Crime stats and race

[dolfan]

Might I inject a possible factor that is being ignored?

Is it possible that the concentration of police presence (with the resultant higher arrest, conviction and incarceration rates) is at least partially due to the intensified amount of violent crime (armed robbery, murder, drive-by shootings, etc.) associated with drug traffic among black citizens, as opposed to the drug traffic among non-black citizens?

It would be naive and disingenuous to ignore black-on-black crime as a factor in police presence, since African-American community leaders are often heard pleading for greater police presence to protect the decent, law-abiding black citizenry from the thugs who plague their neighborhoods. I may not get the quote or source exactly right, but "the boys in the hood have killed more blacks than the boys wearing hoods ever did."

PG, there's no doubt that black on black crime is a reason for black men in jail. But, isolating the drug cases as the stats indicated still leaves the whole drug and enforcement policy in want of a good reason. The black-on-black crime would not happen to this degree if the drugs were decriminalized. The crimes happen in large degree because of power struggles and turf wars that are funded in large degree by drug sales. Nothing would take the power away from gangs in black communities faster than legalized, regulated and taxed narcotics. But, we simply find that too distasteful and the impact of the laws and policies on black people not disastrous enough.

There are, indeed, other factors at play in the presence issue than simply a racist agenda by the government. That, however, doesn't mitigate the severity of that agenda nor does it cast doubt on the reality of its existence. If it does somehow, then the blacks truly are dupes, after all.

[dolfan]

Wait a minute there dolfan, I was NOT promoting this as a racial thing at all, but a geographical issue, if blacks were rural and the whites urban, we'd see the exact opposite statistics. It's not about profiling, it's about the ability to get caught, you are 20 times more likely to get caught selling drugs in a populated area than in a rural area, not due to race, not due to targetting or profiling, just the fact that there is less places to hide, more witnesses, and yes more police presence.

You can try to make this about race all you want, the fact is crack is an urban drug, and meth is a rural drug. That's the problem. Believe me I live in an area plagued by meth, I have family working on drug task forces and prayer teams to try to battle it, but the fact is it's harder to find someone hiding in 150 acres of woods, than it is sitting on a street corner. and to even narrow it down to that 150 acres you'd have pinned it down to a specific address.

Pastor Bill, you didn't intentionally take a racial point with it, I know. But, it is a racially motivated rationale. Blacks are NOT rural and whites urban. It is a truism that blacks live closer together in greater numbers. There's nothing profound in realizing that (heck I said before y'all did that crack is a black drug and meth is a rural, white one!), but it is profoundly racially motivated to excuse a policy that targets one race over another by falling back on that very convenient fact. Government's cost of doing what it does is not sufficiently important to justify the crushing blow it continues to singularly deliver to the black community. That's a back door way of saying it costs too many tax dollars contributed to government in the main by whites to pursue equal justice under the law. We can't do it, it's too hard and too expensive. Throw the black guy under the bus, because it is also too expensive to just do nothing. Now, you may not say it in those terms, and you most certainly do not mean it that way, but that's the practical end of the point of view that police presence and enforcement must happen more there because their simply easier to get.

[Pastor Bill]

Dolfan, I don't see how you can get that? so you are saying that legalizing drugs will fix this?

How many legal (prescription) drugs are part of the same problem?

laws against alcohol were causing problems, so we legalized it, really made things better don't you think? 70-80 years later we don't have problems in the country with alcohol do we? (for those that can't tell I'm being sarcastic).

The percentage of homes effected by alcohol consumption today is much higher than during prohibition, but now it's just legal, and we're OK with it.

I have seen what drugs can do to a person's life, that's not OK, and no law can make it OK, just make it more common.

[dolfan]

Dolfan, I don't see how you can get that? so you are saying that legalizing drugs will fix this?

How many legal (prescription) drugs are part of the same problem?

laws against alcohol were causing problems, so we legalized it, really made things better don't you think? 70-80 years later we don't have problems in the country with alcohol do we? (for those that can't tell I'm being sarcastic).

The percentage of homes effected by alcohol consumption today is much higher than during prohibition, but now it's just legal, and we're OK with it.

I have seen what drugs can do to a person's life, that's not OK, and no law can make it OK, just make it more common.

