Support NeoGAF

Mumei · Apr 20, 2012

Near the beginning of this month I went to one of the blogs I read semi-regularly, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, when I saw a new post up with the same title this topic is now using. After reading it, I went to the library and checked out the book that had prompted the article. I finished reading the book about two weeks ago, but after thinking about it and talking to some people (<3 Kab) about the posts, I thought I should post them since I imagine some of you might find them as eye-opening as I did - and I suspect for some people much more so:

I am finishing up Michelle Alexanders book The New Jim Crow and find myself absolutely appalled. I have been writing about the many injustices in law enforcement and the courts for nearly a decade. I thought I knew how bad it was. But some of the statistics and court rulings in this book have shocked even me.

She writes about the case of Christopher Lee Armstrong, who was arrested in 1992 on charges of conspiracy to distribute more than 50 grams of crack cocaine. The prosecutor decided to try Armstrong in federal court, where the penalties were much higher than in state court, and the federal public defenders who handled his case found it remarkable that they had never seen a single case of a white defendant in a case involving crack tried in federal court. Over the previous three years, they had handled 53 such cases; 48 of the defendants were black, 5 were Latino. None were white.

We have the perception in this country that powder cocaine is a drug used primarily by white people, while crack cocaine is used primarily by black people. That perception is false. In fact, there isnt much of a difference in the rates of buying and selling crack between the different racial groups. Yet blacks are arrested at a far higher rate than whites for possession and selling of crack. And thats just the beginning of the problem. Once arrested, black defendants are far more likely to be charged, convicted and sentenced to prison and infinitely more likely to be sent to federal court rather than state court for longer sentences. In fact, the government in that case submitted a list of more than 2,000 crack cases in federal courts over a three year period. All but 11 of them were black; not a single one was white. Not one.

Yet the courts ignored all of this, and refused to allow Armstrongs attorneys to file a subpoena for records from the prosecutor that would allow them to show a pattern of racial injustice through the patterns of which cases were sent to federal court and which to state court. In 1996, the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutors did not have to make any evidence available to the defense, concluding that courts must show great deference to prosecutors in how they go about their business, even in the face of such staggering statistical evidence of bias, whether conscious or unconscious.

This is quite similar to the way the government handles standing in warrantless wiretap cases, with this shell game that requires someone to prove that they were the target of illegal surveillance before they have standing to sue over it but they arent going to tell you that, so you cant prove it. In this case, the court demands that the defendants prove the very thing they are requesting data to help them prove. Heads the government wins, tails you lose. Actually, we all lose. Our criminal justice system is broken from top to bottom.

There are four parts in total to the series; that is just the first part. The other parts have other statistics and depressing information as well (these are just excerpts and not complete quotes, for clarification):

Part 2 said:
A study of stops by the New Jersey State Police on the New Jersey Turnpike, for example, found that 15% of the drivers on the turnpike were minorities, but blacks were 42% of those stopped for a traffic violation and 72% of those subsequently arrested despite the fact that blacks and whites were equally as likely to be violating traffic laws at the time. 77% of all searches were of minorities. A similar study in Maryland found that 17% of drivers on a major highway were black, but 70% of those stopped and searched were black. For minorities on the whole, they constituted 21% of all drivers but 80% of those who were stopped and searched.

But heres the even more important finding. In both of those studies, whites who were pulled over and searched were actually more likely to have illegal drugs or contraband in their vehicles. In New Jersey, whites were twice as likely to be found with illegal drugs or contraband than blacks and five times more likely than Latinos. The same thing held true in Maryland. So even though white drivers were far more likely to be caught breaking the law if stopped and searched, black and Latino drivers were far, far more likely to be pulled over by the police.

Part 3 said:
In Detroit, for instance, there are five part-time public defenders who handle an average of 2,400 cases a year. They cant spend even one day on a trial, much less spend the time preparing for it, interviewing witnesses, preparing briefs and motions, and so forth. So their goal is to push people through as quickly as possible.

[...]

