# Blacks commit more crimes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 25, 2015, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876 "2015-08-25T19:57:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/41 "2015-08-26T00:22:20Z")
> [@ryu238](#): > > For the record I am trying to argue against the idea that blacks commit more crimes than whites. Why would you try to argue that? Seems like a losing proposition to me. Edit: assuming you are talking about rate, not raw numbers, and here in America, and this century, etc. ---
**Author:** ![ryu238](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@ryu238](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryu238)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/42 "2015-08-26T01:22:41Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Why would you try to argue that? Seems like a losing proposition to me. > > Edit: assuming you are talking about rate, not raw numbers, and here in America, and this century, etc. What do you mean? ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/43 "2015-08-26T01:33:48Z")
With no scientific evidence that “black” even means anything at a biological fashion the bigger question is “why” With no biological reason those numbers are driven by social constructs, economic and cultural factors. it is not “blacks” committing more crimes, it is a group of marginalized, socioeconomically disadvantaged people who have a higher conviction rate. It may be that they are charged and convicted more, it may be due to the fact of being marginalized as a group due to physical features increases the chances that someone will commit a crime. But it is 100% certain that it has nothing to do with biology or any innate trait due to an arbitrary, non-scientific, social classification like ‘race’. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/44 "2015-08-26T01:38:22Z")
White middle aged men commit more serial killings? White middle aged priests commit more child molesting? White middle aged men commit more white coller crimes? ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/45 "2015-08-26T04:12:46Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > The maths for this question are extremely simple: assuming blacks and whites are equally likely to commit murders and are indifferent to the race of their victims, the number of black people murdered by white people and the number of white people murdered by black people should be _exactly the same_. > > If there are 2 murders per 100,000 people and you want to find the expected number of black-on-white murders, you need to multiply by the number of black people (the number of potential murderers) and then multiplied by the number of white people divided by the number of people in the country (the percentage chance that the victim happens to be white). If you want to find the expected number of white-on-black murders, you need to multiply by the number of white people (the number of potential murderers) and then multiplied by the number of black people divided by the number of people in the country (the percentage chance that the victim happens to be black). > > Notice that both equations multiply by the same two numbers and divide by the same number. > > The fact that the real numbers are _not_ equal means one of two things: that black people are more likely to commit murder than white people, or that white people are harder to murder than black people. Or the numbers are incomplete and misleading. For example: mass killings, like the one in South Carolina recently, don’t show up in that report because there were multiple victims. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/46 "2015-08-26T04:27:30Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Holy hell! This post is so far along the Aspergers spectrum it’s lapped itself. Personal attacks are not appropriate and armchair psychiatry is not a valid basis on which to make such an argument even if it was appropriate. Do not do this again. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/47 "2015-08-26T07:04:53Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > Holy hell! This post is so far along the Aspergers spectrum it’s lapped itself. > > Start with poverty data. I did similar math, back when the Ferguson thing was happening and, as I recall, if you incorporate the ratios of people living under the poverty line, by ethnicity, the number of black people murdered is still disproportionate with the number of white people. There is more going on than poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/48 "2015-08-26T07:10:01Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Racially disparate policing is almost certainly a contributing factor to crime rates–among many other mechanisms, by imprisoning lots of parents. I don’t think that’s a given. I’d venture to guess that there’s a strong correlation between criminal behavior and abusive/corrupting parenting. Potentially, it’s better to grow up in a single-parent home or to get one parent out of the home so that a different, more wholesome mate is brought in, than it is to have a dual-partner home where one of the parents is a criminal. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/50 "2015-08-26T10:39:27Z")
You assume most criminals are bad parents, probably because you picture rapists and murderers. Of course, lots of criminals are drug offenders or gun possessors and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/51 "2015-08-26T10:56:51Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > With no scientific evidence that “black” even means anything at a biological fashion… News to me. 🙂 Anyway, found [this article](http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime/19439), which seems like a pretty balanced commentary. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/52 "2015-08-26T11:06:00Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > And way more Chinese people than whites too. Obviously this explains the incredible endless crime-wave by Chinese immigrants and China’s history of waging wars of aggression far from their shores. The Great Leap Forward? The Cultural Revolution? The TaiPing Rebellion? John Woo? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/53 "2015-08-26T11:12:30Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > News to me. 🙂 > > Anyway, found [this article](http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-black-americans-commit-crime/19439), which seems like a pretty balanced commentary. Notably, though, the statistical analysis begins with: “It’s true that around 13 per cent of Americans are black, according to the latest estimates from the US Census Bureau.” The Bureau’s data is based on self-reporting, i.e. people who identify themselves as black or other than black, rather than any kind of scientific testing. Is there a possible scientific test that could confirm or disprove whether or not, say, Barack Obama, Halle Berry, Tiger Woods or their various children were black, assuming “black” was scientifically defined in some way? