[random_pr]

because it isn't obviously racist. you can't just say "more african americans and hispanics are arrested than whites or asians, therefore, police are targeting african americans and hispanics unfairly." that's not how it works.

wrt. drug-related crimes, sure, there seems to be a weird disparity (does it take into account 'casual' drug users vs. 'hardcore' drug users?).

wrt. violent crime, however, the percent of arrestees who are black matches very closely with the percent of victims who say their assailant was black. and this has been constant throughout thirty years of crime victimization surveys. see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_St... and https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=2560...

you can't say that african americans are arrested at unfair rates. it's more nuanced than that: african americans are probably arrested unfairly for drug-related crimes, but they probably aren't for violent crimes.

unfortunately, I think this is a compounding problem: more african american men in prison means more single-parent households (that are probably also in poverty), which means more crime, which means more african american men in prison.

[rtpg]

>African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). (Sentencing Project)

I think the fact that blacks are given much less lenient sentencing is enough to put the game largely in the oppressive class's favor, and to call the system racist.

And, if purely by statistics, it's hard to argue that this skewing is because all of these people are drug dealers (if they're all drug dealers, who are they selling to?)

[DanBC]

i would agree with you if most prisoners were not there on drug charges, or if black Americans didn't spend as much time in prison as violent criminals.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/prisons_and_drugs#sthash.OPr...

It is blatantly, flagrantly institutionally racist.

> (Number Of People Serving Time For Drug Offenses In US Prisons)

> Federal: "Between 2001 and 2013, more than half of prisoners serving sentences of more than a year in federal facilities were convicted of drug offenses (table 15 and table 16). On September 30, 2013 (the end of the most recent fiscal year for which federal offense data were available), 98,200 inmates (51% of the federal prison population) were imprisoned for possession, trafficking, or other drug crimes."

The US imprisons more people than any other country; many of those prisoners are there for drug crime; white people and black people take drugs in roughly similar proportions yet black people are far more likely to be imprisoned for similar drug offences.

> (US Drug Prisoners) "The United States leads the world in the number of people incarcerated in federal and state correctional facilities. There are currently more than 2 million people in American prisons or jails. Approximately one-quarter of those people held in U.S. prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses."

Edit: changed first sentence which was attacky to this which I think is less so.

[rayiner]

The vast majority of people in prison for drug offenses are in there for dealing, not using. So the point about blacks and whites using at the same rate is a red herring.

[thatswrong0]

Whites seem to deal at a higher rate: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/30/w...

And that's not a red herring at all. Correlating use with dealing is pretty logical.

[Crito]

From your link:

> "This partly reflects racial differences in the drug markets in black and white communities. In poor black neighborhoods, drugs tend to be sold outdoors, in the open. In white neighborhoods, by contrast, drug transactions typically happen indoors, often between friends and acquaintances. If you sell drugs outside, you're much more likely to get caught."

Makes sense to me. I cannot recall ever being offered drugs by a white person while I was walking down the sidewalk. (While hanging out on the beach is another story...)

[itsybitsy]

To add to thatswrong0's comment. The line between possession and dealing is arbitrary, and not exactly cut and dried[1]. See also sentencing disparity in crack vs powder cocaine.

1. http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal...

[blisterpeanuts]

DanBC - You are drawing conclusions from insufficient data. You assume that black prisoners serving time for drug convictions are disproportionately punished.

In reality, as widely documented, drug busts are often the only way to get a violent person off the streets. It's not "justice" per se, since they're sometimes punished for the lesser crime, but police typically know who the bad guys are in their neighborhood, who the likely murderer or rapist is, who's breaking and entering, but it's not all that easy to apprehend someone and get a conviction. And if they don't get a conviction, there's the risk of double jeopardy -- can't be prosecuted for the same thing twice. So sometimes it's more expedient to get them off the streets on a lesser charge such as possession.

If you explore the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (bjs.gov) you will discover some startling and depressing facts. About half of the roughly 16,000 gun homicides per year are committed by black males 16-39, and most of their victims are also black. What takes so many black males out of society can be explained by this type of statistic -- gang bangers fighting it out in the ghettos. (Hispanics are also disproportionately represented, but not as highly as blacks.) By contrast, the majority of white deaths from guns are suicides.

Indeed if it weren't for this tragically high violence among Blacks, guns would hardly be considered a political hot potato issue in the U.S. because per capita violence would be about on par with Canada and Western Europe.

Then of course there are many other crimes of violence and property -- robberies, muggings, rapes, B&E, shoplifting, etc., that snare black youth in the legal system for years.

The U.S. has a socio-economic problem with the African-American population that has not alleviated, 50 years after the Civil Rights Act that emancipated Black people, gave them the power of the vote, moved the country toward greater protection of minority rights, and opened the legislative door to quotas and affirmative action to try to uplift the black population economically.

Obviously, there is still racism in modern day U.S. society, but it is almost more notable by its infrequence, e.g. the headlines that happen every time a white cop shoots a black suspect, a tiny fraction of overall shootings yet given disproportionate attention by society because of residual outrage at the casual profiling and brutality from an earlier era.

What can be done? In my opinion, economic development would help to alleviate these problems more than almost any other solution that's been tried. I would focus on ghetto areas, both black and Hispanic, and designate them as "special economic zones" that would have greatly reduced taxation and regulation, similar to what's been successfully done in China and other developing areas. For example, an entrepreneur would be able to establish a factory in an SEZ with minimal EPA scrutiny and minimal paperwork, something that normally would take months or years, with all sorts of NIMBY lawsuits and red tape.

Get people working real jobs, get them on a path to middle class prosperity, and their children will see a way out of the hopelessness and despair that characterize the ghettos.

[panglott]

It's obviously racist, it's just implicitly racist rather than explicitly so ;)