What if blacks really do break traffic laws at higher rates than whites?
“A New Jersey study suggesting black drivers speed more than other drivers was released this week despite federal government concerns about its accuracy.
The study found African-American motorists are more likely than white drivers to exceed the 65 mph speed limit on the southern end of the New Jersey Turnpike.”
N.J. releases controversial racial speeding study
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/27/nj.speeding.study/index.html
The New Jersey study should be definitive. It used cameras triggered by radar—there was no human input in selecting violators.
The study is comparing apples and oranges. The proper comparison is the rate at which minorities are observed by the police violating the law vs the rate at which others are observed violating the law and then comparing that to the relative rates of stops. Two factors confound the analysis--both related to observation:
1. Your question: do minorities violate the law more frequently than others; and
2. Do police observe minority violations more frequently? This later factor could be just a factor of good policing--more cops in high crime areas mean, on average, a greater proportion of minorities will be observed every day by police. Thus, maybe non-minorities drive around with broken headlights at the same rate as minorities (that is, factor 1 for equipment violations is the same as between minorities and others). But if police are concentrated in high-crime districts, they will observe more violations by minorities than the minority proportion of the population. So if they stop minorities at the same rate as others (per observed violation), the result would be numbers like you see in the study.
It would be interesting to see if the numbers change depending on the race of the stopping officer. That would be an easy number for the legislature to require.
This does not answer the question. It ASSUMES law breaking is spread equally among the skin pigments.
I think it is more a matter of ecconomics.
Perhaps what they need to do is use people with IDENTICAL profiles.
IE a red ferrari driver, male, between 18 and 40, who earns at least 300,000 a year. You take this pool and see which skin pigments get the most speeding tickets.
Do the identical study with someone who drives a 1980’s chrystler K car with same job and age characteristics and repeat observations.
This study is preset to be a hiderance to police stopping certain minorities. (keeps the campaign contributions flowing)
We already know that blacks commit homicide at a disproportionate rate. Blacks constitute nearly 50% of homicide victims and 94% of those are killed by other blacks. But due to the pernicious influence of the intellectual scourge of our time, political correctness; the study that might confirm this is unlikely to be released if it is ever conducted. It is so much easier to fan the fires of racial grievance.