Using DOJ stats to prove or disprove the criminality of a race is a crock of feces

Great Debates
1

There have been many, many debates here on profiling, race and the inherent criminality of the different races. In all of these threads someone at some time cites The Department of Justice arrest statistics. And someone else inevitably points out that these figures incorporate our society’s racial bias.

Then someone else comes along and states that those of us stating DOJ figures incorporate our racial bias says that we are being PC and the figures don’t lie. Of course figures lie. What’s that quote “lies, damn lies and statistics”?

Well, I’ve gathered a few of my own stats.

First from Ameristat

Whites make up 71.9% of the population.

Next from SAMHSA (Substance Abuse & Mental Health-- agency of the Dept of Health and Human Services. There figures show that 11.8% of whites and 13.1% of blacks used illicit drugs years 1991-1993

And finally, from Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics are arrest rates for drug abuse crimes that show that 64.2% of those arrested for drug abuse crimes were white and 34.5% were black.

What this tells me is that even though whites make up 85% of the drug using public, they account for 64% of arrests while blacks, who make up 1.5% of the drug using public make up 35% of all drug use arrests.
Now, I suck totally at math and I did some rounding, but these numbers are an example of how DOJ numbers do more to prove the bias in DOJ’s numbers than anything else.

So, DOJ numbers are a crock of shit when used in a debate in the inherent criminality of the races.

2

Ahh…the Tyranny of Numbers!

I think it is dangerous to use numbers such as these (or what others were citing) to support a notion of the inherent criminality of a race. There are simply too many other factors that play into it. For instance, African Americans are more likely to suffer from poverty than whites are (as a percentage of the whole). What effect does poverty have on criminal behavior?

As to Biggirl’s stats they don’t tell the whole story either and thus aren’t entirely appropriate to support the OP.

For instance, 11.8% of whites and 13.1% of blacks used illicit drugs yet blacks are disproportionately represented in drug arrests. What drugs are being used here? Marijuana tends to have a lower crime incidence associated with it (beyond its use in the first place) than crack or heroin. Of the 11.8% of whites using an illicit drug how many of those are marijuana only users and how many are into crack and/or heroin? How does that relate percentage wise with the balck community? It would seem to me a drug arrest is more likely to occur if other crimes are committed in conjunction with it (assault, murder, robbery, etc.) and i think those crimes are more likely with some drugs than with others.

I’m not saying the numbers are wrong but just pointing out that, as stated in the OP, stats need to be taken with a large grain of salt and any given stat almost never tells the whole story so both Biggirl and the people she is railing against are both commiting the same mistake (or so it would seem to me).

3

If you follow the links the stats do break down into which drugs are used by which race.

P.S., I used drug stats because it is possible to determine (as possible as it is using surveys and polls, that is) the total number of drug users. Meaning we can have some idea of the numbers of people actually committing this particular crime (illicit drug use) and their race. With other crimes it is not possible to know the racial breakdown of those who commited the crimes, only those arrested.

4

I must be blind because I followed the two links with stats you cited and saw no breakout for particular drugs. Rather, it seemed all drug related offenses were lumped together.

Additionally, I saw no breakout for multiple crimes. That is, a drug related crime where another crime was committed (I don’t know how those get laid down in the stats).

In any case my point was to show that using stats is of dubious use when making a blanket statement such as saying a given race has a greater prediliction to crime or violence or whatever. In that I agree with the OP. I disagree with the OP’s use of stats to make the counter claim as it is just as dubious.

If you want ot use stats to make over-arching statements it would seem to me that you’d have to use a LOT of different stats looking at various aspects of an issue. Such a thing would be the work of a doctoral thesis and you could expect even then to have the conclusions called sharply into doubt.

5

The SAMHSA site does indeed show which drugs are used in which percentage by race.

The Sourcebook was used to show how many people (by race) are arrested for drug abuse crimes.

This example (of drug abuse crimes) was used to show how there is a racial bias in the DOJ statistics. Since it is not possible to show a racial breakdown of who commits murders, I did not use murder statistics. I used this one crime “drug abuse” crime, as an example of the overall bias.

Now, is there a dispute that blacks comprise 1.5% of the drug using public yet account for 35% of drug arrests or is the dispute that these numbers do not prove that DOJ stats are a crock of shit in relation to which race is more criminal?

6

I assume that you meant that blacks make up 15% of the drug using public?

I have a couple of problems with your figures…if whites make up 71.9% of the population and blacks make up 12.1%…that adds up to 84% which leaves 16% as unaccounted for non-black/whites.

But whites account for 64.2% of arrests and blacks account for 34.5% of arrests. This leaves just 1.3% of arrests unaccounted for.

What I want to know is who are these 16% of the population who only account for 1.3% of drug arrests? I want to hire some of them. Hell, I want to be one of 'em.

