Profiling - From the General Discussion (HIJACKED THREAD)

[[gh]Spurty]

Profiling works, its a fact. Its effective and efficient, but its not 100% perfect and this is where people get freaked.

Sadly, ratios of people commiting crimes are not even by race. That is a well documented fact and to refuse to accept there is a collorally here is to lable oneself a bit of a nut and to disagree with the sciences of 'Sociology and Phychology'.

For the % of times profiling goes wrong, there is a higher % of it going right. How much higher depends on the profiling in question. There is no 'one size fits all' here.

Do I agree with it? Depends entirely on how the profiling is being done.

For example, you can profile that a rapist is more likely to be a man, however there are many female rapists. Should ALL men be questioned after someone is assaulted? I'd say 'probably' but not 'definately likely to get a result'.

Should I be upset I was pulled up for questioning? Not at all and I certainly should not try to start a fight about it. We all have rights, profiling doesn't actually affect them directly.

I grew up in a town where depending on what road you stood on depended on if you were the minority or the majority. Regardless of this fact, I walked all roads with zero fear or concern. The people who lived there did so as they had family close to them. They were not told where to live, they did not resent living where they chose. There was no issue here when I grew up.

In that atmosphere, where everyone mixed daily, played football, cricket, cycled went to school together, appeared at the same partys and worked in the same shops and pretty much all knew eachothers names, profiling would still work. We knew who was a local and who wasn't. We didn't trust foreigners of any race or religion as they were unknown. Its fear of the unknown that is the very basic most rudimentary profiling we all do that is how people attribute the profiling used by police.

Its scare mongering and its a breeding off our primitive fears.

The above is how I rationalize a sensible use of profiling by authorities.

I've read some of the horror stories about the pros and cons from you guys/princesses and how too much / too little yeilds bad results.

What I'd like to here from you is:

"If profiling is not acceptable, how else should people make decisions about who to spotlight when looking for suspects in a crime?"

I'll even offer my own attempt:

Old fashioned police work is not the way to do this. Crime rates saw when only a handful of people menace society. Usually these people are repeat offenders and beyond the hope of being trained back into poliet society.

I believe that after someone has become a repeat offender, they have their rights to secrecy waved and any searches done on them can be done with less stringent measures as a private citizen is allowed for being on the right side of the law.

Ok, I can think of plenty of holes is this idea. I personally think it stinks more then profiling, but its another way (although I think its totally ineffectual). :?

now have your say

[Uthor]

Dude, profiling isn't "a white, teenage, male was seen committing a crime" and then white, teenage, males become the suspects. Profiling is "look, there's a minority, let's pull him over cause I bet he's up to something."

Profiling is, in an example, a store getting knocked off, and immediately black individuals are suspect.

Profiliing would not be, in example, there being a string of robberies committed by black individuals, and since this one was committed in a similar fashion and not long after the others, but by offenders of an unknown race/color, we will continue to suspect a black individual as a suspect in this particle string of crimes.

Being a repeat offender of a crime, then having a crime comitted with your M.O. (yay TV crime drama for giving me that phrase) will automatically make you suspect. That is police work. Saying a suspect must be of X race/color/ethnicity/religion because those people are criminals is racical profiling.

[darien]

Could we have a definition of "profiling" to go along with your long comments? I'm still not sure in which context you're using the word.

[acme420]

obviously you're from europe. profiling hahaha., hey look its a black guy lets harass him. theres your profiling.

[Princess]

What you seem to be describing, Spurty, is a town where everybody knows your name and knows the flow of the town. So if a newb comes into town, and all of a sudden things start to shake up, you're right, it's probably natural to assume that this person may be the cause of the trouble without any proof whatsoever. However, most of us (I'd like to think) don't live in towns with 1000 people. I'd also like to believe that professionals do not instantly think "it's gotta be the new guy!" There are things that are acceptable and there are things that are not. I just feel that at a crime scene, people can be a little more specific than "black teenage male." Is he heavy? What was he wearing? Did he have a weapon? Was he wearing a jacket/hat/glasses? Was he running fast? These are all acceptable questions to ask that I think fulfill the answer to "how else can we solve mysteries?!?" question. Do they have time to ask these questions? OF COURSE they do. They're wasting more time by not asking them. All I'm saying, is that instead of playing on our fears (as you point out) we need to be more professional about the way we handle situations because ultimately it is more degrading to our society when we don't.

