Crimes in America

Are blacks stopped by police more than whites? Are cops and policing tactics unconsciously racist?

Heather MacDonald, a scholar who has studied and written about these issues, weighs in.

The first balloon she punctures is the myth that blacks are stopped more than whites:

The Bureau of Justice Statistics regularly polls tens of thousands of civilians about their contacts with the police. Virtually identical proportions of white, black, and Hispanic drivers — 9 percent — report being stopped by the police, though in 2005, the self-reported black stop rate — 8.1 percent — was nearly a percentage point lower than the self-reported white stop rate (8.9 percent). The stop rate for blacks is lower during the day, when officers can more readily see a driver’s race.

Next, she compares urban stops (where police are looking for suspects) against population percentages and finds blacks are indeed overrepresented. But when you compare stops against the crime rate of African Americans, they are under-stopped

As for urban policing — where the police have victim identifications and contextual and behavioral cues to work with — blacks are stopped more, but only in comparison with their proportion of the entire population. Measured against their crime rate, they are understopped.

New York City is perfectly typical of the black police-stop and crime rates. In the first three months of 2009, 52 percent of all people stopped for questioning by the police in New York City were black, though blacks are just 24 percent of the population. But according to the victims of and witnesses to crime, blacks commit about 68 percent of all violent crime in the city. Blacks commit 82 percent of all shootings and 72 percent of all robberies, whereas whites, who make up 35 percent of the city's population, commit about 5 percent of all violent crimes, 1 percent of shootings, and about 4 percent of robberies.

She then turns our attention to national crime rates. Young black males commit more crimes, so they're going to get more attention.

National crime patterns are the same. Black males between the ages of 18 and 24 commit homicide at ten times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. Such vastly disproportionate crime rates must lead, if the police are going after crime in a color-blind fashion, to disproportionate stop and arrest rates. To criticize the police for crime-determined enforcement activity is to blame the messenger.

There are two sides to every story--Does white crime get overlooked?--And the motives for urban crime are numerous and well-cataloged. Liberal rhetoric in defense of minorities can get so overblown it disconnects us from all reality.

Racial profiling happens, and we still have discrimination. This unfairness should not blind us to the facts. For only from the firm basis of reality can we proceed to finding solutions.

NRO - Heather MacDonald