly minority areas, So the people in those areas see a lot of their people being arrested but their neighborhoods not getting any better. Who wouldn't think the system is rigged at that point.

What happens when Trump starts telling the truth to minorities, the truths the PC police try so hard to scrub from the conversation? What happens when he promises to send his justice department and the national guard to the Chicago south side and restore order and increase public safety?

Fernandinande said...

Via Pinker: Is crime genetic? Scientists don’t know because they’re afraid to ask

The title is misleading in that they do know that "crime is genetic", but want to suppress that knowledge: "Instead, it seems that the word 'gene' makes social scientists nauseated. Not long ago, in fact, the top journal in the field of criminology published an article calling for an end to twin studies. Let that resonate a moment."

Fernandinande said...

Robert Cook said...
"Laws ought to be written so that every race violates them at the same rate."
How do you know they don't?


NCVS data. Matches arrest rates pretty closely.

cubanbob said...

rhhardin said...
Laws ought to be written so that every race violates them at the same rate.

3/15/16, 6:55 AM"

That is positively brilliant. Affirmative Action for criminal prosecution.

@ Cook: is it too much to expect a person of average intelligence after seeing the harm that drugs do to avoid being in the drug business?
@ Bill in Texas: there is a simple way to avoid felony incarceration; don't commit felonies.

The late Nancy Reagan was right; just say to no to committing felonies.

cubanbob said...

Blogger Ignorance is Bliss said...
MayBee said...

We've gotten really life ruin-y about a lot of things.

I often wonder if we would do better to replace prison sentences with public floggings. Painful, humiliating, but over quickly. No lost jobs, no broken families, no putting young novice criminals into a system where, for their own personal safety, the must ally themselves with more senior, more violent, career criminals.

3/15/16, 9:07 AM

I'm having a senior moment, a while back I read a short but excellent book that argued that point: offer the convicted the choice between immediate flogging and go home the same day or a prison sentence.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

As I've noted before, the media and political reaction to the crack wars of the '90's made it clear that Black folks were not going to break into the sun-lit uplands of the American Dream. I particularly remember one Time magazine of a young Black man with a bandana over his face and a crappy old break-top revolver in his hand. With imagery like that it was obvious that White liberals were determined to keep Blacks in their assigned roles of Victim and Criminal.

cubanbob said...

Blogger Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...
"[T'he states have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials...

Right. All State laws should be repealed and replaced by National laws. Do away with State Police, County Sheriffs, City Police. FBI, CIA, CBP, DEA, IRS, etc. should be given charter are the only fair and just agencies. Only exception should be School District Police Forces. Replacing these with a Federal School Police can be the center piece of Hillary's 2020 re-election campaign.

3/15/16, 9:02 AM

Take this to its logical conclusion and abolish the states and their sub-divisions and let the country be directly governed by DC. I suspect even the Obama Administration couldn't do worse running Detroit or Chicago among other wonderfully run Democrat cities.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

So now it's racist to believe there are "super predators" in the black population who commit most of the violent crime. What's the alternative, the vast majority of blacks are violent criminals? They spell each other?

Sebastian said...

"That's a ridiculous statement" Faux shock, right?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Big Mike said...

If you believe, as probably Hillary Clinton does, that there should be a single set of standards for punishment, then who is to say that New York or California should be the model?

Hillary is to say. That's the point. That's always the point. That's the only point.

Fernandinande said...

Robert Cook said...
It has to do with the institutional racism.


No, it has to do with the fact that blacks commit a lot more crimes than people of any other race.

Do you ascribe the fact that whites are arrested and prosecuted more often than Asians to anti-white/pro-Asian racism? Why not?

">In other words, the UCR [arrests] and NCVS [victim survey] tell the same story about the extent of these three serious crimes. Indeed, for more than 30 years, criminologists have found that UCR and victimization data
generally report similar results regarding the incidence of criminality in the United States.


Race and Crime in America
"These charts demonstrate that over the last twenty-five years the weighted correlations for each of the crime categories against the percentages of whites, Hispanics, and “immigrants” (i.e. Hispanics-plus-Asians) have fluctuated in the general range of -0.20 to -0.60. Interestingly enough, for most of the last decade the presence of Hispanics and immigrants has become noticeably less associated with crime than the presence of whites, although that latter category obviously exhibits large regional heterogeneity. Meanwhile, in the case of blacks, the weighted crime correlations have steadily risen from 0.60 to around 0.80 or above, almost always now falling within between 0.75 and 0.85."