More than 90% of all criminal cases result in a guilty plea and never go to court as a result, even if the person is innocent. Were talking about hundreds of thousands of people every year.

Part 4 said:
When you get out of jail, your odds of finding a job are dramatically reduced by having to check the box on the application that says youve been convicted of a felony. Want to go to college? You are now ineligible for Pell grants and other forms of tuition assistance. You cant support yourself, but youre also now ineligible for many forms of public assistance, including public housing and, in many states, even food stamps. You may not even be allowed to vote for a number of years, or ever, depending on the state youre in.

On top of that, youve probably got a huge bill from the state or county stemming from your stay in jail fees paid to the public defender office and the courts, per diem charges from the jail, fees paid to the parole officer for keeping track of you. And if you cant pay them, you can be rearrested for failing to live up to the terms of your probation and thrown back in jail to start the whole process over again. You could hardly design a more perfect system for creating a permanent underclass that is shut out of society, herded into ghettos and prevented from ever improving their lives. This is what Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crow.

And it doesnt even have to be motivated overtly by racism. There are built in incentives that push the actors at every level in the same direction to maintain that caste system. Police departments qualify for federal grants by increasing the number of people arrested for drugs, so the focus isnt on the kingpins but on arresting as many of the low level users and dealers as they can. Prosecutors are elected and they get reelected by pumping up their conviction rate, giving the incentive to get guilty pleas whenever possible. Everyone is acting in their own rational self-interest, even if they arent motivated by racism.

Links:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/03/01/americas-racist-criminal-justice-system/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/03/14/americas-racist-criminal-justice-system-part-2/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/03/16/americas-racist-criminal-justice-system-part-3/
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/03/19/americas-racist-criminal-justice-system-part-4/

Devolution · Apr 20, 2012

The idea of systematic racism in the criminal system was obvious to me but the numbers and such it brings up really drive the point home about what's going on. I know in the Harry Belafonte documentary I recently watched they talked about the penal system being the new slavery because of just how many young people, especially men were being thrown in prison.

Htown · Apr 20, 2012

I am not surprised in the slightest.

Gaborn · Apr 20, 2012

Htown said:
I am not surprised in the slightest.

Yep, these statistics aren't a big surprise, it is extremely frustrating that it keeps happening though.

Kinitari · Apr 20, 2012

It feels like a lot of the institutionalized repression are such mild, simple rules no one has bothered to change.

If someone changed, not even removed, but just changed the punishment for drug possession - at least to something more practical and intelligent, many of these prejudices wouldn't even have an opportunity to manifest.

zero_suit · Apr 20, 2012

Htown said:
I am not surprised in the slightest.

My exact sentiments.

Slayven · Apr 20, 2012

Kinitari said:
It feels like a lot of the institutionalized repression are such mild, simple rules no one has bothered to change.

If someone changed, not even removed, but just changed the punishment for drug possession - at least to something more practical and intelligent, many of these prejudices wouldn't even have an opportunity to manifest.

I doubt it.

zoku88 · Apr 20, 2012

Post-racist America, everyone!

I always felt that the War on Drugs affected blacks disproportionally. Never really thought of traffic, ha...

Htown · Apr 20, 2012

Kinitari said:
It feels like a lot of the institutionalized repression are such mild, simple rules no one has bothered to change.

If someone changed, not even removed, but just changed the punishment for drug possession - at least to something more practical and intelligent, many of these prejudices wouldn't even have an opportunity to manifest.

It's not even that. It's that the laws we do have are applied in a discriminatory manner. I get the feeling that if it wasn't drugs, it'd be something else.

Devolution · Apr 20, 2012

zoku88 said:
Post-racist America, everyone!

But but black president.

Depressing.

PhoenixDark · Apr 20, 2012

Kinitari said:
It feels like a lot of the institutionalized repression are such mild, simple rules no one has bothered to change.

If someone changed, not even removed, but just changed the punishment for drug possession - at least to something more practical and intelligent, many of these prejudices wouldn't even have an opportunity to manifest.

