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WHY DO FERGUSON COPS ARREST SO MANY BLACKS?
boblonsberry.com ^ | 03/04/15 | Bob Lonsberry

Posted on 03/04/2015 6:00:56 AM PST by shortstop

What if blacks just break the law more often?

The Justice Department yesterday released a report accusing the police department in Ferguson, Missouri, of broad-based discrimination against black people. The basis for the claim is the fact that, in recent years, blacks have been arrested in Ferguson at a rate about 40 percent higher than their proportion of the city’s population.

Blacks comprise 67 percent of the people who live in Ferguson, but 93 percent of the people arrested.

From that, the Justice Department concludes that the cops are racist.

That’s one interpretation.

But it is not the only explanation, and it’s not even the most likely explanation.

Unless all of America’s criminal justice system is racist. Because across America, black people are arrested and jailed at rates far higher than their percentage of the population.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending the Ferguson Police Department. I’m not saying anything about the Ferguson Police Department. I don’t care about the Ferguson Police Department.

I have long since tired of everything having to do with Ferguson, Missouri.

But if the new standard of racism in our society, according to the federal government, is disproportionality, then we’ve got a problem.

For example, in American prisons, black people comprise 39.4 percent of the inmates. By comparison, blacks account for 14.1 percent of the national population.

That means black people are incarcerated at a rate more than two and a half times their proportion of society.

That’s an over-representation rate of about 250 percent.

In contrast, blacks are over represented in Ferguson arrests at a rate of about 140 percent.

The disproportionality of criminal conduct is demonstrated anecdotally most nights on the evening news, as mug shots are shown, beat-down videos are played, and store surveillance footage is played back.

If there is a correlation between being arrested and going to prison – and there is – then the so-called racism of the Ferguson Police Department is statistically far less evident than the national average.

But that nicety doesn’t matter to a Justice Department that seems to have decided before it showed up that there were problems in Ferguson and it was going to ferret them out.

Sometimes the Justice Department does justice, and sometimes it does politics – and in Ferguson, it’s hard to tell which is which.

But I would offer, for the sake of discussion, this simple question: Is it possible that, in America, black people are more likely to commit crime than white people?

And that the police arrest them because they are criminals, and not because they are black?

Is it possible, in a society of diverse cultures and backgrounds, that those diversities of culture and background lead to diversities of conduct – including in relation to the law?

Could it be that blacks are arrested in Ferguson more often than whites not because the police are racist, but because blacks simply break the law more often?

The Justice Department’s own statistics support that likelihood. It is the federal government, after all, which says that a murderer is almost eight times more likely to be black than white – even though whites vastly outnumber blacks in the population.

If a police department, then, was to arrest more blacks than whites for murder, would that be racism – as the Department of Justice claims in Ferguson – or simply a reflection of who commits the crimes – as the Department of Justice also claims?

It is more than just bad logic to claim that disproportionate arrests are proof of racism – it is dishonesty.

Again, I don’t know or care about the specifics of Ferguson.

But I care deeply about the federal government’s premise – that there must be quotas of criminality, and if arrests fall outside social percentages, then the issue is a failure of policing, as opposed to a failure of conduct.

Further, I believe that if there is increased crime among African-Americans – and virtually all statistics show that there is – then as opposed to turning that toward the divisive issue of assumed racism, perhaps it would be better to use it to raise the issue of improved conduct and cultural reform.

Because you can either reduce black arrests by intimidating police out of arresting black people, or you can encourage more black people to obey the law.

I prefer the latter.

There are differences of opinion about why black people are disproportionately criminal. I believe it has to do with a failed culture and nonexistent families. But whatever the cause, the solution is not to demand the police change their behavior, it is to demand that law breakers change their behavior.

Even if they’re black.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: crime; ferguson; justicedept
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To: shortstop

According to 2008 statistics, about 5% of the US male population was imprisoned, but only about 1% of the US female population was imprisoned.

By Holder-logic (oxymoron; I know) the real problem is discrimination against men.


21 posted on 03/04/2015 6:11:54 AM PST by Stosh
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To: shortstop

Using homicide rates as a guide (and I prefer that, because as much as politicians try to massage the statistics, it’s hard to hide all the bodies), black males aren’t over-arrested and over-incarcerated. They are under-arrested and under-incarcerated.


22 posted on 03/04/2015 6:12:13 AM PST by Sooth2222 ("In a democracy people get the leaders they deserve." - Joseph de Maistre, 1753-1821)
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To: MrB

Liberals hate the truth about themselves because it exposes them as the vile creatures that they really are...


23 posted on 03/04/2015 6:12:56 AM PST by jsanders2001
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

Reality and cold hard facts and logic and math

do not serve the agenda.

And the agenda is ALL.


24 posted on 03/04/2015 6:13:07 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: shortstop
Could it be that blacks are arrested in Ferguson more often than whites not because the police are racist, but because blacks simply break the law more often?

Black crime is higher than the indigenous white population in every country in the world blacks live in...

Countries that are predominately black are more violent than countries that are predominately white. It's cultural and it needs to change.

25 posted on 03/04/2015 6:13:13 AM PST by GOPJ (Comrade Thug - please don't hurt me for disagreeing... I lived in a free country once..)
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To: CrazyIvan
BREAKING NEWS!!!!!