Fernandinande said...

"In other words..." link:
http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763742848/Exploring%20Criminal%20Justice-Ch%203.pdf

cubanbob said...

Here is the way for the Feds to lead by example: a plea bargain deal can be brought to the jury's attention in the event that the accused decides to go to trial. The sentence if the accused is found guilty cannot exceed that of the plea bargain. This will no doubt cause the criminal justice industry to grind to a near halt and substantially reduce the numbers of the newly incarcerated but then again it will force cops and prosecutors to be more choosy on how they allocate resources. There will likely be a huge increase in crime but for the SWJs that is a price well worth paying in terms of justice for all.

jr565 said...

"It has to do with the institutional racism."

bull. WHen it was segregation THAT was institutional racism.You are just complaining about a result and calling that racism.

Men are more likely to be arrested for crimes than women. Is that institutional sexism? OR do men just commit more crimes than women? I'm not going to make the argument that just because men are more likely to be in prison than women that there is some systemic issue. I'd say that more men commit crimes, therefore more men get arrested. therefore more men are in jail. No institutional forces at work. Just bad personal choices.

jr565 said...

From one of Robert Cook's links:
Drug Arrests

The war on drugs precipitated soaring arrests of drug offenders and increasing racial disproportions among the arrestees. Blacks had long been arrested for drug offenses at higher rates than whites. Throughout the 1970s, for example, blacks were approximately twice as likely as whites to be arrested for drug-related offenses. By 1988, however, with national anti-drug efforts in full force, blacks were arrested on drug charges at five times the rate of whites.73 Nationwide, blacks constituted 37 percent of all drug arrestees;74 in large urban areas, blacks constituted 53 percent of all drug arrestees.


So, go to an inner city. or go to one during the crack epidemic. People were selling crack on every street corner. Were drug dealers sending heroin on every street corner in white neighborhoods?
if drug dealers are so brazen about selling crack and cops are going after drug dealers they will go after the low hanging fruit. So, if there are more blacks in jail for selling crack or drugs look at how they were selling drugs. Its not rocket science.

People who make this argument never address the fact that black people were selling crack in huge numbers. You can pretend like the war on drugs wasnt' a response to drugs ravaging communities, but its a fact that the war on drugs was a response to drugs. Not the other way around.

The war on drugs is a war on crime. You dont' declare that war unless crimes are occuring. THose saying this are putting the cart before the horse.

wildswan said...

Some commenters above are making veiled references to criminal genes so I bring this up:

There is a new argument for the presence of some kind of criminal gene among the blacks which is being developed by the the same group of super-predators who gave us the Nazi party, namely, the eugenicists in our midst. In this argument there are certain genes which have two forms one of which is anti-social and the anti-social form is more prevalent among the blacks. Moreover some of these genes don't get "switched on" in their anti-social dimension unless the proband (as people are known among eugenicists) unless the proband is subject to severe stress such as living in a bad neighborhood, and being hassled and harassed constantly. ?And so genetic justice will soon require us to find the genetic makeup of those living in bad neighborhoods and begin to treat them with drugs early to immunize them against their genes going bad? ?Watch them? ?Refuse to sell them liquor? ?Make drug taking a reason to put them in special "treatment centers? Or perhaps we could study the studies and look at the statistical presuppositions? Consider the source, which is the Society for the Study of Biodemography and Social Biology, its members and its supporters. Their "research" is being pushed into the mainstream by duped reporters.

Example:
Does the human “warrior gene” make violent criminals–And what should society do? by Tabitha M. Powledge | November 4, 2014 | Genetic Literacy Project https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/11/04/does-the-human-warrior-gene-make-violent-criminals-and-what-should-society-do/
from the article: "We need to get serious about figuring out how to interfere with noxious genetic susceptibilities in ways that are fair and decent for everybody."
from the comments: " black people are more likely to have versions of dopamine genes like ANKK1, DAT1, and DRD4 that have been linked to antisocial behavior"

(See Kevin Beaver "A gene‐based evolutionary explanation for the association between criminal involvement and number of sex partners" or the IGSS [Integrating Genetics and the Social Sciences] conferences at the University of Colorado organized by the current co-President of the Society for the Study of Social Biology for original research reports)

wildswan said...