They were changed, that's the point

TGateKeeper · Apr 20, 2012

the raw data is even much worse.

Slayven · Apr 20, 2012

A lot of racism I feel we will just have to wait out. When older folks start dying off.

Crumpet Trumpet · Apr 20, 2012

How many public defenders does a city of Detroit's size usually have? 5 just seems amazingly low.

Kinitari · Apr 20, 2012

PhoenixDark said:
They were changed, that's the point

Fair enough, some of them are legacy laws, but stuff like marijuana possession becoming more and more severe is relatively new.

I'll amend my point and say, I feel that fixing those base issues will disrupt the foundation of this ever building tower of discrimination.

But who knows, maybe some of you are right, if it wasn't drugs, it might be something else.

I wonder how Canada compares.

Mumei · Apr 20, 2012

Kinitari said:
It feels like a lot of the institutionalized repression are such mild, simple rules no one has bothered to change.

If someone changed, not even removed, but just changed the punishment for drug possession - at least to something more practical and intelligent, many of these prejudices wouldn't even have an opportunity to manifest.

I do recommend the book, because it does go in significantly greater detail about the political process that brought us here, as well as the historical context of what happened post-slavery, why it was naive not to expect some attempt to reassert wouldn't happen after the collapse of Jim Crow, and how the drug war was sold and packaged, etc.. The author of the blog mentioned one example where the "In 1996, the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecutors did not have to make any evidence available to the defense," and that the only way they would be able to get that information is by proving the thing they were requesting data to prove. But that wasn't the only thing; Michelle Alexander mentioned maybe as many as a dozen other court rulings that explicitly allowed for many of these abuses (either implicitly or explicitly). She described it as the Court saying that it didn't matter what the statistics showed (which is why I'm rather pessimistic about this); unless there was evidence that there was actually a racial motivation in the form of explicit statements to that effect, the fact that, say, there's a disparity of 2000 : 0 in federal crack sentencing despite similar usage rates is insignificant.

So I don't think it's really been ignored so much as it has been explicitly affirmed.

TGateKeeper said:
the raw data is even much worse.

Oh, indeed.

"Recent data shows, though, that much of black progress is a myth. In many respects, African-Americans are doing no better than they were when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and uprisings swept inner cities across America. Nearly a quarter of African-Americans live below the poverty line today, approximately the same percentage as in 1968. The black child poverty rate is actually higher now than it was then. Unemployment rates in black communities rival those in Third World countries. And that's with affirmative action!

When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our "colorblind" society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure--the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate."

Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America.

Most people don't like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the "era of colorblindness" there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have "moved beyond" race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:

 There are more African-Americans under correctional control today--in prison or jail, on probation or parole--than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

 As of 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.

 A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African-American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.

 If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African-American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80 percent.) These men are part of a growing undercaste--not class, caste--permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.

A couple choice facts from the author of the book.

Devolution · Apr 20, 2012

 As of 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.

This to me says a lot, because once you pick apart voting blocs, then their representation is really fucked.

Choke on the Magic · Apr 20, 2012

Any links to the authors source info. I'd find that more interesting than the book.

Imm0rt4l · Apr 20, 2012

yea, institutionalized racism is no joke.

Malik77 · Apr 20, 2012

Everyone is acting in their own rational self-interest

Its all anyone could ever be expected to do, but...

There are five part-time public defenders who handle an average of 2,400 cases a year...More than 90% of all criminal cases result in a guilty plea and never go to court as a result, even if the person is innocent. On top of that, you’ve probably got a huge bill from the state or county stemming from your stay in jail — fees paid to the public defender office and the courts, per diem charges from the jail, fees paid to the parole officer for keeping track of you. And if you can’t pay them, you can be rearrested for failing to live up to the terms of your probation and thrown back in jail to start the whole process over again.

Each of those part-time lawyers handles 10 cases a week? I'm sure that will be a top notch defense. Then when you get out of jail, they toss your butt back in because you can't pay. As hard as it is to empathize with felons, that is complete bullshit.