I have another problem. Your drug use statistics are based on surveys. Now one thing that every survey company in America knows is that people lie on surveys. I can testify to it myself because I took a couple of these surveys when I was in school.

Now we could simply assume that all races lie on these surveys in the same percentages and in the same “direction” (note that there are two ways to lie here, don’t use drugs but claim you do or actually use drugs but claim you don’t), but this begs the question at hand since we might as well just claim that all races use the same drugs in the same percentages to begin with and do without the surveys altogether.

So the question becomes “How accurate are these surveys?” One way to find out would be to compare the results of these suveys with some sort of real world hard data…for instance, arrest figures from the DOJ. OOPS! We don’t want to do that.

My suggestion is to compare these survey figures with data on hospital admissions for drug overdoses, treatment programs, etc.

7

That should be 15%, but it does not affect the argument.

8

Toldja my math sucks. Damned misplace decimals.

9

One factor in the higher level of criminalization of blacks with respect to drugs (in addition to the powder-v.-crack cocaine issue) is the whole drug-free school zones business. Out here in the 'burbs where I live, most of us aren’t within 1000 feet, or 1500 feet, or whatever, of a school, day-care center, etc. In more densely-packed areas - cities - most residents are in such a zone. And blacks are much more highly concentrated in cities than whites.

The June Washington Monthly has a very good article on this subject.

10

One factor in the higher level of criminalization of blacks with respect to drugs (in addition to the powder-v.-crack cocaine issue) is the whole drug-free school zones business. Out here in the 'burbs where I live, most of us aren’t within 1000 feet, or 1500 feet, or whatever, of a school, day-care center, etc. In more densely-packed areas - cities - most residents are in such a zone. And blacks are much more highly concentrated in cities than whites.

The June Washington Monthly has a very good article on this subject.

11

let me point it out again.

DOJ stats = numbers/% folks arrested/convicted for certain crimes.

  1. All crime is not reported. Some are only reported when some one has been arrested for it (drug use/sales/ shoplifting for example). Some murders may in fact be hidden in ‘missing persons’ stats.

  2. A very small percentage of overall crime is solved.

So at the very best, you have #'s demonstrating that minorities are over represented in the classification of those arrested and convicted. This piece of data simply cannot be extrapolated to mean anything about the number/demographics about those people who commit crimes.

There are crimes that are heavily skewed to effect minorities more than non minorities (the heavier penalties for crack possession vs. powder cocaine for example, laws regarding ‘drug free zones’ around schools and public housing, which would have little real -estate effected in rural or suburban neighborhoods, but have little real estate effected in inner city neighborhoods).

12

To take this discussion one step further–

Another favorite DOJ stat is the high percentage of black in prison. Here is a report on youth drug arrests, convictions and sentencing in Cook county Ill. which shows how this can happen.

This even though Federal statistics show that white youths are 2 to 3 times as likely to actually sell drugs.

Again, I’m using drug stats to show an overall bias in arrest and conviction statistics, so it can be argued that drug stats are not a good indicator of total arrest and imprisonment bias. It can also be argued that these figures are somehow wrong, This is where the debate is, I think.
Also, I’ve found here on the boards and in real life, a strong-- practically super-ingrained-- belief that blacks and Hispanics really are doing and selling more drugs than whites in total numbers, not percentagewise (and try to convince them that the difference percentagewise is only 1 or 2 percent-- go ahead, I dare ya!). It becomes impossible to convince people of this (just as it was impossible to convince them that the majority of people on welfare are not black, even after explaining that blacks only make up 12% of the total population).
P.S. zigaretten

This is what happens every single time there is a racial profiling thread or (even more common) blacks are scary and evil thread. I keep saying that DOJ numbers are really good at showing that blacks and Hispanics are certainly arrested and convicted in shockingly large numbers, but do not show that they are actually committing these crimes in shockingly large numbers as compared to whites.

13

Hi, Biggirl -

Insofar as anyone is trying to use statistics to prove that blacks/Hispanics/Asian/whites/lefthanded Eskimo lesbians are evil as a group, they are going to fail.

The problems come in when anyone tries to use statistics to show that blacks/etc. commit crimes at the same levels as whites, and that the disparities in arrest and conviction records are purely a function of a racist system.

It might be clearer if we did not limit ourselves to drug offenses. It is easy to argue, and in my opinion correct, that most drug offenses are unprosecuted. Therefore, it is possible that the higher rates of arrest and conviction for blacks over whites are a function of cops concentrating on black kids and ignoring white drug crime, whether because they are evil racists, or for any other reason.