Oops
The organizer of the IGSS conferences is the co-president of the Society of Biodemography and Social Biology, formerly dba the Society for the Study of Social Biology, previous to that dba the American Eugenics Society.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Why do people believe that the states are less 'fair' when it prosecutes crimes than the feds? There is nothing magic about the federal government. If the federal government was in the business of handing out traffic tickets, there is no reason to think that it would not engage in the racial profiling that states and cities are presumed to do.

Drago said...

Robert Cook: "It has to do with the institutional racism."

Fernandinande: "No, it has to do with the fact that blacks commit a lot more crimes than people of any other race."

It had most to do with the fact that the level of physical violence inherent in the types of transactions/interactions involving crack (or similar drug)-related events and non-crack (or similar drug)events was Massively uneven.

Of course, our notable Marxist contributors would have you believe that all these comparisons between arrests and convictions and relative sentencing were for exactly the same crimes.

Which is, as usual for the left, a lie.

In the same way that "equal pay" is really just "comparable pay" which is really just a bureaucrat sitting in Washington telling us that being a secretary requires "exactly the same types of comparable skills and physical exertion" so those jobs should pay the exact same salary.

In the same way that the republicans are "just like ISIS", without all those messy beheadings, mass sexual assaults & sexual slavery (even of very young girls), throwing homosexuals off buildings, forced conversions leading to torture and death, etc.

You know, all same same.


jr565 said...

I like looking at older movies just to get a sense of the zeitgeist of the times. For example, Spike Lee's Jungle Fever has a whole subplot about crack devastating the inner city.
That was how black people wanted us to view crack. It wasn't noble. it was devastation. In the movie Sam Jackson plays the crack addicted brother of Wesley Snipes, and he basically steals from the family, and will not stop. The father ends up killing him (echoes of Marvin Gaye).

Then the very last scene Wesley Snipes sees a crack whore who is a character in the movie and he hugs her and looks to the heavens and says "Why??????" Ok, maybe he doesnt say that. But the obvious suggestion is that we need to do something becuase this has destroyed the community. (am I my brothers keeper, an echo from another Wesley Snipes movie about Crack)

So, the war on drugs was in fact a response to THIS. Now Spike Lee is probably complaining that too many black people are in prison for drug crimes. But it was blacks in the inner cities that made the sam Jackson character into the junkie and made the crack whore the crack whore. If its not devastation one way (crack ravaging the community), its devastation another way (blacks who sell crack going to jail for selling crack).
You can't have your cake and eat it too. And lets not forget that the black community, in fact , WANTED a tough response for crack. They obviously didnt think through the implications though since it would mean more black people arrested since they are the ones selling in the inner cities.

khematite said...

Law and order was a pretty big issue in the 1920s and 1930s, with kidnappings, bank robberies, and mob wars in the wake of prohibition. Lots of movies from that era, for example, depict cozy relationships between local government officials and crime bosses and end with the victory of reform forces that will clean up the city. A somewhat similar plot line, but at the national level, can be found in Gregory La Cava's 1933 film, "Gabriel Over the White House," which actually depicts a drive-by shooting aimed at the White House. Crime seemed so out of control in the prohibition era that President Hoover felt the need in 1929 to appoint a National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (better known as the Wickersham Commission).

I think there was something of a lull in public concern about crime after prohibition was repealed in 1933 and certainly while the US was fighting World War II. That continued through the 1940s and 1950s. But I would mark the resurgence of the crime issue in national politics not with George Wallace in 1968, but with Barry Goldwater's "crime in the streets" tv commercial during the 1964 election, blaming LBJ and the Supreme Court for the breakdown of law and order in American cities. One of the first things LBJ did after the 1964 election was to establish the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, hoping to preempt the crime issue for the future.

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1964/morality

jr565 said...

Bill, republic of texas wrote:
How much marijuana, coke, heroin, and dealing is going in at college. Let's set up a special aggressive rules of enforcement in colleges and then check back in 20-30 years and see how that community is doing.

Cops go after people selling meth. If more people sell meth, and the community suffers the way the black community did under crack, then I bet the cops start cracking down on meth dealers. What is the color of meth dealers? I dont know. Whoever sells meth is a meth dealer. But lets say white people tend to be more likely to sell meth. Well then whites might start turning up in prison more. There is no color requirement to sell meth.
But if you don't have tough rules for dealing with meth and people in college are all meth addicts and stealing each others shit to get meth, or OD'ing or turning to prostitution to get meth, what is your response to THAT? If whole gangs form around the selling of meth on campus and start killing one another fighting over turf to sell meth we'd all say the college environment was destroyed. The community would not be doing well. And we'd need rules to crack down on those people who destroyed the environment. Its the drug dealing that leads to crime and a war on drugs, a war on drugs doesn't just materialize.

wildswan said...