Choke on the Magic · Apr 20, 2012

you can be rearrested for failing to live up to the terms of your probation and thrown back in jail to start the whole process over again.

Is anyone familiar with what are term in a standard probation?

BrettHD · Apr 20, 2012

Dont break the law. Simple really.

Dude Abides · Apr 20, 2012

Slayven said:
A lot of racism I feel we will just have to wait out. When older folks start dying off.

That may help, but there are plenty of young racists. Plus a lot of it is subtle stereotyping rather than old fashioned straight up bigotry.

Mumei · Apr 20, 2012

Choke on the Magic said:
Any links to the authors source info. I'd find that more interesting than the book.

I wouldn't know where to direct you for links; there usually 90+ referrals to the endnotes for the sources for various claims in each chapter that direct the reader to some book or study or government report or court case or what-have-you.

Kinitari said:
Fair enough, some of them are legacy laws, but stuff like marijuana possession becoming more and more severe is relatively new.

I'll amend my point and say, I feel that fixing those base issues will disrupt the foundation of this ever building tower of discrimination.

But who knows, maybe some of you are right, if it wasn't drugs, it might be something else.

I wonder how Canada compares.

Well you have to consider the issue of how entrenched this system is:

Tinkering Is For Mechanics, Not Racial-Justice Advocates

The first and arguably most important point is that criminal justice reform efforts - standing alone - are futile. Gains can be made, yes, but the new caste system will not be overthrown by isolated victories in legislatures or courtrooms. If you doubt this is the case, consider the sheer scale of mass incarceration. If we hope to return to the rate of incarceration in the 1970s - a time when many civil rights activists believed rates of imprisonment were egregiously high - we would need to release approximately four out of five people currently behind bars today. Prisons would have to be closed across America, an event that would likely inspire panic in rural communities that have become dependent on prisons for jobs and economic growth. Hundreds of thousands of people - many of them unionized - would lose their jobs. As Marc Mauer has observed, "The more than 700,000 prison and jail guards, administrators, service workers, and other personnel represent a potentially powerful political opposition to any scaling-down of the system. One need only recall the fierce opposition to the closing of military bases in recent years to see how these forces will function over time."

Arguably, Mauer understimates the scope of the challenge by focusing narrowly on the prison system, rather than counting all of the people employed in the criminal justice bureaucracy. According to a report released by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Statistics in 2006, the U.S. spent a record $185 billion for police protection, detention, judicial, and legal activities in 2003. Adjusting for inflation, these figures represent at riple of justice expenditures since 1982. The justice system employed almost 2.4 million people in 2003 - 58 percent of them at the local level and 31 percent at the state level. If four out of five people were released from prisons, far more than a million people could lose their jobs.

There is also the private-sector investment to consider. Prisons are big business and have become deeply entrenched in America's economic and political system. Rich and powerful people, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have invested millions in private prisons. They are deeply interested in expanding the market - increasing the supply of prisoners - not eliminating the pool of people who can be held captive for a profit. The 2005 annual report for the Corrections Corporation of America explained the vested interests of private prisons matter-of-factly in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our abiliti to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. This possible growth depends on a number of factors we cannot control, including crime rates and sentencing patterns in various jurisdictions, and acceptance of privatization. The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentecing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activites that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any change with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

- from the book

Onemic · Apr 20, 2012

It's just sad that most people still don't think institutionalized racism exists at all. I used to think that change would happen once all the old people die off, but with all the news thats been posted here recently specifically regarding young people and racism/willfull ignorance, I'm not so sure.

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

Like this

alphaNoid · Apr 20, 2012

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

Agreed

Ice Lightning · Apr 20, 2012

As criminal justice is one of my college majors, there are numerous matters I would like to address in need of fixing with the validity of our court systems, but I will keep such personal beliefs to myself.

Htown · Apr 20, 2012

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

alphaNoid said:
Agreed

Don't be dense.

