Pacfanweb said:
Dude....if you have more arrests, it's not because the police are simply LOOKING for more black people that murdered or robbed folks.
It's because more of them (as a percentage) murdered or robbed others in the first place...THAT is why more are arrested.
If it's just because cops are "targeting blacks" then that would imply that loads of whites are going scot-free after committing the same crimes, simply because the cops aren't targeting them.
But they're not. The cops don't patrol in North Ridge or Wakefield heavily because they are racist and there's really just as much crime there. And they don't patrol Southeast Raleigh heavily because they are racist and want to bust black people.
It's because "that's where the crime is".
There aren't huge numbers of robberies, murders, rapes, assaults, etc. just waiting for the cops to notice in other neighborhoods.
Yes, those are arrest numbers, but more blacks aren't being arrested for violent crime just because they're black...they're being arrested because THEY DID IT. For the most part.
Conviction rate, again...it's a result of economics. Poorer people can't afford the better attorneys, so they get harsher outcomes.
Is it possible that some other factors also are present. Sure. I can fully admit that, but you need to stop with the goalpost moving and deflecting and admit that the arrest #'s 100% prove that blacks are more likely to commit these crimes in the first place, and that they aren't being arrested for them simply because the color of their skin. Otherwise, this debate is useless, because you're not open minded enough to admit that's a huge problem.
The police definitely are looking for more black people that commit crime, though.
It's why, in a data set with 20 million traffic stops, black Americans were twice as likely to be pulled and 4x as likely to be searched. And those searches turn up LESS contraband with blacks as compared to whites.
So explicit bias obviously does exist in policing and plays a huge role in more minor offenses like traffic stops, which can lead to more minor drug offenses. Again, if they pulled 2x as many white people as they do, and searched 4x as many as they do, they'd find more alcohol and drugs in their cars and you'd have more total white "criminals."
But you're right that for more serious crimes police mostly go where the evidence leads. If they have a composite sketch of a killer that's a white dude they're not out there prowling black neighborhoods looking for a black dude to bring in and charge.
Implicit racial bias plays just as much a role as explicit bias, and it's more nuanced.
To ultimately get convicted, you've first got to get charged with a crime. Prosecutors make those decisions. And they decide much more frequently with black defendants than white, to move forward with charges. White defendants in Wisconsin for instance are 25 percent more likely than their black counterparts to have criminal charges dropped or reduced to less serious crimes. That reduces "white crime" statistics relative to "black crime."
To counter this racial bias, that results in a disproportionate number of blacks being charged with crimes and fewer whites being charged than you'd expect given the raw number of arrests of suspects, you're starting to see a move towards "blind charging," which is where all information regarding the race of of suspect is redacted from the prosecutor's report.
If there isn't bias in charging black suspects (and not charging whites), why the new and much-needed movement by judicial systems towards blind charging?