There is a heroin epidemic in Wisconsin in rural areas. In those areas the drugs are sold indoors through networks of friends and it's hard to see the devastation and hard to infiltrate the groups. And, when infiltrated, breaking the groups requires arresting people who are in school or have jobs and have friends. Your neighbors. But there is no other answer.

Jupiter said...

Robert Cook said...

"How do you know that there aren't many white criminals out there who are simply getting away with their crimes because they are not being profiled by the police?"

Because, Cookie, the rate of black incarceration for murder is 8 times the white rate. But it is not the case that 80% of murders go unsolved. So, it is not the case that white people commit murder at the same rate as blacks, and get away with it. See how that works?


jr565 said...

wildswan wrote:
There is a heroin epidemic in Wisconsin in rural areas. In those areas the drugs are sold indoors through networks of friends and it's hard to see the devastation and hard to infiltrate the groups. And, when infiltrated, breaking the groups requires arresting people who are in school or have jobs and have friends. Your neighbors. But there is no other answer.

everyone is a neighbor or a friend of someone. Even people living in the inner cities. Thus, its not a good argument as to why it can't be done.
Also, because the drugs are sold indoors through networks of friends, its probably harder to arrest people compared to if you are selling crack on a street corner. And everyone knows thats where you buy crack.
So, if we were to look at whites arrested for heroin, versus blacks arrested for crack you'd probably find that more blacks are arrested.
Which suggests that maybe crack dealers selling crack on the street is a stupid way to sell crack. Unless you dont mind getting arrested more often.
But I dont see why, just because one group is more impacted by a law that it makes the law racist.

jr565 said...

GRW3 wrote:
I suspect part of the problem is that tough law enforcement did reduce the crime in middle and upper class areas but ignored the poorer, mostly minority areas, So the people in those areas see a lot of their people being arrested but their neighborhoods not getting any better. Who wouldn't think the system is rigged at that point.

was there as much drug selling in middle and upper middle class areas compared to inner cities? And were the poorer cities ignored? If you ask the inner cities they are saying that the police are concentrating on them and ignoring other people. Hence the excess number of black people in jails.
If police ignored all the crimes in the inner cities, then the argument was that we were abandoning the black community. Which WAS the argument when black leaders wanted us to deal with Crack. The cops can't win here.

Gabriel said...

Ricky Jackson sounds unjustly convicted, but Ricky Ray Rector certainly was not--and he was not mentally impaired when he committed his crimes, only when he shot himself in the head after he murdered the cop he specifically requested he be allowed to surrender to, a man he'd known since childhood.

Ricky Ray Rector attempted to execute himself, and he certainly had no problem with executing other people for trivial reasons. Bill Clinton did exactly right, even if for the wrong reason.

On March 21, 1981, Rector and some friends drove to a dance hall at Tommy’s Old-Fashioned Home-Style Restaurant in Conway. When one friend who could not pay the $3 cover charge was refused entry, Rector became incensed and pulled a .38 caliber pistol from his waist band. He fired several shots, wounding two and killing a third man named Arthur Criswell, who died almost instantly after being struck in the throat and forehead.

Rector left the scene of the murder in a friend’s car and wandered the city for three days, staying in the woods or with relatives. On March 24, Rector’s sister convinced him to turn himself in. Rector agreed to surrender, but only to Officer Robert Martin, whom he had known since he was a child.

Officer Martin arrived at Rector’s mother’s home shortly after 3 p.m. and chatted with Rector’s mother and sister. Shortly thereafter, Rector arrived and greeted Officer Martin. As Officer Martin turned away to continue his conversation with Mrs. Rector, Ricky Ray Rector drew his pistol from behind his back and fired two shots into Officer Martin, striking him in the jaw and neck. Rector then turned and walked out of the house.

Once he had walked past his mother’s backyard, Rector put his gun to his own temple and fired. Rector was quickly discovered by other police officers and taken to the local hospital. The shot had destroyed Rector’s frontal lobe.