Devolution · Apr 20, 2012

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

alphaNoid said:
Agreed

Thanks for the wonderful contributions. Never mind that black people are likely to be picked up and charged for crimes they did not commit. And with a solid defense like the OP has shown (not an overworked public defender) I'm sure they will be able to maintain their innocence.

Oh wait. Neither of you read the OP did you?

Stumpokapow · Apr 20, 2012

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

Imagine a hypothetical city that has an anti-speeding law.

If you're brown eyed and you speed, you get a $100 ticket. If you're blue eyed and you speed, you're executed on site. Imagine further that although both brown eyed and blue eyed people speed with equal distribution, cops only arrest blue-eyed people. No brown-eyed person has ever been arrested for speeding. Imagine further that 10% of all arrests against blue-eyed people are totally made up out of thin air, and they've literally done nothing wrong.

We all agree people ought not speed. We all agree that people, knowingly speeding, ought to face a particular punishment.

Is there a problem with this law?

(I see three possible replies here:
- Yes, there's a problem with such a law
- Yes, there's a problem with such a law, but the analogy is poor because there's no racial disparity in the US
- No, there's no problem with such a law. YOU DO THE CRIME YOU DO THE TIME)

Mumei · Apr 20, 2012

onemic said:
Like this

Exactly.

What is the point of a post like that? Did he somehow miss the fact that usage rates among blacks and whites are similar and that this topic is about disparities in where police choose to make enforcement efforts, who prosecutors decide to prosecute, how severe the charges are when they are prosecuted, whether the prosecutors choose to try them in state or federal court, and so forth?

And thanks to Stump for that example.

dinazimmerman · Apr 20, 2012

BrettHD said:
Reform the law. Simple really.

Fixed. No more war on drugs. No more perverse incentives for police departments. No more treating felons like second-class citizens after they've done their time. Less people would break the law.

Mumei said:
They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.

Damn, how did I not know about this? Talk about gross injustice. Scarcity of opportunity is what creates a lot of criminals to begin with. Closing them off from society for a few years already restricts their opportunities significantly. How can we pretend to 'rehabiliate' criminals by making it even harder for them to make a decent living post-jail? And if the goal is deterrence, isn't a lengthy jail sentence enough?

Admiral Bone to Pick · Apr 20, 2012

Racism won't go away when older generations die out. The primary groups which are discriminated against might change, but racism will be alive and well for a long time to come. It's an absolute shame.

SUPREME1 · Apr 20, 2012

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

alphaNoid said:
Agreed

I think you all missed the point. Here, let me help you:

We have the perception in this country that powder cocaine is a drug used primarily by white people, while crack cocaine is used primarily by black people. That perception is false.

In fact, there isn’t much of a difference in the rates of buying and selling crack between the different racial groups.

Now, knowing this, please explain the following:

Yet blacks are arrested at a far higher rate than whites for possession and selling of crack. And that’s just the beginning of the problem. Once arrested, black defendants are far more likely to be charged, convicted and sentenced to prison — and infinitely more likely to be sent to federal court rather than state court for longer sentences.

And then comes this doozy:

In fact, the government in that case submitted a list of more than 2,000 crack cases in federal courts over a three year period. All but 11 of them were black; not a single one was white. Not one.

But yeah "don break da lawz black doodz and you wont be in jailz" amirite?

BruiserBear · Apr 20, 2012

Mr. Serious Business said:
Racism won't go away when older generations die out. The primary groups which are discriminated against might change, but racism will be alive and well for a long time to come. It's an absolute shame.

I've begun wondering if it's truly just part of human psychology on some level. The distrust/dislike of those not like ourselves. Of course it varies in it's severity, but it seems that among all racial groups there is some level of disdain for the others. Often it's about "culture" and wishing to preserve it in your group.

Stumpokapow · Apr 20, 2012

BruiserBear said:
I've begun wondering if it's truly just part of human psychology on some level. The distrust/dislike of those not like ourselves.