Legalizing drugs will de-fund the entire profit and power motive of those with the most to gain by keeping them illegal, yes. Legalizing drugs will evaporate the police presence in black communities to levels near what white neighborhoods now experience, yes. The implications of that one fact alone are incomprehensible in terms of improving the lot of the black man/woman's life in this country, yes. Legalizing drugs will all but disarm the gangs because they won't be in control of the supply anymore; they'll be cut out of the loop. Instead of Bloods and Crips with all the power, Bayer, SmithKlineGlaxo and Phizer will have it, which is far better than the status quo. Government will make a killing in revenue like it does from cigarettes now. So, yes, there are many things legalizing drugs will solve, eliminate and improve.

On balance, the removal of Prohibition and the legalization of alcohol consumption with its many regulations has limited its harshest effects to our highways and health care system. If we make the moral argument that alcohol destoys families as being serious enough to not legalize alcohol, then we can't ignore for sure the morality of what current drug policy and law is doing to black families in particular. Not saying it isn't serious, but it isn't serious enough to stop alcohol from being legal given the alternatives. During Prohibition, people were gunning each other down in the streets of large cities ..... sound familiar?? Doing the same for higher quality marijuana, cocaine and a marketable form of methamphetamine will make the violence of the drug trade go away. We already have police on the highways, and we can use the ones patrolling black hoods to make the highways even more safe, right? (Of course, they'll have to stop somebody, you know, law abiding citizens like all of us, but hey, police are people too and need jobs.) Will it also normalize drug consumption? Maybe so, but I'm willing for that to happen in exchange for freedom, smaller government, and a black community that isn't under armed seige.

[Pastor Gary]

PG, there's no doubt that black on black crime is a reason for black men in jail. But, isolating the drug cases as the stats indicated still leaves the whole drug and enforcement policy in want of a good reason. The black-on-black crime would not happen to this degree if the drugs were decriminalized. The crimes happen in large degree because of power struggles and turf wars that are funded in large degree by drug sales.

I have to take issue with your underlying assumption. Much of the gang violence and turf wars are the result of a colorless ghetto cultural norm in which young, testosterone charged men demand (but have not always earned) "respect" -- or their version of respect. What they really demand is fear and deference. If someone makes eye contact, they get hurt "because he disrespected me." If someone accidently bumps another person, they are in danger of injury of death "for dissing me."

This, again, is not racial as much as socio-economic: I see it in Filipino, Vietnamese, Samoan, Tongan, Mexican, White, Black... all colors and cultures, with the common denominator being ghetto culture: hip-hop music that calls women derogatory names, outrageous clothing in gang colors... It is a mindset, and not a color or race.

My daughter-in-law works in the headstart program in urban Alabama, and related that she hears 4 years old talking about the police as the enemy. If you are raised to be at war with legal authority, it is almost inevitable that there will be hostility in both directions.

[Pastor Gary]

Let me suggest, Dolfan, that you are contextualizing the issue. You live in Alabama, where the dominant culture is white, and the prison system is full of blacks and browns.

I live where the dominant culture is Asian/Polynesian, and the power structure is decidedly NOT white, and the prisons here are very brown... but not African-American: lots of Polynesians/part-Polynesians are incarcerated here. They tend to be uneducated, lower-economic, and from groups who prefer to solve their problems with physical intimidation rather than negotiation.

[dolfan]

I am contextualizing for sure. I am relying heavily on a strong dose of experience in seeing these people go to jail and seeing the police who put them there and the prosecutors who work with them to do it work diligently and effectively at that task. If I were the only one -- or one of a handful of malcontents, which I'm not -- saying these things, my contextualizing would render these ideas just so much ranting. But, our own government is not blind to it, studies are done, discussions had in halls of power and of academia in addition to the homes of those directly effected. The problem is real, even with my very limited exposure to it. And, honestly, it makes me wonder how long I was blinded to it by my own prejudice before I just finally said, "Okay, this is just wrong."

Admittedly, we cannot find causes of crime in this truth. I don't think Obama's speech (where this discussion was sort of provoked) offered that excuse, at least I don't find it in my own reading of it. People are responsible for their actions. The system holds them accountable, albeit in a fundamentally broken and unjust way, as I see it. That injustice is not solved by letting them off the hook. But, it can be remedied if it is first recognized honestly, and the powerful are made to account to the people for it, and policies insisted upon and implemented that deal in a very different way with very different assumptions and goals concerning black people.

I don't want to sound like a lunatic ranting on about this. I believe passionately about it. I know I'm among a small number, relatively, of people who view these matters this way. It admits of no special insight, and it is perhaps an incorrect view. At this point, though, it would take something very overpowering to change my mind about it.

