William Bennett: "If you want to reduce crime...abort every black baby in America."

The BBQ Pit
241

All these statistics have me thinking… (BTW Magellan I see your point and concur that raw statistics accentuate your point. However, his failure to understand that a multitude of social factors effect higher criminality rates -not rates of deviance mind you- amongst the black population, and hypothetically asserting that genocide would be the answer, is a little over the top for me.)
If crime is spread across the society and transcends race, class, sex (which no one in here, as Magellan claims, is advocating that Blacks are genetically more criminal…right?), then it would be more accurate to stipulate that you should abort all people to reduce crime. That is the only logical way.

Maybe Bennet should have said that.

:wink:

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Then why doesn’t he just apologize?

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I assume that you agree that the notion that “poverty causes crime” is equally unsupported by the data.

I will also repeat that I am not limiting my definitions to incarceration, but to arrests and convictions.

And, of course, incarceration does, in fact, correlate to larger number of convictions than those sentenced to probation or other alternative sentences.

Warning: PDF. This is for Colorado. I doubt if it is much different nation-wide.

If you are going to assume, as you seem to be doing, that the numbers of crimes committed by convicted or arrested whites differs significantly and systematically from the numbers for blacks, I will have to ask for the basis for this assumption.

Regards,
Shodan

244

For your viewing pleasure, I resubmit to you a section of Post #176:

Therefore, I did indeed acknowledge his disclaimers and acknowledge the context of his hypothetical and did not misrepresent his views by saying that he wanted to abort all black babies. To the contrary, I stated that he is not advocating such a position.

I think that Lissa and others have well-addressed the issue of Black crime rates versus Black conviction rates.

Can you tell me straight-faced that poverty doesn’t affect the conviction rates? The appeals process? The length of incarcerations? Now add to that racial prejudice.

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Shodan I already gave several reasons why incarceration data was not reliably extrapolatable to crime data (Detroit for an example how stuff goesin the real world, info re drug free zones, reasons why urban crime would be more likely to be prosecuted vs suburbn/ rural crime/

its up to you now to give reasons why you should assume one body= one crime.

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duffer I would like to take a moment to apologize for calling you a dick, the comments you made at the time didn’t warrant it, and I’d be remiss for failing to make ammends. I admit to being overly sensitive, my first post to this thread is probably a lot closer to my feelings right not than I’d care to examine.

Stuffy

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I am not assuming one body = one crime. You are assuming that whites commit more crimes per incarceration than blacks, and that therefore the arrest/conviction/incarceration disproportions do not reflect crime disproportions.

And again I will ask - do you agree that the data do not support the notion that there is any correlation between poverty and crime?

Regards,
Shodan

248

Just for the record, when I wrote that I didn’t have the full context of what he was saying. While I still think it was a stupid and reprehensible comment, obviously he wasn’t advocating anything.

On the genocide point though, genocide is the destruction of a group through any means, not necessarily mass murder. From the post by crowmanyclouds above:

Thus even if one did not believe that abortion was killing, one could still see the forced abortion of all pregancies of an ethnic group as genocide.

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Nope. not even close. What I’m asserting is that the data wrt demographics of those persons incarcerated cannot reliably be extrapolated to the demographics of “who commits more crime”. We do not have :

  1. Sufficient information wrt the numbers of crimes committed by those incarcerated.
  2. demographics easily available for those persons who are on probation vs. incarceration (and obviously the numbers of crimes again)
  3. demographics available at all for those persons who have committed crimes that were reported but remain unsolved (a huge fucking number by the way if you looked at the solve rate data) this is especially troubling since generally, when one wants to use a sampling of an entire category to extrapolate to the whole (as in pollsters calling folks up then reporting that Bush’s approval rate is x%), there needs to be some assurance that the sampling is somewhat random in nature. In the case of incarceration data vs. criminal acts data, the sampling is anything but random.
    4.and of course, absolutely no data wrt demographics on unreported crime. This also is troubling especially in the cases of drug enforcement, which can be (and is, from my experience) easily skewed (check again the posted info wrt drug use/abuse demographics vs. imprisoned demographics)

I’m troubled that you misunderstood my point so badly. Again. My point is that incarceration data is exactly that and no more.

depends on what data you’re talking about and what specific statement. I would absolutely agree with a statement like " Death row inmates are much more likely to have had public defenders than paid attorneys."

