4 ms·

I agree with most of your points, but I'm not sure about the validity of the following: > the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of th

I agree with most of your points, but I'm not sure about the validity of the following: > the racial distribution in US prisons is uncorrelated with that of the general population. Specifically, 37% of inmates are African American, suggesting they may be incarcerated for lesser cause than those of other backgrounds This statistic could suggest lots of things, I'm not sure why being incarcerated for lesser cause would be the number one. Incarceration is strongly correlated with crime, which itself is strongly correlated with other factors that are also correlated with being African American, e.g. wealth, location

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
isolli 8y ago
The charts in here [0] should alleviate any doubts you had: when it comes to marijuana possession, blacks are indeed arrested at massively higher rates. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-blackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...
- mruts 8y ago
  There are many possible reasons for that besides racism. Blacks are probably more likely to be smoking on the street, carrying weed with them, etc. Also black neighborhoods are policed more heavily due to crime rates so blacks are more likely to be stopped in the first place. In all likelihood, higher arrests for marijuana of blacks are more due to the above factors than racism, though I’m sure that’s a non-zero factor as well.
- Pyxl101 8y ago
  Please also consider the rates at which different population groups commit serious crimes, such as murder and rape. We are talking about prison populations after all - people convicted of minor drug offenses like possession are a small percent of the prison population. The publication "Homicide Trends in the United States" by the US Department of Justice has crime data broken down by race, for example. See pages 11 and 12: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf The data shows that people of different races commit serious crimes such as murder at considerably different rates. The FBI also publishes crime statistics aggregated by race: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
  - swebs 8y ago
    >In 2008, the [homicide] offending rate for blacks (24.7 offenders per 100,000) was 7 times higher than the rate for whites (3.4 offenders per 100,000) Wow, why is that so high?
    - danans 8y ago
      It's complex, and defies simplistic explanations (so don't believe simplistic explanations if you see/hear them). An attempt at a nuanced explanation (which undoubtedly misses a ton of factors): Huge disparities in overall wealth and income, coupled with geographic segregation and isolation of a lot of the black population in areas of concentrated poverty, and the associated lack of access to social goods, such as public safety and good schools. The combined effects of poverty/segregation/isolation are specifically reflected in the fact that 78% of homicides involve people who know each other [1]. People who know each other killing each other is a result of the breakdown of community structures that would disincentivize that behavior. There have to be powerful incentives for someone to kill someone that they know, considering that the potential consequences are so severe (incarceration, violent retribution, etc). Often the perpetrators have very little (in wealth, community, etc) to lose, which also increases the incentive. Another group that are similarly economically poor, Latinos, but due to a different history, have more intact community structures, don't have as high a rate of violent crime. [1] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf (Table 8)
- tomp 8y ago
  To what extent is "marijuana posession" just a proxy for more serious crimes that are harder to prove? Just like Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion...
latch 8y ago
The statistic by itself might not signal it, but this is definitely part of what's going on, and I don't think anyone seriously questions this. A good place to start is the Fair Sentencing Act which tried to address the problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act (but, this just address the mandatory minimum triggers, not the fact that African Americans are disproportionately jailed)
scarface74 8y ago
Incarceration is directly correlated with race regardless of crime. Minorities get harsher penalties for non violent crimes than Whites. Edit: Citation https://eji.org/news/sentencing-commission-finds-black-men-receive-longer-sentences https://eji.org/news/sentencing-commission-finds-black-men-r...
SiempreViernes 8y ago
> Judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people. http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

isolli 8y ago

The charts in here [0] should alleviate any doubts you had: when it comes to marijuana possession, blacks are indeed arrested at massively higher rates. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-blackwhite-marijuana-arrest-gap-in-nine-charts/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/04/the-b...

mruts 8y ago
There are many possible reasons for that besides racism. Blacks are probably more likely to be smoking on the street, carrying weed with them, etc. Also black neighborhoods are policed more heavily due to crime rates so blacks are more likely to be stopped in the first place. In all likelihood, higher arrests for marijuana of blacks are more due to the above factors than racism, though I’m sure that’s a non-zero factor as well.
Pyxl101 8y ago
Please also consider the rates at which different population groups commit serious crimes, such as murder and rape. We are talking about prison populations after all - people convicted of minor drug offenses like possession are a small percent of the prison population. The publication "Homicide Trends in the United States" by the US Department of Justice has crime data broken down by race, for example. See pages 11 and 12: https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf The data shows that people of different races commit serious crimes such as murder at considerably different rates. The FBI also publishes crime statistics aggregated by race: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21 https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-...
- swebs 8y ago
  >In 2008, the [homicide] offending rate for blacks (24.7 offenders per 100,000) was 7 times higher than the rate for whites (3.4 offenders per 100,000) Wow, why is that so high?
  - danans 8y ago
    It's complex, and defies simplistic explanations (so don't believe simplistic explanations if you see/hear them). An attempt at a nuanced explanation (which undoubtedly misses a ton of factors): Huge disparities in overall wealth and income, coupled with geographic segregation and isolation of a lot of the black population in areas of concentrated poverty, and the associated lack of access to social goods, such as public safety and good schools. The combined effects of poverty/segregation/isolation are specifically reflected in the fact that 78% of homicides involve people who know each other [1]. People who know each other killing each other is a result of the breakdown of community structures that would disincentivize that behavior. There have to be powerful incentives for someone to kill someone that they know, considering that the potential consequences are so severe (incarceration, violent retribution, etc). Often the perpetrators have very little (in wealth, community, etc) to lose, which also increases the incentive. Another group that are similarly economically poor, Latinos, but due to a different history, have more intact community structures, don't have as high a rate of violent crime. [1] https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf (Table 8)
tomp 8y ago
To what extent is "marijuana posession" just a proxy for more serious crimes that are harder to prove? Just like Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion...

latch 8y ago

The statistic by itself might not signal it, but this is definitely part of what's going on, and I don't think anyone seriously questions this. A good place to start is the Fair Sentencing Act which tried to address the problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act (but, this just address the mandatory minimum triggers, not the fact that African Americans are disproportionately jailed)

scarface74 8y ago

Incarceration is directly correlated with race regardless of crime. Minorities get harsher penalties for non violent crimes than Whites. Edit: Citation https://eji.org/news/sentencing-commission-finds-black-men-receive-longer-sentences https://eji.org/news/sentencing-commission-finds-black-men-r...

SiempreViernes 8y ago

> Judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people. http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_...