To listen to BLM and its allies, Amerika is hellbent to imprison those it "dislikes," with African Americans heading the list.
Like so much the Left says, it's simply false. As the Washington Post writes in an article by Stanford Professor Keith Humphreys, "Black incarceration hasn't been this low in a generation."
Th[e] heated debate about whether the 1994 [Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act] is responsible for African Americans increasingly being behind bars can never be resolved, for a reason that may surprise many observers: The African American imprisonment rate has been declining for many years. Indeed, the likelihood of African American men and women being in prison today is lower than it was a generation ago when the law was passed...
I would love to think (but don't) that the Left is merely behind the times rather than deceitful. Unfortunately, since it has spent years falsely claiming that more incarceration doesn't contribute significantly to decreasing crime, and months falsely claiming that violent crime is at "historic lows" (it's been rising since 2014), belief in its mere failure to keep up has become impossible.
I should note that the decrease in the rate of black incarceration began on approximately the day George W. Bush became President, and has continued under his successor. In addition, the amount of the decrease in the incarceration rate for black males over that time is an amazingly large 23%, and the decrease for black females more than twice that much.
Finally, this paragraph merits serious attention:
At the end of 2014, the African American male imprisonment rate had dropped to a level not seen since early 1993. The change for African American women is even more marked, with the 2014 imprisonment rate being the lowest point in the quarter-century of data available. It can't be overemphasized that these are trends unique to blacks rather than being part of a broader pattern of de-incarceration: The white imprisonment rate has been rising rather than falling.
The idea that the United States, and its criminal justice system in particular, is a racist snakepit, is just so much tripe. But it's tripe necessary to the "reform" cause, which is why most readers will find the statistics I have highlighted here -- though widely available and quite important to an informed understanding of the issues -- a big surprise.
You do realize that just because a rate has fallen a lot doesn't mean it's not really high, right? Someone can lose 50 lbs. and still weigh 350. -Jim
Your hypothetical obese person's 50-pound loss tends to indicate that he is not overweight because he wants to be or because he doesn't care. We need to look elsewhere for the reasons if we actually want to help him.
Bill cites the reduction as tending to refute the notion that the high rate comes from racial animus, and that is correct.
The high incarceration rate comes from the high offending rate. The sooner we come to a consensus on that, the sooner we can focus on the cultural influences that lead too many down the criminal path, the true "root cause" of crime.
My point was that any discussion of the long-term decrease in the black incarceration rate should probably also mention the fact that the black incarceration rate remains about five times higher than the white incarceration rate. Acknowledging that, then, brings us to the big question: Do blacks really commit serious, incarceration-worthy crimes at five times the rate of whites? I don't think there's a consensus on that point at all. -Jim
1. I'm grateful, I guess, that you do not dispute a single assertion in my post.
2. I would request that you consider whether an out-of-the-gate, in-your-face approach like, "You do realize...right?" is the most likely to produce a fruitful conversation.
3. There is a consensus that blacks commit a grossly disproportionate share of serious, and especially violent, crimes. This is common knowledge among those who follow the field and scarcely needs to be repeated. I don't know the exact number, and I doubt you do either, because, for one thing, crime is massively under-reported.
4. It might be a good thing if you could take "yes" for an answer. By that I mean that people on your side should be happy and encouraged that the rate of black incarceration has been falling so steeply for so long. Are you?
5. The fact that it has, while the rate of white incarceration has been increasing, makes it impossible to believe the BLM (and other Leftists') narrative that America is a hellbent to incarcerate blacks. That narrative is indeed false, no?
1. I disputed your omission of the actual black incarceration rate.
2. I think the tone is appropriate, given your own snarling tone vis-a-vis anyone you disagree with, as reflected in the post itself. ("Liars, all of them!" etc. etc. etc.) Maybe if you used a more civil tone, you'd be met with one in return?
3. Is there? Can you point me to your source for that consensus?
Kent said above that the high black incarceration rate comes from the high offending rate. So it follows that he thinks that blacks commit five times the serious crime of whites, doesn't it? The actual ratio is important because if it's less than 5:1, it means something else is going on -- like a disproportionately high arrest rate for blacks, compared to whites.
4. "People on my side"? What side is that? The side that thinks it's important for a discussion of the black incarceration rate to actually mention the black incarceration rate?
5. See my original point. Changes in the rate say nothing about the rate itself. I'm not sure why this is so hard to grasp. I'm guessing the BLM people are more concerned about the underlying rate being five times that of whites than they are about the white and black rates trending in unexpected directions. But you'd have to ask them.
-Jim
1. It's indicative of your mangled use of language that you say you disputed my "omission" of the actual black incarceration rate. But the point was that you failed to dispute (and continue to fail to dispute) any ASSERTION I made. A sixth grader knows that an omission is not an assertion.
The posters here decide what will be included, and not included, in their posts. I also omitted the number of murders committed since 2001 by blacks, and by whites, or assaults, or rapes, since I had a specific bit of information to convey about RATES, and specifically movement in rates of incarceration.
2. I understand that you resent those who want sober punishment, but emotions, yours or mine, are not really the point of this blog. Facts relevant to criminal law are. I posted here some facts relevant to that subject. You do not dispute either their relevance or their veracity, and instead seek to elide those matters by assuming for yourself the position of The Decider of What Must Be Included. This assumption is incorrect.
But for however that may be, you put in quotation marks words you attribute to me. I did not write those words, as you knew when you used the quotation marks.
3. Don't pull this high school debater's stunt with me of demanding a source when every serious student of the subject knows that blacks commit a grossly disproportionate amount of violent crime. (Not that at any point you provided a source for your claim of a 5:1 ratio, now that I think of it).
4. OK, enough. Quit with the stunts and get over yourself.
The comments thread is closed. If you want to continue to comment on this blog, you are free to do so, under the guideposts Kent and CJLF have set forth. And you can always open your own blog -- indeed, you might already have done so. Since you refuse to give your full name or specifics of your background, and instead snipe from behind the tree, I have no way of knowing.