“Ferguson, Mo., is a third white, but the crime statistics compiled in the city over the past two years seemed to suggest that only black people were breaking the law. They accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of tickets and 93 percent of arrests. In cases like jaywalking, which often hinge on police discretion, blacks accounted for 95 percent of all arrests.”
My question is, why do they imply that because the town is 1/3 white, traffic stops should be as well? I will stipulate that the cops are racist hillbillies. Still, how do NYT or NPR know that blacks don’t violate traffic laws disproportionately more than whites? Fro example - http://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/legitimacy/Pages/traffic-stops.aspx says “Seatbelt usage is chronically lower among black drivers. [3] If a law enforcement agency aggressively enforces seatbelt violations, police will stop more black drivers.”
Bottom line - there is racism in Ferguson and there is a rush to cry racism in liberal media. (No duh.)
Yeah. I saw that statistic and thought the analysis was screwed up. I’m pretty sure that things are bigoted in Ferguson, but those statistics aren’t the way to prove it because there are too many confounding variables
The problem is you can’t criticise it without sounding like you’re an apologist for the police.
NYC tries to “balance the scales” by having a proportion of police similar to the population with just half white and half minorities. and cime statistics of 80%+ are still wildly skewed towards blacks/hispanic.
You are not taking into account the incredible amount of discretion law enforcement has to both make arrests and file charges based on their own inclination. Concluding that more of one group is convicted or arrested for a crime means that it is an unbiased statistic of a population is incorrrect. Law and economics informs us that bias exists in the justice system through examining markets by isloating the race variable and the resulting punishment. Bail is one area where black defendants are given higher bail terms by judges yet lower bond terms by bail bond agents because they show up to their hearing. Because the agent has to realize loss if he is wrong and compete in a free market while judges have nothing at stake. Drugs are another area where race is a predominant deciding factor in the level of punishment. Statistics in a vacuum are meaningless but in this case they reflect what has been told to the JD by the citizens of the town. You can make the same argument in NY that minorities are more representative of people hanging around on the street corner therefore subject to stop and frisk therefore make up more arrests and convictions therefore are more likely to ne criminals. I woudnt jump to those conclusions without knowing what is in between. Personally, if I found out my police force was spending the majority of their time stopping jaywalkers and busting pot, I would propose budget cuts to the force.
I agree but I have a feeling if you did the real statistics necessary, people would criticize the methodology or not understand at all. But I’ve often wondered why we’d rely on such simple statistics a 4th grader could calculate.
There is a somewhat simple solution to part of this, although I’m sure some people would complain it is a violation of privacy/civil rights. If you want to see if a particular race speeds more than other races, put up HD cameras and speed senors and film every speeding car on a few streets that are typically travelled by a diverse group of drivers. Using a combination of the HD images and license plate numbers, you should be able to identify the race of the driver most of the time. Don’t issue tickets based on the data, just compile it and let it speak for itself.
No rational man would ever believe that blacks do not break the law more often than whites. This has happened time and time again… look at the type of people who participated in the looting in NO after Katrina, the looting in Ferguson, the demographics of the top 10 crime infested cities in the US…
You can’t cry racism everywhere…
Not saying all blacks are criminals but most criminals are black. Learn to accept it.
Your old argument may sound logical but as I said, if the police force is already in proportion and races do commit crimes somewhat equally, there shouldn’t exist such a statistically significant massive skew in the crime rates towards black/hispanic. Unless your next argument is “well black police are also racist towards black non-police”
And while it could be called “racist”, it totally makes sense to have a hightened sense of awareness towards groups who tend to commit more crimes. How do you think the Israel airport is one of the most secure in the world despite being in a region of heightened violence? they employ this strategy and it works.
I don’t think they’re saying this is a necessarily a skin issue. I think they’re saying there’s one hell of a high correlation coefficient between urban centers, the associated crime rates, and the dominant skin color that happens to reside there. Note: correlation does not imply causation. Call it racist if you want… but it’s true, particularly for St. Louis. North St. Louis city and North St. Louis County are high crime areas: a lot of murders, home burglaries, shootouts, car jackings, gang wars, etc… North City and North County are also the poorest areas of St. Louis. Those areas are also overwhelmingly African American.
When I said “they’re”- I was referring to the people posting on this thread. I’m on board with the OP on this. I think their conclusions are without merit, and bringing up emails with racially-injected jokes from 4 and 6 years ago is pointless. It also doesn’t take into consideration that Ferguson’s surrounding neighborhoods are also 70% African American.
Furthermore, let’s say blacks in Ferguson commit 80% of local crimes (and that they comprise a smaller percentage of the local population). If this is the case, MORE than 80% of traffic stops and arrests should involve black suspects. Since blacks would be more likely to commit crimes, the police should target more blacks, as these stops would be more likely to reveal crimes. If sub population X is more likely to have some trait (like a disease, for instance), then tests and monitoring should be conducted on population X at a higher frequency.
I still think you guys dont get it. Your logic seems to be that since the proportion of arrests are skewed towards black people then black people must be more likely to commit a crime than white people. I am trying to explain that minorities get arrested and charged at a higher percentage than whites. Example: Go to the NY St Patricks day parade. I propose that one half of all those people are drunk in public which is a misdemeanor. How many people at that parade are arrested and charged? How many people are stoppped and charged for standing on the street corner which is common under stop and frisk if you are a minority. The basic point is that just because you are arrested or charged with a crime doesnt mean you are any better or worse than someone who was not. People get stopped for crimes all the time and not charged and some people get charged without a legitimate reason. I can tell you if JD came back to me and told me that the poloce were financiing themselves by tickets i would vote to defund them