[Rule35]

> That's not really comforting to the minority people whose lives were ruined by them.

Actually, it probably is somewhat. I hate paying money but that my taxes go to useful things makes it bearable. I hate sucking up to a guy in a uniform but that he also arrests murderers makes it less infuriating.

But moreover, that's not the issue brought up originally, which was net damage to a group. The implication was that the justice system harmed minorities and as a group that's simply not true.

Also, the language used is trying to borrow outrage. Harmed minorities? No, harmed the poor. Many of whom were minorities. But there are rich racial minorities too.

[Klinky]

You are trying to dilute the impact the racist history of US has had on minorities via the justice system. Justice and policing policies disproportionately target minorities. Sure the poor are affected by lack of proper representation, but minority populations also happen to be disproportionately affected by poverty. Stop and frisk, racial profiling, less lenient prosecutory discretion, mandatory minimum sentencing, and the War on Drugs all disproportionately impact minority groups compared to Caucasians[1]. If you just think we need to solve the poverty problem, a significant part of that problem is rooted in systemic racism too.

Per the Innocence Project, 70% of the cases they have exonerated have been of a minority group, and often these cases involved underlying racial prejudice to railroad an innocent person into a long-term prison sentence or death.[2]

>As of November 2019, 367 people previously convicted of serious crimes in the United States had been exonerated by DNA testing since 1989, 21 of whom had been sentenced to death.[9] Almost all (99%) of the wrongful convictions were males,[19] with minority groups constituting approximately 70% (61% African American and 8% Latino).

1.https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-...

2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project#Overturned_c...

[ghufran_syed]

So the largest discrepancy from proportions in the US population is the overwhelming skew in favor of males (99%) - are they “minorities” too?

If the problem is racism, in a country where sexism against women is said to be a major problem, why would there be a 99:1 preponderance of men? Are the racists also biased in favor of women and against men?

[Klinky]

This sounds like apples v. oranges.

Are males a minority group? No, technically not, since sex split is about 50/50. Is the high preponderance of men ending up in prison concerning? Yes. Frankly our high incarceration rates for non-violent crimes is extremely concerning. Does this somehow invalidate the problems brought up around female equality? Absolutely not. I also believe there is probably additional negative bias towards African-American males because of racist tropes.

Also the 99% figure was from the Innocence Project, Google brings up Federal Bureau of Prisons stat suggesting active incarceration is closer to 93% male, 7% female. Still concerning.

[Rule35]

> You are trying to dilute the impact the racist history of US has had on minorities via the justice system.

Hasn't anyone told you that you learn more with questions than assertions?

No. I'm saying that the language used is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Regardless of all the stuff you mentioned, which is true, the system is still a benefit.

You should not go out of your way to further weaken trust in the system that has benefitted those minorities you mention more than it has hurt them. Especially as you are presumably not those groups, you should be careful not to wreck what they have. (You may not be aware, but white 'progressives' often speak for people of color. Their messages sound like ones of support initially, but because these people are often merely social signaling the rhetoric can often prove harmful to people who have to live with it.)

> [...] all disproportionately impact minority groups compared to Caucasians

Some minorities, yes. Others, no. Deeply troubling to the white v black narrative is that Nigerian immigrants often do very well in the USA, even when Americans don't know if they're american-descendants-of-slavery or not.

But yes, ADoS do have it rough. If you want to support someone though, vague "minorities" is not how you do it.

> Per the Innocence Project, 70% of the cases

You can't use that stat in that way, presumably they picked the most egregious cases which would be the poorest, etc.

[Klinky]

I think you're saying minorities are better off with a justice system than without. Maybe everyone is technically better off with a justice system, than with something like vigilante justice, but the US has always had some level of justice system even during slavery. Was it really to their benefit at that time? Can we say things have improved, yes, very slowly, but systemic racism still exists.

>You can't use that stat in that way, presumably they picked the most egregious cases which would be the poorest, etc.

No, you cannot just ignore ingrained racism within the judicial system from day one as simply being a class issue. You can read more from the National Registry of Exonerations about racial bias in exonerated cases[1].

1. http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_...