Erm, duh?

Choke on the Magic · Apr 20, 2012

SUPREME1 said:
I think you all missed the point. Here, let me help you:

Now, knowing this, please explain the following:

And then comes this doozy:

But yeah "don break da lawz black doodz and you wont be in jailz" amirite?

In fact, the government in that case submitted a list of more than 2,000 crack cases in federal courts over a three year period. All but 11 of them were black; not a single one was white. Not one.

I just have to ask and it's okay if you don't know; In the more than 2,000 crack cases how many of the arrest made were made because the alleged suspect didn't have crack?

I understand how arrests under false pretenses happen. My sister in law is now dealing with just that, but I find it mind-blowing that the majority of those 2,000 arrests were made because the suspect didn't have crack. Just saying. I'd love to see some legit evidence to the contrary.

Bay Maximus · Apr 20, 2012

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

alphaNoid said:
Agreed

This isn't about whether people should break the law or not. It's about the systematic unequal treatment of people who are accused of breaking a law. I know you would like the world to be simple, but this is not that difficult of a concept is it?

---

As far as things getting better with the new generations, I sure hope that's the case. But it seems to me that many times people who should have children don't have any or as many children as the backwards parents tend to.

Htown · Apr 21, 2012

Choke on the Magic said:
I just have to ask and it's okay if you don't know; In the more than 2,000 crack cases how many of the arrest made were made because the alleged suspect didn't have crack?

I understand how arrests under false pretenses happen. My sister in law is now dealing with just that, but I find it mind-blowing that the majority of those 2,000 arrests were made because the suspect didn't have crack. Just saying. I'd love to see some legit evidence to the contrary.

Whoosh

Bay Maximus · Apr 21, 2012

BruiserBear said:
I've begun wondering if it's truly just part of human psychology on some level. The distrust/dislike of those not like ourselves. Of course it varies in it's severity, but it seems that among all racial groups there is some level of disdain for the others. Often it's about "culture" and wishing to preserve it in your group.

This is the argument that I've heard from most outwardly racist people, that it is somehow in our genes to be racist. I would love to see some research on this but I strongly feel that racism and bigotry is a learned behavior. It may be human nature to stereotype and that likely served humans well in the past but bigotry is definitely learned and it isn't okay to be racist, sexist, homophobic etc. bigot and hide behind some 'culture'.

Edit: Post isn't meant to be directed at you specifically, of course.

kame-sennin · Apr 21, 2012

BrettHD said:
Dont break the law. Simple really.

alphaNoid said:
Agreed

This thread is about how racism affects blacks and whites differently after laws are broken. Your comment has no relevance to the discussion whatsoever. What do you have to say about the overwhelming data showing racial discrimination?

SUPREME1 · Apr 21, 2012

Choke on the Magic said:
I just have to ask and it's okay if you don't know; In the more than 2,000 crack cases how many of the arrest made were made because the alleged suspect didn't have crack?

I understand how arrests under false pretenses happen. My sister in law is now dealing with just that, but I find it mind-blowing that the majority of those 2,000 arrests were made because the suspect didn't have crack. Just saying. I'd love to see some legit evidence to the contrary.

It's not that they didn't have crack. That's not the point/issue.

What is being pointed out is how racist the entire process is and how it's geared towards prosecuting blacks over whites, when it comes to the same crimes.

Of all the 2,000 cases being prosecuted by the Feds (cases referred to them by DAs), NONE of them were whites. Even though blacks and whites were initially arrested in similar numbers. Again, NONE were white. How is that possible?

If you arrest 100 black dudes and 100 whites dudes for the same crime... and of those 200, 80 of them get referred to the Feds for prosecution... wouldn't it seem strange that out those 80, NONE were white? Again, arrested in equal numbers for the same crime... yet, only blacks wered referred to the feds for prosecution.

How is that even possible, unless the system is geared towards prosecuting blacks, right?