Take, however, murder and non-negligent homicide. Murder is rarely concealable, and most murders are cleared by arrest. Most of the time, they get the murderer. Blacks, however, commit slightly more murders that whites (48.8 vs. 48.7%), even though whites outnumber blacks in the population by something like four to one. It is extremely difficult to argue that there are large numbers of murders being ignored by the racist cops in favor of hassling innocent blacks who never hurt a fly.

The issue is relevant because the figures for murder, which are harder to account for based on racism, reflect a pattern strikingly similar to what we see in drug crimes, where blacks are arrested and convicted in numbers very disproportionate to their representation in the population. Blacks tend to be over-represented in the crime categories of which most people are afraid. And there seems to be reason to suspect that this is not a function of racism, but reflects a different phenomenon.

Run down the figures for all the crimes listed on your cited website. There are no crimes committed by blacks in proportions similar to their representation in the populace (except drunk driving. How this affects allegations of arrests for “driving while black” is another interesting question).

Also interesting is the fact that vaguely defined crimes such as “vandalism” and “suspicion” are crimes for which the arrest rates are lower than they are for robbery or embezzlement among blacks. One might expect that racist cops would use such accusations frequently to harass and arrest blacks, if racism were their only motivation.

Anyone who reads anything I have said in this post as an allegation that “blacks are all criminals” or “blacks are inferior” or “blacks are genetically predisposed to crime” are warmly invited to go pound sand up the aperation of their hindquarters. The figures do not say this, and no reasonable person believes it.

Nonetheless, it seems to me that blacks are arrested and convicted at higher rates than whites not because of racism, but because they in fact offend at higher rates than do whites. I am sure the reasons for this are as complex as human motivation tends to be, but it is a mistake, in my opinion, to dismiss the figures are indicative of nothing but racism.

Regards,
Shodan

14

According to Stats.Org the percentage of closed murder cases is 68%. [url=“http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/jr000243b.pdf”]This report says the same thing. Interestingly enough, they both use the same numbers to say the opposite thing (clearance rates are rising/dropping.)

The reason why I used drug stats as opposed to murder stats is because the government keeps records of who they believe is breaking this particular law whether they get arrested or not. Murder stats only show those actually arrested. And my whole point is that those stats are skewered.

15

I swear I hit preview and not submit! Ah well, here’s that crapped up link:
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/jr000243b.pdf

16

Shodan - please refer back to my post - murders are not always known.

  1. Some are misclassified as accidents

  2. Some are classified as missing persons.

  3. some persons simply disappear.

add that to the ‘solve’ rate that BigGirl looked up for you, and your statement is no more accurate than any of the rest.

17

Well, Biggirl, I assume that you are not saying there are surveys showing that most murders go unsolved, but there are lots of people admitting to murder on surveys.

And even if most murders were unsolved, you would need to come up with an explanation on why murders committed by whites were misclassified as missing persons at a higher rate than those committed by blacks, if you were arguing that the higher rates of arrest for black murderers were a function of simple racism.

And wring - I am assuming you have some reason to suspect that a significant number of murders are misclassified.

In other words, cite? Until you supply one, I will assume your assumption that so many murders do not appear in the statistics that they are worthless is just that - an assumption. And you need to show that enough of these misclassified murders were committed by whites to affect the statistics.

Until there is some reasonable evidence of all of this, your desire to add it to the solve rate and declare the figures invalid is just an arbitrary dismissal of the evidence.

Regards,
Shodan

18

Does the statement that “DOJ figures incorporate racial basis” mean…

  1. Blacks are systematically discriminated against and if society didn’t automatically have a racial bias that the DOJ stats break down along racial lines would be approximately proportionate to that races population.

Or…

  1. Blacks are systematically discriminated against and if society didn’t automatically have a racial bias that the DOJ stats break down along racial lines wouldn’t be as dramatic as it currently appears to be even though blacks would still be shown as committing a disproportionate amount of crime.

Are we questioning the inherent criminality of races? (as in the genetic predisposition to act in a criminal fashion) Or are we questioning the prevalence of criminal behavior of the various “races”? If the former IMHO there’s nothing to debate. Social and economic factors are IMHO the main factor for determining who is most likely to be a criminal. If it’s the latter THEN there’s something worth debating.

Grim

19

If it helps, my position is point 2 of Grim_Beaker’s above.

Regards,
Shodan

20

I’m saying that 32% of murders go unsolved. I’m also saying that people do not admit to murder on surveys, but will admit to drug use on surveys. And even if people did admit to murder on surveys, the government does not do murder surveys so that information is not available to us.

What I am implying is that the crime rates that DOJ puts out for minorities, especially blacks but Hispanics and American Indians too, is much too inaccurate to use as evidence that blacks are more criminally-minded than whites. Not only that, but the bias that goes into the DOJ stats only adds to and reinforces this fallicy making DOJ’s numbers even more inaccurate. See my post about the arrest and conviction rates for Cook County youths. (I hope this answers your question grim.)