[dark_lord]

No as the quote says, blacks and whites commit the SAME crime, white gets probation, black gets jail. Whats so difficult to understand about that being wrong?

Without further data one can come to different conclusions. One conclusion is that judges are racist, correct? But another possibility might be that the black teenagers have a much higher rate of previous legal violations, thus after several offenses they are sent to prison. If this were the case, then the "problem" is no problem. The white kids busted get probation because it is a first or 2nd offense, the black kids get jail because it is an 8th or 9th offense -- a previous record of graffiti "tagging", shoplifting, hanging with gangers at 3AM, etc.

The point is, without more data one cannot make a conclusion either way. But this 2nd example show that it is possible the different rates of incarceration are not due to racist judges.

[boop]

But prisoners are overwhelmingly male, period. Doesn't this represent sexism? Shouldn't we release male prisoners until there are only as many female prisoners? Why isn't this just as "logical"? Can we conclude that all males are discriminated against by bigoted judges? Are judges more lenient to females, aspecially if they have small children at home?

[LaraCroft]

No, I think a more logical reason for higher black incarceration would be money. If you know how to work the system and have the money for a good lawyer, you are more likely to 'get off' than if you are poor, dumb or have a court appointed attorney.

One thing that no one has brought up is that there is a preponderance of crime are not a.reported, b. solved or c. punished. There is a possibility that blacks are pulled in more often than whites are, given the belief that blacks are more likely to be involved in crime. That would presume racism of some sort though on the police. In some areas, that's probably true.

I'd say mostly though, its not black / white issue... it's a urban thing. In any area that you have huge populations of poor people, even if they are purple you are going to have higher crime than in rural homogeious society.