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View Full Version : Race and Crime -- With plenty of lies, damned lies and statistics!



Sea
22nd July 2012, 06:45
this thread is mainly to avoid derailing another even further

Posting in OI as the person I'm debating back on is restricted, and seeing how this is a leftist forum, I'm more likely to actually spark a disagreement here.

mods feel free to lock if it gets out of hand seing as this subject is racy (shitty pun if you didn't get that) by its very nature
I don't remember where I read that, from some left source that was criticizing how US government policies are forcing blacks and Hispanics to turn to crime. Googling "race and crime in the United States" gives results like:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/orace.png
And this (http://iontheworld.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-color-of-crime-race-crime-and-justice-in-america/)and this (http://www.colorofcrime.com/colorofcrime2005.pdf), according to which "• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery" and "


Blacks commit violent crimes at four to eight times the white rate."

And so on. I don't know where these numbers come from, but it's pretty clear that blacks are much more likely to be criminals than whites in the United States.
I'd like to start this off by pointing out the obvious and most commonly pointed out flaws in the argument that this indicates an racial / genetic aspect in criminal attitudes:


These stats don't account for racism in the judicial system; they assume that no racial bias can be introduced between an emergency call and a conviction.
The fact that oppression directly results in retaliation, conscious in the individual or not, is blatantly ignored.
If there's any validity in the graph itself.
Socioeconomic / material circumstances. Whatever the hell that means depends on who says it, but this seems to be the most widely used counter-argument so I figure I'll throw it in too.



Now to peer in a bit closer at that graph.

Before any of you lil rebels try to pound me down for taking the graph at face value and not using any of your little (pseudo)scientific studies and not stopping to consider your individual (mis)interpertations of them, I'd like to point out that I'm not trying to debate against the graph itself, rather the information on the graph. The same arguments apply be they on a graph or in a text or whatever.

There are very large swings in the number of murders committed by blacks. To me this suggests turbulent social conditions as a big factor. There is also a rather level period between approx. 1999 and 2004. Perhaps this represents a baseline on account of judicial bias? I'm really not certain and need to do more work.



Here's more evidence of social turbulence taking a part:

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/ovrelrace.png
source: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm
As you can see, crimes that cross racial lines are much rarer between people who know eachother. This goes well with what I have read that people who are racist generally spend less time in the company of other skin colors, creating a sort of a vicious cycle. (If anyone has the link to that paper, please post as I seem to have lost it.)

l'Enfermé
22nd July 2012, 07:00
I don't get your point comrade. I said that blacks are indeed more likely to commit serious crimes(i.e not bullshit drug shit, which some comrades said accounts for half the prison population in the United States - I'm not very familiar with this subject, since I'm not an American and this doesn't directly relate to me) and then I used google to post a graph and some articles or something. And yes, I was right when I said, blacks in the US are more likely to commit crimes like murder and robbery than whites. I didn't imply that blacks are inherently more predisposed to violence or that they're by their nature anti-social.

Sea
22nd July 2012, 17:55
I don't get your point comrade. I said that blacks are indeed more likely to commit serious crimes(i.e not bullshit drug shit, which some comrades said accounts for half the prison population in the United States - I'm not very familiar with this subject, since I'm not an American and this doesn't directly relate to me) and then I used google to post a graph and some articles or something. And yes, I was right when I said, blacks in the US are more likely to commit crimes like murder and robbery than whites. I didn't imply that blacks are inherently more predisposed to violence or that they're by their nature anti-social.The color of crime link you used has as a "major finding"
Police and the justice system are not biased against minorities.it sure seems like you're saying that something else accounts for the coloring of criminality, and 9 out of 10 times that I've heard that argument, the next thing my opponent says is that the something is the race itself.

l'Enfermé
22nd July 2012, 23:11
I don't believe that claim is true, I didn't write that article. It was just one of the first results when I googled "crime and race in the united states".

