Ah yes, Oprah Winfrey’s 7 times more likely to be in prison than you, Barking Spider. I think we should send the police over to her house right now to make sure she’s not killing anyone.
I guess it’s too much to ask for cites in the Pit. Or maybe all those google hits you stumbled across have Storm Front somewhere in their URL and you’re scared to admit it.
You keep emphasizing that blacks are more likely to commit crime/be arrested/be imprisoned than whites, but why? Are you in favor of profiling black males? And if so, why isn’t this bigoted, particularly since you believe profiling whites is?
I keep telling you, if you want to fingerprint black people (in addition to stopping them on the Turnpike and following them through department stores), America will still have a big crime problem. So why do you keeping whining about black crime? As a woman, I’m outraged about male crime. I’m sure a rich person is outraged about poor crime. The old people are all outraged about youth crime. At least these people have picked up on the commonalities of MOST criminals. So why is your rant about black crime more special and deserving of attention?
BS, I don’t think anyone has challenged any of the stats which show a higher incarceration rate for black people than for white people (depending which stats you quote, the perentages may vary slightly, but that’s about it).
Now let’s bring some other statistics into play?
How do those statistics break down when the nature of the crime and the age group of the offender are taken into account.
What is the difference between the “diversion” rate between white people and black people arrested for similar types of crime (this is especially significant when you’re relying on incarceration rates to bolster your argument), as there’s substantial research indicating that all other factors being equal, the criminal justice process itself is less likely to stop short of incarceration in the case of young, minority males than it is for middle aged, white females (for instance).
Property crimes often have a shockingly low clearance rate, and yet they are one of the most common crimes for which young males are arrested and subjected to some kind of juvenile justice. If our statistical models based on arrest and convictions were meaningful in terms of crime prevention, our clearance rate for property crimes should be steadily rising.
One reason criminologists use so-called “self-reporting studies” is because they help fill in the many blanks left in the official statistics.
Let’s assume for a moment that the average clearance rate on property crimes is 20% (it’s often lower than that, but it will do for a working number), and that vast the majority of those who incur some kind of judicial sanction for committing property crimes are males under 25 years of age. Intuitively, it would seem that targetting young males would have a significant impact on the rate of property crimes, and that is often the strategy adopted by law enforcement agencies.
While a criminologist would certainly look at the reasons behind the apparent reasons for the apparent high correlation between youth and property crime, they would also be looking at the 80%
“failure” rate in clearing that type of crime and asking “who is responsible for committing this 80% and why are they ‘invisible’ to us”? If you like, I can link you to some resources which explore questions like this one (would it surprise you to learn - for instance - that even subjective qualities such as “attractiveness” have a significant impact on people’s stereotypes regarding the likelihood of a given individual committing a crime).
It’s often been noted on these boards that the rich and famous seem to be subjected to a different set of laws than the rest of us for not better reason than their social status. Is it so hard, then, to believe that the justice system can work to the advantage of one group of people (or the disadvantage of another) within “average” society? Do you seriously believe that a young, black or Latino inner city male would incur the same penalties for the same offences as those committed by Robert Downey jnr?
But that doesn’t make sense. Its common knowledge that Whites don’t have the crime rate that Blacks and Hispanics do. I believe she was cynicaly trying to convey the notion that Whites are committing crimes, when she knows damn well otherwise.
Yes, I profiled against Whites. I made them line up and submit their fingerprints to me and then put tracking devices around their necks so I can monitor their activities. Actually, right now I’m watching a fool named Barking Spider through the spycam that I installed in his computer monitor. He’s picking his nose right now. It’s hilarious.
You didn’t straighten me out since I wasn’t advocating profiling to start with. And you still haven’t explained why blacks would be a better candidate for profiling. If they’re committing 28% of the crime, who’s committing the rest of it? Should the goal of profiling be to reduce crime only by 28%?
I’ll give you an illustration so simple even you should be able to understand it:
Ms. Smith has a classroom of 20 children, 15 girls, 5 boys. Seating is random, but the boys tend to sit closer to the front so they can look at Ms. Smith’s legs. Whenever Ms. Smith is standing at the chalkboard, half the class is always talking. Whenever Ms. Smith turns around, it seems that she notices the boys talking, and this pisses her off. “There are only five boys in this class and yet they’re always acting up!” she says in frustration.