Rector survived the surgery and was put on trial for the murders of Criswell and Martin. His defense attorneys argued that Rector was intellectually impaired and not competent to stand trial. However, after hearing conflicting testimony from several experts who had evaluated Rector, Judge George F. Hartje ruled that Rector was competent to stand trial. Rector was convicted on both counts and sentenced to death.

jr565 said...

"As I've noted before, the media and political reaction to the crack wars of the '90's made it clear that Black folks were not going to break into the sun-lit uplands of the American Dream. I particularly remember one Time magazine of a young Black man with a bandana over his face and a crappy old break-top revolver in his hand. With imagery like that it was obvious that White liberals were determined to keep Blacks in their assigned roles of Victim and Criminal."

In fairness to Time, it wasn't just liberals. Remember the whole east coast west coast battles? And crips versus bloods? And "its not about a salary, its all about reality". blacks had no problems pushing Thug life as the authentic black experience and in the inner cities this is still predominate.
So, did Time create that image? or are they just reflecting on it?

damikesc said...

Did you know if is dealing narcotics to get your mother's pain pills from the pharmacy and take them to her? How many suburban housewives been sent to prison for this type of dealing?

If they're in the prescription bottle, no, you won't be charged. People who have loose pills with no bottle tend to have problems because, yes, they tend to deal a lot.

jr565 said...

"When me and my posse stepped in the house
All the punk-ass niggaz start breakin out
Cause you know, they know whassup
So we started lookin for the bitches with the big butts
Like her, but she keep cryin
"I got a boyfriend" Bitch stop lyin
Dumb-ass hooker ain't nuttin but a dyke
Suddenly I see, some niggaz that I don't like
Walked over to em, and said, "Whassup?"
The first nigga that I saw, hit em in the jaw
Ren started stompin em, and so did E
By that time got rushed by security
Out the door, but we don't quit
Ren said, "Let's start some shit!"
I got a shotgun, and here's the plot
Takin niggaz out with a flurry of buckshots
Boom boom boom, yeah I was gunnin
And then you look, all you see is niggaz runnin
and fallin and yellin and pushin and screamin
and cussin, I stepped back, and I kept bustin
And then I realized it's time for me to go
So I stopped, jumped in the vehicle
It's like this, because of that who-ride
N.W.A. is wanted for a homicide
Cause I'm the type of nigga that's built to last
Fuck wit me, I'll put my foot in your ass
See I don't give a fuck, cause I keep bailin
Yo, what the fuck are they yellin?"

They sound more violent than Trump supporters.
But seriously. Who woudn't assume that those espousing said views might be violent criminals. If they dont like people thinking the worse, why would you make an album espousing what a thug you are?
Lets go through the crimes. One, not taking no for an answer (rape culture). Two, going up to people and beating them up. Then security steps in (probably white racists going after them for being black).
Then the decide to start some shit and kill black people with a shot gun. About this point the cops would get involved and go after them. And they would be lionized as being part of the white racists cultures assault on black people if they were killed in a shootout with cops.
They were just driving while black, see. And the cops just shot them for no reason, other than that there is systemic racism!
Who is the one presenting black people as thugs and murderers here? Not white people. NWA wore their thuggery with a badge of honor.

jr565 said...

"[T'he states have proven themselves incapable of carrying out fair trials that give any defendant all of the rights a defendant should have, all of the support that the defendant's lawyer should have."

but when it comes to rape allegations we are supposed to accept the womans story simply because she is a woman. Unless the person is suggesting Bill Clinton sexually harrassed them, in which case they are part of a vast right wing conspiracy.

There are probably a lot of minority criminals in jail who are there beause of false accusations of rape. Or mistaken accusations. ITs nice that she brings up the minority who was falsely accused of a crime. But if she pushes, women are always right over due process, then a lot of people are going to be in jail, just like this guy, for crimes they didnt commit.

Fernandinande said...

He[Rector] thought he would return to finish his dessert.

Having shot himself in the head might have something to do with that.

khematite said...
One of the first things LBJ did after the 1964 election was to establish the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, hoping to preempt the crime issue for the future.


Well, it didn't preempt.

"Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008" is quite informative.

"The homicide rate doubled from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, increasing from 4.6 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 1962 to 9.7 per 100,000 by 1979 (Figure 1)."

"In 2008, the offending rate for blacks (24.7 offenders per 100,000) was 7 times higher than the rate for whites (3.4 offenders per 100,000) (Figure 18)."

