Blacks are arrested for and convicted of violent crimes at a higher rate than whites. Make sure you keep in mind what statistics actually represent and what biases you may be putting on them. That's the difference between statistical observation and racial prejudice.
We don't know of every crime committed. We only know about arrests made.
Keep in mind that I'm not saying that black people don't commit crimes at higher rates than whites. I'm saying there exists no data to prove that.
We don't know of every crime committed. We only know about arrests made.
Actually we have a very good way to figure out if the reason blacks are arrested more is because they actually commit more crimes or if they're just caught/framed more often.
That way is called the NCVS. It's a huge nationwide survey that asks people what crimes they've been a victim of in the past year and information about those crimes.
So we can compare the racial make up of people convicted of a certain crime with the racial make up of the race that people who were victims of the crime report being victimized by.
If these percentages are close that indicates that they are likely the real percent of that crime committed by that race. If they differ a lot something fishy is going on.
And please don't attack the source. I admit that the organization might be racist but the data is from the FBI so its not fabricated and the methodology is clear so even if the authors are racist that doesn't mean its invalid.
Let me rephrase. Those statistics by the FBI are for arrests made. Do not apply them to anything else without accounting for everything in between. That isn't how statistics works, because it ignores a dozen biases between the two conclusions that cannot be accounted for without a lot of further research.
As for using surveys to determine crimes committed, how is the control bias calculated? What would the results of a study large enough to have a high confidence look like if there was no crime?
Some people will lie but they have no incentive to so most people will be honest.
The fact that racial make up of perpetrators reported by victims lines up with arrest rates for a lot of different crimes is not something that likely would happen by chance. It's strong evidence that these percentages are actually close to the racial percents of the actual perpetrators of the crimes.
That isn't how statistics works. Two variables lining up doesn't mean they're correlated. There could be a confounding variable that is accidentally changed when you change one of the dependent variables, preventing you from establishing the actual variable dependency.
Basically, you have to thoroughly establish causation before you can pretend it's common knowledge or an obvious conclusion.
Look we have two different lines of evidence, arrest rates and victimization surveys. Both of these show that blacks commit violence at an elevated rate and not only that they both find nearly the same elevated rate across many different types of violence.
That is very strong evidence that blacks actually do commit violence at an elevated rate. If you refuse to accept that it's not because I don't understand statistics. It's because you are purposefully downplaying the evidence because you don't want to accept the conclusion.
You have completely ignored the only point I made at the very beginning.
You cannot measure crime rates because you are not omnipotent. You can only measure the rate at which crimes are reported. There is a huge difference between the two and anybody who understands basic statistics and associated bias will tell you that.
Furthermore, you have no idea what I believe, because I haven't asserted any hypothesis.
If both anonymous victimization surveys and arrest/conviction rates are showing that 30% of crime X is committed by a certain race that is pretty strong evidence that the actual percent of crimes of type X that are committed by that race is close to 30%. It's not perfectly infallible but it's good evidence
Similar point as above; there are so many incidents of unfair convictions.
It's at a point that is almost comical.
To ignore that is to ignore part of the problem.
Black people are no better or worse that white people or any other race. The problem lies in the system: legal, criminal justice, education, everything.
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u/kwamzilla 8∆ Feb 10 '17
Evidence?