Finally, she comes up with a solution. Duct tape. But she only has enough tape to cover the mouths of ten kids. Well, she decides that since “those boys like to yabber”, she’ll tape their mouths shut and then randomly select five girls and tape their mouths shut. So she covers the offending mouths with the duct tape. Pleased with herself, she turns back to the chalkboard. Before she even opens her mouth, she hears the familiar mutter of chatter behind her. But this time, the kids are also laughing.
Where did Ms. Smith go wrong?
First, she assumed that ALL the boys were being disruptive, when it was only three of the five who were regular “talkers”.
Second, she assumed her assumption about the boys was unbiased when in fact, she just noticed the boys more than the girls. They were, after all, sitting right under her nose.
Third, she ignored the fact that all the talkers, boys and girls, watch Buffy the Vampire and The Real World. She could have learned this bit of information just from listening in on their conversations. If she had chosen the culprits using this criterion, she would have eliminated the talking by 100% instead of by 30%.
Lastly, she had underestimated the negative effect of unfairly singling out the boys. Because they felt targeted, the boys–even the “good” ones–made disrespectful finger gestures in her direction when she turned back to the board, and this made everyone laugh. Until she figures out a more fair and effective strategy, this type of rebellion will continue.
One can correctly determine the rough stats of ‘who’s in prison’, and get a certain amount of demongraphics that way.
However, attempts to extrapolate into the demographics of who are more likely to be the criminals is, I believe doomed to failure.
Not all crime is reported. Excellent cases in point are : shoplifting (generally is reported as a crime only when a perp has been caught, otherwise, it’s reported as ‘shortage’), drug possession (only is reported as a crime when some on is caught).
2, A very small percentage of crime that is reported is solved. The FBI also has data on that, but folks when they’ve got their agendas up rarely look at that. If it’s unsolved, you don’t have any idea of the demographics of who did it.
You know, one could easily read this quote as asserting that white people commit either no crimes, or a statistically insignificant level of crime. Normally, I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion so soon, but considering the other things Mr. Spider has asserted on this thread, I’m starting to think that it might be accurate…
Irrelevant. All that matters is the total, NOT the percentages. The total number of whites that commits crimes is much greater than the total number of blacks… ergo, profiling whites (assuming profiling would have the desired result) would reduce crime more (in total) than profiling blacks.
Here’s a simple way to think of it: Using Mythos45’s approximated numbers, we can potentially eliminate a maximum of 435,717 crimes through profiling whites, while we can potentially eliminate a maximum of only 174,411 through profiling blacks.
Here’s a simple test of basic arithmetic, Mr. Spider… which of those two numbers are bigger?
Of course, the real-world results wouldn’t be nearly as successful as the above numbers… but I used them to illustrate to Mr. Spider that his faulty method of using percentages - rather than totals - would clearly not have the maximum potential of crime reduction.
Mr. Spider, if you still believe that the percentages matter more than the totals, please explain how.
Using your logic… if we had a single black man living in a city of 5,000 white men, and that black man committed a crime, he would be responsible for 100% of the crimes committed by black people. But would that one single person be any real criminal threat when compared to, oh, the 200 white people who each committed a mere .5% of the crime committed by whites?
One questions whether Mr. Spider has ever taken into account personal responsibility. Every individual has a right to be judged on his own actions, not on what persons who may share the irrelevant characteristic of sex, race, ethnic extraction, sexual orientation, gender conception, or other classificatory characteristic, might happen to do or not do.
It rather strikes me there should be little doubt as to what our dear drooling bigot, BS, is.
With full reference to my own thread on this very subject, (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=109774 continued http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=111888) I note the distinct coincidence between our idiotic bigot’s turns of phrase, his oddly uncited ‘stats’ on racial crime, his deep concern for “The White Race” and the same turns of phrase, the same oddly spun and oft distorted statistic and concern for the ‘White Race’ – capitals you know-- found on, well how did he himself put it? “White racial sites”? I think that was the phrase.
Others would just say, filthy stinking white supremacist glurge sites.
Given the exceedingly high levels of ignorance and stupidity that’s perpetuated in Grate Debates lately (especially in threads involving terrorism, the Middle East, and Islam), I’d say yes.
JaunitaTech- Of course Whites commit crimes. But not in the percentage that Blacks do. Monsto is the one who claims that “whites are the ones doing the crime”.