Figure 18 also shows that the white murder rate remained consistently low and slowly decreasing over time (1980 to 2008), while the black murder rate fluctuates a lot over that time, increasing a lot around the mid 1980s and flattening around 2000, with a big peak in around 1990. ("Crack war" time?)

wildswan said...
There is a new argument for the presence of some kind of criminal gene among the blacks which is being developed by the the same group of super-predators who gave us the Nazi party, namely, the eugenicists in our midst.


Nazis had genes, therefore everyone with genes is a Nazi, and only SJWs don't have genes. Am I close?

It's well-known that the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health are just fronts for crypto-Nazis: Psychopathic personality traits: heritability and genetic overlap with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology

HoodlumDoodlum said...

But black women love Hillary Clinton. I don't know why, but it's true.

Any compassion, by the way, for the victims of these crimes? No? I mean the victims of crimes by black criminals are mostly black themselves, but I guess they don't count.

readering said...

Although "rising crime" concerns have long had a racial component, it was not Wallace so much as Nixon and Agnew who were the big soft on crime candidates. Good argument that the civil unrest in the sixties got them elected (and re-elected). They irony of course is that one left office early to go to prison and the other likely would have followed but for the pardon that had the effect of interrupting the quarter-century succession of successful Republican law and order candidates.

Michael said...

The black community was begging for tougher drug laws in the early 80s. They got them.

I would be fine with removing all drug laws. Let er rip. Spring all the drug dealers from the slammer. Let er rip. I am old enough and my kids are squared away enough so that all of us would be interested in seeing how that all worked out. We often discuss the unintended consequences of the "war on drugs" and would relish a fresh batch of unintended consequences.

Why not have only black officers in black communities with total discretion on which "crimes" are to be reckoned with. Let er rip.

wildswan said...

"It's well-known that the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health are just fronts for crypto-Nazis: Psychopathic personality traits: heritability and genetic overlap with internalizing and externalizing psychopathology"

I don't say that NIH is KNOWN as a font of funding for the new eugenics - I just say that it IS the funder. Inside NIH there are two tiny little units dealing with behavior and the social sciences. These two units are funding both biodemography and the new social biology. One is NIA/ Behavioral and Social Research which was led till April 2015 by South African-born and -educated Richard Suzman. The other is NICHD / Demographic and Behavioral Sciences Branch (which has been renamed but you need the original name to look stuff up).

I say biodemography and a new version of social biology as academic fields were founded by eugenic society members and funded by NICHD/DBDB and NIA/BSR. If you disagree look and see who funded the foundational work e.g. the workshop/book Between Zeus and the Salmon or the IGSS seminars. Or look at the membership of the Committee on Population of the National Academy of Sciences. (http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/CPOP/CPOP_Membership/index.htm) The chair is Kathleen Mullan Harris, a current director of the Society of Biodemography and Social Biology.(http://www.biodemog.org/board.html - as are Marke Hayward and Hillard Kaplan.) Everyone who gets money from the government must acknowledge that funding in very publication so it's easy to trace biodemography and NICHD/DBDB and NIA/BSR.

Example:
NIH, NIA Biodemography of Aging (R01)
Biodemography, the integration of demographic and biological theory and methods, provides an innovative tool for understanding the impact of aging on health and longevity. ... In a recent handbook chapter reviewing the field, Carey and Vaupel lay out an “emerging research agenda for biodemography,” calling for advances at many levels of biological organization from molecular to the ecological (Carey and Vaupel, 2006, esp. table 21.1). This FOA encourage research especially at population levels, described by Carey and Vaupel
http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-12-078.html
Carey and Vaupel are leaders - v.p. and board of directors of the Society of Biodemography and Social Biology within the last five years.

Finally I'm not saying that these are crypto-Nazis - I'm saying the American government is sponsoring eugenics as did the German government and the results will be no better. They are already after the blacks.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Bill Republic of Texas said...How much marijuana, coke, heroin, and dealing is going in at college. Let's set up a special aggressive rules of enforcement in colleges and then check back in 20-30 years and see how that community is doing.