Then when an attorney tries to get records to see how the process is handled and to get more stats/numbers, the courts deny their efforts, simply telling them that the DA doesn't have to show how or why it refers cases to the feds?

Shady.

Choke on the Magic · Apr 21, 2012

Htown said:
Whoosh

Oh did I miss out on something? A fill in would be nice as opposed to a douchy whoosh.

daw840 · Apr 21, 2012

I was always under the impression that it was more because of income demographics, no?

Poor people get arrested more, unfortunately a disproportionate amount of poor people are minorities. Therefore, more minorities are arrested.

Now, the reason for this is fairly clear. It's not like hardcore racism is that far behind us.....

Choke on the Magic · Apr 21, 2012

SUPREME1 said:
It's not that they didn't have crack. That's not the point/issue.

What is being pointed out is how racist the entire process is and how it's geared towards prosecuting blacks over whites, when it comes to the same crimes.

Of all the 2,000 cases being prosecuted by the Feds (cases referred to them by DAs), NONE of them were whites. Even though blacks and whites were initially arrested in similar numbers. Again, NONE were white. How is that possible?

If you arrest 100 black dudes and 100 whites dudes for the same crime... and of those 200, 80 of them get referred to the Feds for prosecution... wouldn't it seem strange that out those 80, NONE were black? Again, arrested in equal numbers for the same crime.

How is that even possible, unless the system is geared towards prosecuting blacks?

Then when an attorney tries to get records to see how the process is handled and to get more stats/numbers, the courts deny their efforts, simply telling them that the DA doesn't have to show how or why it refers cases to the feds?

Shady.

I see your point. I just want to see more details on reasons why the lop sided prosecutions before just saying it's simply because they're black. There has to be more to it.

SUPREME1 · Apr 21, 2012

Choke on the Magic said:
Oh did I miss out on something? A fill in would be nice as opposed to a douchy whoosh.

See my last post.

soul creator · Apr 21, 2012

even if we do have some sort of genetic component to hating other groups, that probably just means we should start teaching people to widen their in-group (hint?), as opposed to giving up and just saying racists gonna race. And essentially learning to channel whatever biases we have into healthier avenues

Bay Maximus · Apr 21, 2012

daw840 said:
I was always under the impression that it was more because of income demographics, no?

Poor people get arrested more, unfortunately a disproportionate amount of poor people are minorities. Therefore, more minorities are arrested.

Now, the reason for this is fairly clear. It's not like hardcore racism is that far behind us.....

Poor people do get convicted more for numerous reasons. And while I'm sure poor people get arrested more for reasons tied solely to their income level, I think much of the disparity is purely racial considering you can't always tell how much or little a person makes just by looking at him/her.

daw840 · Apr 21, 2012

Bay Maximus said:
Poor people do get convicted more for numerous reasons. And while I'm sure poor people get arrested for reasons tied to their income level, I think much of it is purely racial considering you can't always tell how much or little a person makes by just looking at him/her.

Well, let's be perfectly honest. Most of the time you can tell. The way they dress, talk, walk, what they drive, etc. Which would lead them to being pulled over and scrutinized more heavily.

I mean, I can definitely tell the difference just from driving a nice car vs the old beater I used to drive.

Devolution · Apr 21, 2012

daw840 said:
Well, let's be perfectly honest. Most of the time you can tell. The way they dress, talk, walk, what they drive, etc. Which would lead them to being pulled over and scrutinized more heavily.

I mean, I can definitely tell the difference just from driving a nice car vs the old beater I used to drive.

Racism trumps economic disparity in lots of things, including this.

Support NeoGAF

America's Racist Criminal Justice System

Member

Member

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE

Member

Black Canada Mafia

Member

Member

Member

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Banned

Black Canada Mafia

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Neo Member

Banned

Banned

Banned

Member

Member

Banned

Member

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE

Member

listen to the mad man

Member

Incurious Bastard

Banned

Banned

Banned

listen to the mad man

Banned

Banned

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE

Banned

Member

Banned

Banned

Member

Banned

Banned

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Similar threads