I am troubled by the ease in which people tend to gravitate towards thinking incarceration data (tho obviously a biased, small sample) can suggest anything about the demographics as a whole.

I recall the case of some turnpike cops who did racial profiling on their traffic stops, looking for drugs. When they found whatever percentage of their stops had drugs, they felt it was justification that the profiling ‘worked’. But ya know, if you’re stopping every other Hispanic car, and every 100th white car, you simply have no information about 99% of the whites, and have information on 50% of Hispanics. Anyone with an ounce of mathmatical/logical thought should pause at that.

Using incarceration demographics to make generalizations about crime rates for those populations is (IME, IMO) fatally flawed. and anyone who continues to do it is a poopy head.

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I probablyshould repeat that I am not limiting myself only to incarceration data.

If it helps, it seems reasonable to me to assume, absent any data to the contrary, that blacks who are arrested/convicted/incarcerated commit roughly the same number of crimes as whites who are arrested/convicted/incarcerated. And therefore, the disproportionate numbers of blacks who are etc. reflects a disproportion in their “crime rate”.

The assumption that the number of crimes per criminal might vary significantly for blacks as opposed to whites strikes me as something that people pull out of their hat in order to avoid the politically incorrect conclusion that blacks are more likely to commit crimes than one would expect from their proportion of the populace.

And, since no data exist that demonstrate this assumption is anything more, I will continue to assert that the data shows what it seems to show. This is especially true, because when you examine the figures for a crime like murder, which is nearly always reported and very commonly cleared by arrest, one finds that the disproportion of black involvement continues at much the same rate as for all other index crimes. Which is an indication that “rate of non-reporting” does not seem to demonstrate the assumption you are advocating.

How about this statement - “the data do not demonstrate that the crime rate is higher among poor people than among the rich”. Or “the crime rate is no higher for men than for women”. Or “there is no reason to believe that the crime rate is higher in Detroit, Michigan than in Stockholm, Sweden”.

Each of these statements is unsupported, right?

Regards,
Shodan

251

No. What you won’t have, is that due to either the nature of the crime we focus on, or unfair treatment in the system, the numbers are screwed.

We focus a ton of energy on inner city (drug crime) especially at the street level. As wring noted, the majority of the profiling stops on the NJ Turnpike were in search of drugs. They stopped black and hispanic drivers at numbers disportionate to their numbers in the population, of course that’s going to reflect into the system.

You mention murder, what type of murder are we talking about? Drug dealers killing other drug killers? Well geez, if I’m focusing a good part of my energy on street crime, of course I’m going to have a lot of street criminals who commit murder; but the numbers are already tilted in that direction. If I have a housewife from the burbs, get drunk and kill a guy, I may plead her down…we know that blacks receive harsher sentences than whites do for the same crime. What does that do to the numbers?

If these were random stops or random murders, you would have a point. They’re not. This is a directed and focused law enforcement and the numbers represent that direction.

…and it should bother you.

252

::buzzer:: wrong. When you say "I am not limiting myself only to incarceration data then follow it up by stating that you use the incarceration data and then assume that it’s the same across the board, you are, in fact, “using just the incarceration data”. "absent any data "??? ::Sputtter sputter sputter:: I have posted several times substantial reasons to indicate that the incarceration data is not a random sampling of criminal cases. You seem to be specifically ignoring that.

for one, there is no universal collection of the characterizations of probationers for example. To give you an idea of relative numbers - there’s 8 parole officers in this county, and about 30 probation officers (for felonies - an additional 12 for misdemeanors). caseloads vary a bit, but the number of agents all by itself should tell you the proportion of probationers to prison incarcerations.
again - incarceration data is not a random, representative sampling of criminals. not. at. all.

another one is the ‘enhancement factor’, where a crime is specifically enhanced -given a longer sentence, more likely to result in a prison term- such ‘enhancement’ factors are much more likely to occur in an urban environment than either suburban or rural, so you’d get the demographics of urban vs. suburban.