I was largely with you up until that point, Bill.
How much physical violence is associated with drug dealing going on in colleges, Bill? Do you think there could be any reason for law enforcement cracking down on drug dealing on the street more forcefully than they do at a college? Do college drug dealing turf wars involve drive by shootings, multiple murders for turf, etc? When they do have that kind of violence at colleges I'll bet the cops step up enforcement.
It's not racial profiling to put enforcement where it can best reduce violence and associated serious crimes.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Candidate Trump's answer to questions about unfair policing.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Hillary's against the idea of superpredators when they're black men allegedly committing drug and property crimes, but she's for the idea of superpredators when they're affluent white men allegedly committing sexual assault and rape on college campuses.

It's wrong to assume black people accused of a crimes are guilty and it's wrong to assign collective guilt (to all black men) just because some black men are criminals.
It's right to assume all men accused of sexual assault in college are guilty (the alleged victims actually have a "right to be believed") and it's right to assign collective guilt to all men since some men are guilty of sexual assault.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I should disclose that someone tried to steal my vehicle from the street in front of my house yesterday, so I'm driving a rental while a shop replaces the ignition they popped out. (Had the power on and the wheel wasn't locked--either something spooked 'em or they couldn't drive a stick).
I live in a predominantly black neighborhood. My neighbor's car was broken into, too, and he's black. The police officer who took our report was black (and a woman) and the insurance adjuster who came later in the day was black.
So, you know, re: crime and race it's a little complicated, but not very complicated.

(Additional information - this particular vehicle was broken into twice before. Once while parked in a predominantly white neighborhood; the perpetrator was young black man (14)--he was caught that evening. The second time was in a predominantly black neighborhood (the jackass CUT the soft top with a knife despite it having, you know, zippers!) A (black) neighbor told me he saw two black men hanging out by my vehicle earlier that night, but no one was ever caught. If I speculated on the likely race of the person who tried to steal my car this time, though, that'd be racist and ugly.)

Hyphenated American said...

Can universities give fair trials to males accused of rape?

Beldar said...

Every single capital defendant executed in Texas has had his case reviewed by the highest state criminal appellate court. Then every one of them has had his case reviewed on petition for habeas corpus by both the state and federal courts. No one is executed who hasn't gotten due process from both systems.

The federal judges in all of the federal district courts sitting in Texas are licensed members of the State Bar of Texas. They live in Texas. They practiced in Texas before taking the bench. The Fifth Circuit panels that review their decisions comprise appellate judges from Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and even if, by some random coincidence, a Texas capital defendant's habeas corpus appeal doesn't include a Texas-based judge on the panel, the defendant can seek review by the full Fifth Circuit, which definitely will include judges from all three states.

What Hillary means when she refers to the "federal courts" here are actually four individuals -- Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan -- as occasionally joined by Justice Kennedy or another justice.

This is nonsense on stilts, and should be deeply offensive to the membership of every state's judiciary, as well as to every member of the federal judiciary except those four reliably anti-death penalty justices.

Robert Cook said...

"Because, Cookie, the rate of black incarceration for murder is 8 times the white rate. But it is not the case that 80% of murders go unsolved. So, it is not the case that white people commit murder at the same rate as blacks, and get away with it. See how that works?"

Jupiter, read more carefully. I did not say whites commit crimes in equal or greater numbers than whites in every category of crime, but in some categories of crime. The three pages I linked to all had to do with drug crimes. Drug crimes, as it happens, are the greatest cause for the explosion of incarceration in this country in the last several decades. Most people in prison are there for drug-related offenses. The greater number of blacks than whites in prison is, in significant part, a result of convictions for drug crimes. As the stories I linked to discussed, whites use or sell drugs in pretty equal rates to blacks, yet blacks are arrested far more often than are whites. Thus, the greater number of blacks in prison than whites has much--not everything, but much--to do with the racist profiling of the police and their propensity to seek out and arrest black drug offenders more so than whites.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Robert Cook:

I'll table your drug offense discussion for the moment. One of your questions above was "how do you know different races commit certain crimes at different rates?"

Here is an FBI table for 2013 homicides showing the race, gender, and ethnicity of the offender and victim. It lists 5723 homicides. Of those 2698 were committed by "Black or African American" offenders and 2755 were committed by "White" offenders. Non-Hispanic whites make up about 62% of the U.S. population and non-Hispanic blacks make up about 12.5% (other sources put it around 70% and 13%, but close enough).


