fucking cops

As the well known conundrum goes “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” It’s a question of the root causes of things—it’s the difference between the causes and the conclusion. And it’s the same conundrum that too often people ignore when examining racial improprieties in America. So the question is “Which came first:  high crime rates among minorities, or the suspicion of higher crime rates amongst minorities?” Let’s look at an example:

Say, in a hypothetical community there are a certain percentage of white people who are criminals. In the same community, there’s the same percentage of black people who are criminals. This community is policed by the same prejudiced cop.

If that police officer suspects that a higher rate of black people are criminals, he’ll looks harder to find criminals in people of that racial group, and therefore he’ll catches more criminals that are black than white.

The amount of crime that each racial group was doing is the same, but because of the prejudice of the criminal justice system, a statistic can be created that implied that black people have a greater chance of being criminals. People can now rationalize the tactic of racial profiling for law enforcement, and the pattern continues and worsens.

This is a very real pattern in American history. And, if you don’t believe that, just take a closer look at some statistics:

According to the federal Household Survey, “most current illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72 percent of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15 percent), and 1.4 million Hispanics (10 percent) who were current illicit drug users in 1998.” Meanwhile, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations, and comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies.

These show an obvious difference in the percentage of whites who are prosecuted for their crimes and the percentage of blacks who are prosecuted for their crimes, and this difference clearly indicates a bias in the criminal justice system.

That’s bullshit isn’t it? This isn’t what a fair democracy stands by. This isn’t showing America’s respect for equality. Allowing this problem to continue is fixating on the conclusions but ignoring the causes. It’s concentrating on the chicken and ignoring the egg.

Sources:

1. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse: Summary Report 1998 (Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 1999), p. 13; Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 1998 (Washington DC: US Department of Justice, August 1999), p. 343, Table 4.10, p. 435, Table 5.48, and p. 505, Table 6.52; Beck, Allen J., Ph.D. and Mumola, Christopher J., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 1998 (Washington DC: US Department of Justice, August 1999), p. 10, Table 16; Beck, Allen J., PhD, and Paige M. Harrison, US Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, August 2001), p. 11, Table 16.

2. Drug War Facts. 20 Oct. 2006. 4 Nov. 2006 .