Drug crimes - you’re much more likely to get a ‘drug sweep’ in an inner city neighborhood than a suburban, rural, college campus, again with the demographics.

From my own experience working in this field, a rural county nearby will often give probation sentences to the rural folk who live there (including the members of the football team who were systematically breaking into businesses on Saturday nights), than the minority folk who shoplifted at the local mall. I even had a conversation w/a prosecutor once wrt a minority being involved in a B & E in a nearby rural county. He admitted that it was a much more likely event for him to get prison vs. probation. Not 'cause the crime was different. but that he was a minority. That’s been my experience (in the field, you know) for the past 3 decades.

which is not at all what I’ve said. What I’ve said, repeatedly is that you (and I) have absolutely no fucking data on the number of crimes associated with any specific person and/or group. I am really getting pissed at your shoving words into my throat. I am stating over and over and over to you that :
the number of persons in prison is exactly and only that the fucking number of persons in prison. For all the long list of reasons I’ve typed several times and you’ve ignored several times, you simply do not have the data to support any demographical conclusions about the propensity for** any** group to commit crimes.
You also have no data on how many are left handed. You can assume that the general average of left handedness is replicated there, but we don’t know. We also don’t know how many have kids. or are AB Positive blood type. The data is not collected.

Wrong again. A missing person may indeed be a murder victim. Some “accidents” are really murders. You simply do not know. Commonly? what’s the percentage? 50? 60? random or by design. And, of course, you then also get into the numbers game. Gary Ridgeway, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeff Dahmer = 4 people. crimes involved? conservatively 50.

You again misinterpret. I am asking for you to provide the specific data, then I will be willing to state what I think it means. I’ve not really done any research on crime vs. economics, and don’t recall that being a collected data point from the FBIs. I will say anectdotally that you’re much more likely to get a prison sentence from a public defender vs. a hired attorney, but that doesn’t necessarily equal anything more than “you get what you pay for” (a universal thought you’d be likely to agree with, eh?)

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A slight hijack of the current hijack but - what is the solve rate for crime in the US? I’ve seen averages tossed around casually that range between 20 percent and 70 percent. I assume it varies by type of crime, but I don’t even know that much for sure.

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scan this thread for my posts. I posted data on that from the FBI - it ranged from about 7% to about 50%. and given the relative number of each of those crimes, the average solve rate is abysmally poor. Especially for stuff like property crimes - b & e’s, especially of an auto for example.

255

Sorry, no.

Arrest rates for blacks are disproportionately higher than for whites. Need a cite? Here you go.

Blacks are convicted of index crimes at a rate disproportionately higher than for whites. Need a cite? Here’s one as it relates to the death penalty.

No, I am not “using just the incarceration data”.

Come off it; this is common knowledge. Now quit evading the question.

Yes, as I stated, I am making the assumption that the average number of crimes committed by those arrested and/or convicted and/or incarcerated who are black is not substantially lower than for those who are white. You have posted a number of speculations as to why this might not be so. What evidence do you have to overcome Occam’s Razor?

You’re dodging the question.

If I produce cites to show that poor people are involved in crime at a rate disproportionate to their representation in the populace, are you willing to make the same assertions about their crime rate as you are about blacks?

Are you prepared, in other words, to assert that this claim is unsupported by the data?

What is your standard of proof, in other words? Are you simply denying the ability of sociologists to determine anything about crime, or is it only in the case of blacks?

Or is this a case where you are hoping to wear out the opposition by asking for cites?

Regards,
Shodan

256

Thanks, wring. Found your post, and your cite (and figured out how to imbed a link here!).

