4 ms·

Black males are disproportionately represented among those in poverty or with low income compared to white males. If the police completely ignored race, we woul

Black males are disproportionately represented among those in poverty or with low income compared to white males. If the police completely ignored race, we would expect black males to be arrested at a higher rate than white males. When is comes to violent crime, yes. However violent crime arrests make up a relatively small amount of arrests (about 8% of arrests according to my accounting, including arson [0]). Drug related arrests make up 12% of arrests, that's an area where whites and blacks are known to use use and sell at about the same rates [1] but blacks are arrested at higher rates. I'm not sure about the other classes of crimes (burglary, fraud, disorderly conduct, etc), but I suspect those are highly dependent on local conditions. [0] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-29 http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/c... [1] http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-abuse-drugs-than-blacks/ http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-like... - this is link to a mainstream media summary, the data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health for various years goes into more detail, I just don't have time to look it up right now.

refurb 12y ago
I'm not sure what the data looks like for your reference on black vs. white drug use since the original data isn't there. Some data indicates there is a 23% higher level of drug use among blacks than whites [1, Table 1.19B]. That would explain _some_ of the higher arrest rates of blacks for drug crimes. [1]http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2012SummNatFindDetTables/DetTabs/NSDUH-DetTabsSect1peTabs1to46-2012.htm http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2012SummNatFindDetTables/De...
- Anechoic 12y ago
  Some data indicates there is a 23% higher level of drug use among blacks than whites My quote was "whites and blacks are known to use use and sell at about the same rates" - your link shows 8.7% of whites use drugs vs 10.0% of blacks in the past month, and 15.9% of whites used drugs vs 18.7 in the past year (and when looking at lifetime use, that usage flips) - I think "about the same rates" is a fair characterization of that data.
  - lmm 12y ago
    When we're talking about a 20% difference in arrest rates, if the difference between drug use rates is >10% I don't think it's fair to characterize that as "about the same".

refurb 12y ago

I'm not sure what the data looks like for your reference on black vs. white drug use since the original data isn't there. Some data indicates there is a 23% higher level of drug use among blacks than whites [1, Table 1.19B]. That would explain _some_ of the higher arrest rates of blacks for drug crimes. [1]http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2012SummNatFindDetTables/DetTabs/NSDUH-DetTabsSect1peTabs1to46-2012.htm http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2012SummNatFindDetTables/De...

Anechoic 12y ago
Some data indicates there is a 23% higher level of drug use among blacks than whites My quote was "whites and blacks are known to use use and sell at about the same rates" - your link shows 8.7% of whites use drugs vs 10.0% of blacks in the past month, and 15.9% of whites used drugs vs 18.7 in the past year (and when looking at lifetime use, that usage flips) - I think "about the same rates" is a fair characterization of that data.
- lmm 12y ago
  When we're talking about a 20% difference in arrest rates, if the difference between drug use rates is >10% I don't think it's fair to characterize that as "about the same".