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/54 "2015-08-26T11:43:22Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You assume most criminals are bad parents, probably because you picture rapists and murderers. Of course, lots of criminals are drug offenders or gun possessors and the like. I did not assume. I intended and - I think - clearly presented my statement as a potentiality that could change the result from what you expected. But minus data, neither of us really has a compelling case. I also specified that the sort of problem that one might encounter is simply “corruptive” parenting, where the parent is nice enough to his kids, but still encourages to engage in criminal or self-defeating behavior, like discouraging them from putting much importance in their education. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/55 "2015-08-26T14:59:24Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > There is more going on than poverty. Of course. There is a lot more to generational poverty than simply current wealth. Being poor does not usually happen in a vacuum; it is more likely to be a result of multiple generations of poverty and all the social and cultural baggage that comes with it. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/56 "2015-08-26T15:08:11Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I did not assume. I intended and - I think - clearly presented my statement as a potentiality that could change the result from what you expected. But minus data, neither of us really has a compelling case. Well, you “guessed” that there is a “strong correlation between criminal behavior and abusive/corrupting parenting.” I agree that both of us are operating without citations to data here, but that doesn’t make your guess equally valid to mine. Last I checked, there is lots of evidence that single-parent households struggle compared to two-parent households (if for no other reason than the loss of earnings). I’m not aware of any evidence connecting the commission of crime with “abusive/corrupting” parenting. My intuition is that some crimes are probably so correlated and the majority are not–or at least, are more weakly correlated to negative outcomes than the negative outcomes correlated with imprisoning a parent. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/57 "2015-08-26T15:23:30Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > T, or that white people are harder to murder than black people. Yet another example of rampant white priviledge… ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/58 "2015-08-26T16:13:09Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I did similar math, back when the Ferguson thing was happening and, as I recall, if you incorporate the ratios of people living under the poverty line, by ethnicity, the number of black people murdered is still disproportionate with the number of white people. There is more going on than poverty. Sure. I did say _start_ with poverty data. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/59 "2015-08-26T17:10:48Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > I agree that both of us are operating without citations to data here, but that doesn’t make your guess equally valid to mine. Myeah, that’s basically the way it works. > [@](#): > > I’m not aware of any evidence connecting the commission of crime with “abusive/corrupting” parenting. Child abuse _is_ the commission of a crime, so that’s one’s a straight 100% correlation, and it’s no effort to find studies showing that childhood abuse rarely affects people positively. E.g.: [http://www.unc.edu/~gsmunc/JoanMcCord/FortyYear1983.pdf](http://www.unc.edu/~gsmunc/JoanMcCord/FortyYear1983.pdf) A substance abuser is more likely to be arrested for criminal behavior and a substance abuser is not a good influence on their children: > **[Children of Substance-Abusing Parents](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-1739-9_9)** > > Research into risk factors for problem behavior among children has established clear links between family characteristics and the likelihood that children will become involved in drug abuse, delinquency and other forms of problem behavior (Hawkins,... 60% of people in jail reported using drugs in the month before their arrest: > **[ED448903.pdf](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED448903.pdf)** > > 300.59 KB The most influential person in a child’s consideration of a future career is their parent: > **[Parental influence on career development: An integrative framework for...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01353275)** > > Journal of Career Development - [http://www.jstor.org/stable/23900166?seq=1#page\_scan\_tab\_contents](http://www.jstor.org/stable/23900166?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) Half of men who were sent to jail were not living with their child at the time they were arrested, suggesting that most of the children would be growing up a single-parent home anyways. > **[ED448903.pdf](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED448903.pdf)** > > 300.59 KB And the majority of women, whose partner was sent to jail, felt that the incarceration had no or slight effect on their child, indicating that the father was of limited influence before the fact: > **[33.full.pdf](https://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/20/1/33.full.pdf)** > > 678.75 KB And I think the most telling is that children do better if they’re part of a single-parent household because their other parent died, than for “other” reasons (like incarceration of a parent): [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00533.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00533.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=) ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/60 "2015-08-26T20:16:16Z")
Any word on if the black reporter that filmed himself shooting the white devils was abused as a child? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2015, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876/61 "2015-08-26T20:55:13Z")
**Sage Rat:** Yes, obviously child abuse is going to be a crime correlated to child abuse. That’s not exactly responsive to the question of whether removing approximately one in three black men from their families might contribute to black criminality, unless you think a large portion of them are going in for child abuse. You seem to mischaracterize the substance abuse links. They do not establish the parental influence (as distinct from genetic influence) of substance abusers, much less of the different category of people that is those convicted of drug crimes, not all of whom are substance abusers. (Though I admit I only read the abstract of the one you had to pay for…if that one contains the evidence you claim notwithstanding what is said in the abstract suggesting otherwise, I’m open to that information. Did you read the whole thing or just the abstract?) None of the other links are really on point. I would be interested to know what percentage of first-time offenders with children are active in their children’s lives. I don’t see that in your data. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blacks-commit-more-crimes/728876.md?page=4)