What I still don’t understand is how this isn’t the number one issue for African-Americans. The “inappropriateness” of Bennett’s comment is nothing compared to the damning aspects of the data. What other data needs to be collected to surmise that black men are targeted for prosecution and incarceration?

257

Shodan first link is to a 72 page pdf file. Care to shorten that up for me? (and the print really really tiny). arrests? Does it also include if there was a conviction? Keeping in mind, too, the other things I"ve already noted - specific programs by police using racial profiling like by the NJ officers. If the cops already admit to targeting minorities, should it surprise you that there’s over representation in minority arrests? Like I’ve said at least 4 times already - locally the narcotics squad does period sweeps. Where? in the inner city neighborhood, public housing. not, repeat not at the nearby campus (where if I extrapolate from my personal experience as a college student, every other room would have drugs in it).

and, of course, please try and explain on what basis you can claim the racial characterisitics of unsolved crimes (which account for the great bulk of crime).
Am I claiming that it’s more likely to be one race or another? No. If at all, my gut instinct would be that it pretty well fit in w/demographics of people in general. Except, of course, for Drugs. that would likely follow the demographics of drug users (which some one else already posted, and noted that non minority drug users are vastly under-seen percentage of the prison population - I would suspect due to the profiling type of thing I’ve already discussed).

Second link has the piece of data wrt death penalty cases (a small subset of violent crimes) I didn’t see any data wrt racial characterisitics of criminal. (yes, stuff wrt racial characteristics of victim)

And in the post that I quoted, you did exactly say that you were taking the incarceration data and “absent any data” about why not extrapolate it, that you were indeed extrapoltating it. See? I didn’t rephrase, I quoted.

as for ‘dodging the question’? how? I said (twice) please show me the data. you’ve nowsupplied me with some, which I’ll look at.

with one stipulation:

you stop fucking right now with this sort of shit:

I will state again for the last mother fucking time. my point is that the characteristics of “People in prison” is exactly and only that - ie “the characteristics of the people in prison”. Not extrapolatable to “People who commit crimes” “People who are left handed” “people who watch Laverne and Shirley” or any other fucking thing. I have not asserted anything else. We do not have the demographic data on “who commits crime” I am not only looking at blacks. I am not asserting whites commit crime more than blacks. I am saying “we do not have sufficient data to make a reasonable conclusion about the demographics of who commits crimes”.

My last post to you indicated that I was getting pissed at your studious mischaracterizing of what I said. Please do not do it again.

258

Well, if you are going to avoid the question that studiously…

Regards,
Shodan

259

Wring:

I don’t understand what you are trying to argue. Are you trying to say that we can’t say anything about the demographics of crime and criminals?

We can say a lot. One of your major concerns seems to be about profiling going on by police. In fact, in 1988 Levitt studied this very issue, in a paper entitled “The Impact of Race on Policing, Arrest Patterns, and Crime.”

You seem to have several other objections as well, relating to uncertainty, i.e. how many convicted criminals did more than one crime, what percentage of crimes are unreported, etc etc.

You act as if these are insurmountable barriers to attaining a reasonable statement and stance about Demographics and crime.

They’re not.

Statistical and economic tools are well up to the task. For example, we have much more than imprisonment rates. We have victimization rates, geographical breakdowns, arrest rates, poverty levels, geographic demographics etc, etc. that can be combined and analyzed. An error bar always exists of course, but the statistical certainty can be controlled.

All this is really unnecessary though. If you simply go to the FBI’s site for uniform crime statistics, you can look at the raw data yourself in a number of different ways. Whether you are looking at arrest rates, conviction rates, victimization rates, reported crime rates, prison demographics, or what have you, you find black people are disproportionately represented. For example, in New Jersey for the period of 1996-2002 the number of black people arrested was 5 times the number of white people, though black people represent only a minority of the population in that state. This holds true across the board in prison population, victimization, etc etc. High areas of black population also have commensurately higher levels of crime. These are simply facts. They don’t imply anything, and I don’t see the need to defend them or try to discredit them. They are valid facts available for all to see.