ÑóẊîöʼn
22nd July 2012, 23:41
I don't believe that claim is true, I didn't write that article. It was just one of the first results when I googled "crime and race in the united states".

Don't you think that might have been an indication that the the source you used was not, for example, taking into account racial biases in the judicial system?

l'Enfermé
23rd July 2012, 00:03
Yes. But does the fact that blacks are given harsher sentences than whites for the same crimes have anything to do with the fact that an average black person in the US is more likely to commit homicide than a white person or an Asian? I don't think so. Racial biases in the judicial system aren't a factor until after a crime has been committed.

Leroy Brown
23rd July 2012, 00:22
I don't get your point comrade. I said that blacks are indeed more likely to commit serious crimes

This probably sounds like sophistry, but there is a difference in my mind in saying:

1. "violent crimes are more likely [within a given area] to have been committed by blacks," and saying

2. "blacks are more likely to commit serious crimes" [anywhere they are found].

The second one almost sounds like any black anywhere is pre-disposed to commit serious crimes than whites.

Also, many serious crimes are non-violent: defalcation by a city treasurer, bank robbery without a weapon or threat, child prostitution, making or distributing child porn, defrauding a charity, posing as a charity, defrauding vulnerable investors, and others.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod
23rd July 2012, 00:29
I just wrote about this same thing on youtube.


"(non-Hispanic) Blacks accounted for 39.4%[!] of the total prison and jail population in 2009. Hispanics (non-whites) were 20.6% of the total jail and prison population in 2009"
This is while the 2010 United States Census says (non-Hispanic) Whites constitute 63.7% of the United States population, African Americans (Blacks) a mere 12.9% and Hispanics 16%. The incarceration rate in 2009 was 693,000 for whites and 841,00(!) for Blacks 442,00 Hispanics.

l'Enfermé
23rd July 2012, 01:58
By the way, this whole argument began when I replied to a post #FF0000 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=14710) wrote, he said:

Police are gonna put more scrutiny on a black person than a white person in general.

and I replied with:


Of course they are, due to social conditions created by the US Government blacks are way more likely to be criminals than whites. It only makes sense.



So from the start I maintained that blacks are way more likely to commit due to social conditions created and constantly reinforced by the American government, not because blacks are naturally predisposed to violence. It would be really unfair to imply that I made those posts in the Martin/Zimmerman thread because I'm motivated by racism, anyone that knows me also knows that the only group I'm prejudiced against is the international gang of capitalist parasites.

milkmiku
23rd July 2012, 02:02
Yes. But does the fact that blacks are given harsher sentences than whites for the same crimes have anything to do with the fact that an average black person in the US is more likely to commit homicide than a white person or an Asian? I don't think so. Racial biases in the judicial system aren't a factor until after a crime has been committed.


Well people believe race is the motivating the factor in the sentencing and arrest of people, and it does to an extent. Though none of these "blacks are arrested more than whites" stats take into account the rate of repeat offenders. There are more whites in prison for all crimes because whites are the majority, blacks are a large percentage of prisoners despite their small population. this is due to socioeconomic factors. Although everyone here says it is because the system is inheartely racist against them.

The reality is that blacks are profiled because of the way the media paints them and because it is easier to catch a black drug dealer than a white. Black drug dealers tend to be well know and deal openly, while white, Asian, and Latino tend to deal within close circles of friends. Then there is the whole "thug cultrue" that is pushed by the media relentlessly. Always hearing news about "black crime" and such. Programing people to be extra scrutinies around blacks. Is that the inhearet racist system that is alway spoken of?

I suppose it could be because of some racist system that only targets blacks. I suppose that system is the entire reason this "thug cultral" bullshit is allowed to exist.

I think my english is getting worse.

Leroy Brown
23rd July 2012, 06:27
It would be really unfair to imply that I made those posts in the Martin/Zimmerman thread because I'm motivated by racism

Don't make any generalization about race, and you'll be alright. If you do, say "it's for the revolution!:marx:"

It may buy you some time.