ITALIAN POLICE ARREST ITALIANS! "Media asks: "Why do Italian cops arrest so many Italians?

26 posted on 03/04/2015 6:13:32 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: shortstop

27 posted on 03/04/2015 6:14:15 AM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (The Second Amendment, a Matter of Fact, Not A Matter of Opinion)
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To: shortstop

Equals Open Season on Whitey.


28 posted on 03/04/2015 6:14:29 AM PST by Alas Babylon! (As we say in the Air Force, "You know you're over the target when you start getting flak!")
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29 posted on 03/04/2015 6:15:15 AM PST by deoetdoctrinae (Gun-free zones are playgrounds for felons.)
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To: shortstop

So it was actually white people pouring in through the broken doors and storefronts, walking away with arms full of stolen merchandise?


30 posted on 03/04/2015 6:17:51 AM PST by lurk
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To: shortstop
in the end Black society is merely reaping what they have sown and what Liberals have encouraged.

Spot On!

31 posted on 03/04/2015 6:23:02 AM PST by NRA1995 (I'd rather be a living "gun culture" member than a dead anti-gun candy-ass.)
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To: shortstop
If you have so little as to have nothing to lose then there is no incentive to be law abiding.

If the welfare system does not take your benefits for felony behavior (As opposed to Federal Retirements which carry that loss potentially/As opposed to Veterans Benefits which are lost for illegal drug use), then there is no incentive.

If you are a person whose primary means of support include illegal activity.

If you are a drug or alcohol dependent loser... no incentive.

If you are part of a culture that celebrates Rape behavior... THE INCENTIVE IS TO MISBEHAVE.

If you believe as a culture that the laws are unfair and that you have protect the nice little boy who is selling pot at 13-14 years old and later rapes a neighbor, then you have incentive.

If your culture circles the wagons around the offenders and protects them.

If your culture is full of criminals, and so much violence, that everyone is dangerous at different levels to so many of that culture at every interpersonal relationship level, then you are at RISK - just as palestinians are at risk from Hamas....

32 posted on 03/04/2015 6:24:20 AM PST by Jumper
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To: Rummyfan

Veteran Fulton police officer ambushed, killed near Fairburn
8:37 a.m. Wednesday, March 4, 2015

A veteran Fulton County police officer was shot in the head and killed early Wednesday in what the assistant chief described as an ambush-style attack.

The shooting happened around 1 a.m. at a home on Chastain Way, in the Parks at Cedar Grove subdivision off Cedar Grove Road.

Channel 2 Action News reported that the officer was among several responding to a call that shots had been fired inside the home.

By the time officers arrived, the gunman had left the home and was roaming the neighborhood, the station reported.

The officers were immediately fired upon, and as they ran for cover, one was shot in the back of the head, according to Channel 2.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/fulton-police-officer-shot-and-killed-near-fairbur/nkNRr/


33 posted on 03/04/2015 6:25:04 AM PST by KeyLargo
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To: shortstop

The democrat party help destroy their family units and blacks willfully went along with it?


34 posted on 03/04/2015 6:25:45 AM PST by boycott
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To: NRA1995

Inquire with your avg sheeperal, though, and they’ll have no clue that liberal policies over the years have caused this level of criminality.

They feel good about themselves for wanting to “help the poor” through the gov’t (so they don’t have to personally DO anything),
and they are totally uninterested in the negative consequences of those policies.

Once they feel good about themselves for being so caring and benevolent, they aren’t interested in the topic any further.


35 posted on 03/04/2015 6:26:14 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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Comment #36 Removed by Moderator

To: shortstop
Blacks comprise 67 percent of the people who live in Ferguson, but 93 percent of the people arrested.

Shouldn't blacks only comprise 14% of the population of Ferguson, if proportionality is the goal? If there are fewer black residents per capita, fewer will be arrested, right?

You can see where this kind of thinking can lead, and it isn't good. But that is where Obama's new Schutzstaffel will take us.

-PJ

37 posted on 03/04/2015 6:26:49 AM PST by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: shortstop


38 posted on 03/04/2015 6:27:04 AM PST by Iron Munro (Mark Steyn: "fundamentally transformed" is a euphemism for "wrecked beyond repair.")
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To: manc

“This is an observation. Go to any black area in the country , go to any area run by blacks and there is a problem in the community.”

I travel alot. I can tell you the racial makeup of a neighborhood without seeing a single human being. If the quickee mart at the gas station has bullet proof glass, there is more than 25% amish.


39 posted on 03/04/2015 6:29:51 AM PST by dsrtsage (One half of all people have below average IQ. In the US the number is 54%ij)
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To: himno hero

I see the “E word” in there.
I would counter that the idea that certain people groups are “less evolved” and “closer to simian ancestry” than others is at the root of racism.

Now, I could argue, from my historic assumptions, that BREEDING circumstances produces certain intellectual characteristics over multiple generations, but it’s certainly not a difference in “evolution”.

The evolutionary counter example would be the IQ tendencies among those of Jewish ethnicity. Unless someone is going to argue that the Jewish people somehow are more “evolved” than general humanity.


40 posted on 03/04/2015 6:30:37 AM PST by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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