[Pastor Bill]

dolfan, don't get me wrong, I know there are those in the system that are very racist in how they handle things, especially those in urban areas really enforcing it, but the problem I have is their counterparts in the areas where Meth is the problem are not dealing with it that way. It's two different worlds (not black/white, but urban/rural) and when you compare the two stating that the focus is on the black communities, you are glossing over alot of details that are very relevant to the reasons to why you see so many more convictions and arrests.

often we are quick to jump to racism as the cause, and frankly that seems to just make matters worse. I saw a news report just the other day where a white teen was causing some type of problem at a black neighbor's home, he was shot, and the homeowner was convicted of manslaughter. In a predominately white neighborhood, the black man was given one of the lightest sentences, and now accusations of racism are being thrown all around saying that if it had been a white man shooting a black youth, they would have gotten maximum sentencing.

The fact is until we stop looking at race as the driving force behind things, we cannot stop racism.

[Full Quiver]

Gary made a great point. Black leaders are screaming for police presence to protect the innocent so what's up?

Whites 12 and older using any illicit drug: 8.1%
Blacks 12 and older using any illicit drug: 9.2%

Where do these stats come from? Are they arrest stats, conviction stats, or a straw poll of sorts? If they are arrest stats then it seems that the white users are getting off. If they are conviction stats then the white users by and large aren't getting the same punishment. If it's the result of a poll then who knows.

I for one would find me the best lawyer money could buy if a cop trolled me and I was arrested for possession. Besides the fact that I am and always have been clean, I would get a good attorney and play some sort of defense such as why was I suspected. I mean for those that are minding their own business and legally sitting on their own porch or walking to the store, well they should never be stopped. A good attorney could reverse that situation.


The entire hip hop and rap community glorifies drug use and sales. It is a get rich scheme. The only people within the black communities that have a problem with the arrest rates are those getting caught, the naive parents or grandparents of the criminals, and Jesse Jackson.

[MacUser]

.

The fact is until we stop looking at race as the driving force behind things, we cannot stop racism.

The original premise of this discussion is so wrong on so many levels. Much like what PG stated.. minority cultures glorify this type of behavior and if somehow if you magically fixed it all tomorrow.. those deviants would find another niche to operate. Regardless of Race... it's a choice. Yes, it's that simple.

But Pastor Bill. I think you nailed it all with your last statement. We are all doomed unless we can look at this objectively and based on a standard set of principles for all... outside of the destructive race cottage $$$ industry.

[Mat]

removed

[Pastor Gary]

I don't want to sound like a lunatic ranting on about this. I believe passionately about it.

I consider you a friend, so I say this in that context: you are starting from a predetermined conclusion, and, consequently, have begun to see everything through that filter.

It is a bit like reading Poimen's thread on alcohol. He (also a friend) starts from a position in which he believes Jesus COULDN'T have made-proof wine, because (here's the pre-assumption) that would mean he contributed to sin. You see it as more complex than that, I see it as more complex than that... every Bible scholar I know sees it as more complex than that, but Poimen is painted into a theological corner in which all his conclusions must flow from his fixed belief.

I hope you can step back far enough to get perspective and realize your argument sounds much the same to those who see the situation as far more complex than you do.

[forestwalker]

The complexity is in Dolfan's view.

[Pastor Gary]

The complexity is in Dolfan's view.

How so? America is sociological and institutionally racist. Pretty black and white... despite the evidence presented here and elsewhere that it is more about a gang/ghetto ethos than color.

[oletimer]

dolfan
Legalizing drugs will de-fund the entire profit and power motive of those with the most to gain by keeping them illegal, yes. Legalizing drugs will evaporate the police presence in black communities to levels near what white neighborhoods now experience, yes. The implications of that one fact alone are incomprehensible in terms of improving the lot of the black man/woman's life in this country, yes. Legalizing drugs will all but disarm the gangs because they won't be in control of the supply anymore; they'll be cut out of the loop.

Surely you don't believe that. First, there is no way to legalize "met" and "crack". When you do this then the drug dealers have Dr. in front of their names. Prescription drugs are one of the most abused drugs that we have around here.
Here in North Alabama the meth arrests or mostly white, while most of the black are booked on thelf and drug trafficing.

I don't believe that I've heard of any laws that say that they are for whites or blacks only. I know many of the policemen and sheriff deputies and this area and they don't care what color you if you break the law.

I don't thank that the laws are the problems, but rather them that brake the law. Lawers looking for loop holes doesn't help matter in mho.

I don't believe that are any clear answers nor any quick fixes.