As a matter of fact, I think it is extremely important not to try to sugarcoat this issue, or pretend it doesn’t exist. Levitt’s work demonstrates that this correllation is not a causative one. The correllation vanishes when it is corrected for poverty. What these facts actually tell us about race and crime is this:

Black people have higher crime rates, because they have higher poverty rates. They are disproportionately disadvantaged in this country. The average black person does not start on a level playing field with everybody else. Poverty, wantedness, parents’ education, broken homes, and educational opportunities are the causative factors correlated with criminal behavior. Black people suffer from these disproportionately to the rest of the country because of a legacy of prejudice and discrimination.

The higher crime rate among black people is not an indictment of black people. It is an indictment of the country and the society that discriminates against them and leaves them disadvantaged to this day.

To say that the higher crime rate does not exist is, in fact, to say, that the disadvantages, discrimination and other causative effects do not exist.

In the study of crime rates, race and abortion by Levitt, which is the subject of this thread, what Levitt uses as his crime rate are homicide convictions. He uses these because he has already demonstrated statistically in past studies that homicide convictions are a good indicator for crime rates in general with high correllation across the board.

He is able to refine his statistical analysis further with his previously cited work on policing arrest patterns and crime. It is true that a black person is more likely to be arrested and convicted than a white person depending on the race of the policeman making the arrrest and demographics of the geographic area in which the crime occurs. Levitt, can and does correct for these and other factors.

In fact there are other factors involved in the sampling that are corrected for that you have not brought up. These are the same standardized techniques used throughout economics and statistics. For example, unemployment figures nationwide are not simply calculated on claims because not all unemployed people seek unemployment insurance. Surveys establish what percentage of unemployed people seek unemployment and once this is established and monitored it can be applied against the number of people that file for unemployment insurance, and the unemployment rate can be established.

Similarly, in the FBIs uniform crime statistic reporting, they do not work on one simmple number. Surveys are conducted to determine what proportion of crimes occur versus what are reported across a variety of different crime types.

So, the statistical numbers are good. They are not perfect. What develops from these numbers is that the crime rates for black people are higher than for white people no matter how you slice it… save one.

If you correct for poverty, the difference in crime rates across the boards vanish.

This is a powerful and respectable piece of statistical work, and I hate to see it attacked mindlessly, because it tells us something very important both about the socioeconomic demographics of this country as relates to to discrimination, and the legacy of slavery, and it tells us something important about the causative effects of crime.
All this, is really besides the point. It looks to me like you are trying to say we can’t say anything substantive about demographics of race and crime. It’s just not true. We can say an awful lot because we have powerful statistical tools that enable us to correct for many error factors.

If you like, we can go into the FBI crime statistics, and a couple of Levitt’s papers and take a look at how he builds his statistical analysis. The fact is, that the poverty level for black people is much much higher than it is for the national average. Because of this, arrest rates, conviction rates, violent crimes, by demographics, reported crimes, victimization rates, and unreported crime rates are also much higher for black people than they are for the national average.

They are higher not by percentage points, but usually by an order of magnitude. The statistical significance of this is much greater than the error bars, and the correllation is simply undeniable.

That’s my general thesis. What I would like to know is if you can be swayed by reasoning along these lines, if it is demonstrated to you.

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Is it really true that racial differences vanish when you factor in poverty levels?

I don’t know for sure, myself. There are a lot of numbers and data to play with, that’s for sure. I’ll leave the specifics to people who like to play. With numbers, I mean.

But to get back to the OP: You’d think a guy like Bennett, with the important positions in government he’s held - positions where those numbers would be relevant - would have studied the numbers himself, no?

So, all we can surmise about Bennett’s remark, is that it sure is funny how someone who should know better - based on the numbers and conclusions, as readily available to his supporters in this thread - would be so ill-informed as to think of a wrong-headed example like the one he came up with.

What was he thinking?