So, from the FBI's table it appears that 48% of the homicides they record in 2013 were committed by whites (who make up 62% of the population) and 47% of the homicides were committed by blacks (who make up just 12.5% of the population). Blacks as a group are 1/5th as large as whites but they commit roughly the same amount of homicides. Homicides are a good measure since almost all homicides are investigated a least a bit (so your argument that the incarceration rates reflect only the intensity of policing doesn't really apply since it's unlikely any cop would say "we don't need to investigate this probable murder since it was likely committed by a white person").

If you're saying (in your response to Jupiter) that you're only talking about SOME categories of crime, then 1.) so what and 2.) how would you know? Why are homicides not a good proxy for other crimes or criminality generally? Are you conceding that one group might commit many times more murders (as a proportion) but magically many less times as many of some other type of crime?

For the record, most of us don't care too much about the crime of selling and buying drugs. If it's done quietly and "safely" by consenting adults without any violence I'm not overly disturbed by it. That's not the reality of much drug crime, though, and when people point to convictions for drug crimes ("he was only selling a little pot") they usually gloss over the wider facts (he was part of a criminal gang who use violence to claim turf, he was caught committing other crimes/had already committed other crimes and plead down to dealing/possession, etc). Street drug crime is intensively policed for a reason, and that reason is that activity is strongly associated with violent crime. Ignoring that and claiming that the only possible reason for observed differences/different tactics for different policing is "racism" is stupid. Don't be stupid, Robert.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Side note: From that same 2013 FBI Homicide table, 409 homicides that year were black offenders against white victims while 189 homicides were white offenders against black victims. Factor in the proportion of each group in the overall population and draw your own conclusions...but don't say them out loud (that'd be a "hatefact" and those are ugly).

Good news for Lefties, though: women killed 410 men while men killed 1515 women so it's not sexist to say women should fear homicide from men more than men should fear homicide from women. Interestingly women only killed 146 women, so girl power/solidarity is a real thing I guess.

Fernandinande said...

Robert Cook said...Drug crimes, as it happens, are the greatest cause for the explosion of incarceration in this country in the last several decades. Most people in prison are there for drug-related offenses. The greater number of blacks than whites in prison is, in significant part, a result of convictions for drug crimes.

Compared to violent and property offenders, inmates serving time for drug offenses in state prisons showed little racial disparity
"More than half of all state prisoners on December 31, 2013 (the most recent date for which offense data are available) were serving sentences of at least 1 year for violent offenses on their current term of imprisonment (704,800 prisoners or 53%), including 165,600 persons for murder or nonnegligent manslaughter and 166,200 for rape or sexual assault. ...
The percentage of white (15%), black (16%), and Hispanic (15%) state prisoners sentenced for drug offenses were similar, but a smaller percentage of whites were in prison for violent offenses (48%) than blacks (57%) and Hispanics (59%). ...
Almost half (48% or 24,400 prisoners) of blacks imprisoned in state facilities for public order offenses were sentenced for weapons crimes, which include carrying, exhibiting, firing, possessing, or selling a weapon."

That doesn't include federal prisons, inmates of which make up 47% of the population for "drug offenses"; there are about 6 times more people in non-federal prisons than in federal prisons.

Bob Loblaw said...

Jupiter, read more carefully. I did not say whites commit crimes in equal or greater numbers than whites in every category of crime, but in some categories of crime.

Robert, blacks are arrested for drug crimes in about the same ratio to whites as for violent crimes. Efforts to show whites commit drug crimes at the same percentage as blacks are based on surveys, which are notoriously unreliable.

The justices system is "racially coded" because blacks are more likely to commit crimes than whites. You can argue about causes, but the idea black people go to jail more often because cops ignore white crime is just a palatable bit of mythology.

Jupiter said...

Robert Cook says...
"Drug crimes, as it happens, are the greatest cause for the explosion of incarceration in this country in the last several decades."

Wrong again, Cookie! Drug crimes are *not* the leading cause of incarceration. But hey, so what if your facts are wrong. Your heart is in the right place. Your notions may not have any connection with reality, but they make you feel good about yourself. And that's really all that matters, am I right?

Paul said...

Superpredators? What about supergrifters? I mean Hillary is the Queen of grifters.

Unknown said...

Didn't it arise back in Coolidge's day or Teddy Roosevelt's day? WHen they delt with illegal sex sales and labor strife?

pst314 said...

If you want to talk *honestly* about racially coded politics of crime, look at the 60's when liberals began to brand anyone a racist who spoke the truth, and who conspired to conceal racial data from crime reporting and statistics.