As for the males being rapists therefore profiling is okay. I'm not sure where this would really apply. If someone calls in about a rapist, I'm pretty sure they'll tell you whether they were male or female... I think maybe you're referring to stereotyping? Assuming that males are the ones who fall into that category even though women are capable and are 2% of the offenders? I don't know. But I think that's another topic.

And as for the effectiveness of profiling w/percentages, well...that's simply an area I've yet to look through, and if your facts are better than my experiences there's not much I can say about that.

[k|LL3rCr0w]

There are three types of profiling. Two real world practical use examples of profiling would fall under the professional term of "criminal profiling". These two types are "inductive" profiling and "deductive" profiling. These are good guidelines to use when pursuing a criminal who has left little forensic or electronic evidence of their crimes. These can help narrow the field so to speak when possible suspects start to emerge in the case file. The third type of profiling is that which everyone raises a hissy about and thats simply some police officer pulling over an individual or group of individuals based SOLELY on apparent race, demographic, financial or social status. This third variety is un-professional and breeds problems. The first two are excellent tools to aid in investigation. Just thought you would want the input of a law enforcement officer on this.

[steaLer]

who here is not a hypocrite?

[MoreYangThanYin]

im most definitley a hypocrite so i wont get into this one

[[gh]Spurty]

I enjoyed reading your replies ;)

[steaLer]

im most definitley a hypocrite so i wont get into this one
not it's ok. even more so reason to post. i just wanted to clear that out before we all get in to these profiling/sterotyping discussopns.

i dont mind with profiling/sterotyping if it doesnt harm anyone. like killer said about the first two, and personally i don't mind some of the third either, as long as it doesn't get abused. that harder part is drawing the line.
a common profiling happens at airports all the time, for arab/muslims families. i have never been checked at airports, but one of my friends gets checked for more than his share. i may be touching some sensitive points here, but i personally think that in this speciffic category it's the best solutions short of checkign everyone. the rationale being: most of the muslim extremists have the same profile. is this the optimal thing to do? not at all. but on a mass scale, i'd rather offend a few and prevent bombings than the other way around.

[Princess]

im most definitley a hypocrite so i wont get into this one
not it's ok. even more so reason to post. i just wanted to clear that out before we all get in to these profiling/sterotyping discussopns.

It's probably even more important to classify what kind of profiliing we're talking about, by what means, and how it affects people. If you're internally profiling w/out any external means w/out affecting anyone but yourself, I can't imagine how that is directly related to the kind of profiliing we're discussing. If, of course, that's what you were referring to w/the hypocracy statement.

[steaLer]

i guess i think it's a fine line between using profiling and abusing profiling. it's easier to tell sometimes the risks/benefits of profiling than other times. when does profiling for a just cause like Killercrow said, becomes harrassment?

[squeak]

IMHO, Profiling (the bad kind, not the typedescribed by krow) is based on stereo types. Either wrongfully learned (IE, your mother/father brought you up saying "these people are bad") or based on one bad experience with that "type" of person (IE, if a man rapes a woman, now that woman may never trust another man). Because there is such a strong belief in these stereo types, people dont see other views. So, for example, if a cop pulls over a minority because he/she racialy profiled them as probably doing something "wrong", they are basing it on their stereo types. This is why I believe racial profiling is wrong. Even though (making numbers up here) if 6/10 racialy profiled people get arrested because they are criminals, it is unconstitutional/notright/unamerican/ to the other 4/10 people.

[Canon]

African Americans make make up approximately 15% of the population of the United States. Who wants to guess what percentage of the nation's violent crimes are perpetrated by African Americans? Yes, if I see a group of black teens with colored dew-rags creeping slowly along in a beat-up oldsmobile, I'm going to get nervous.

Does that mean I don't like black people? No. Does it mean that I don't extend the same common courtesy to them that I would anyone else? No.

Does it piss me off when they "act black"? Yes, because they're perpetuating a stereotype we're not supposed to believe in.

[steaLer]

i think there is a general consensus here. hard to explain though...

[blue]

yep. there is a line in the sand. but the waves have crashed on it, and its a bit hard to make out now. so you cant tell whats abusing, and what is using...

go go another topic!

[acme420]

Yes, if I see a group of black teens with colored dew-rags creeping slowly along in a beat-up oldsmobile, I'm going to get nervous.


I dont know about you but if i see anyone creeping down a street slowly i get nervous. black white asian hispanic. shit if i see some cops in an unmarked car creepin up on me im gonna get nervous wtf.


if theres 100 jelly beans in a jar and 15% of em are red and 70% are blue and the other 15% are various other colors. now suppose 10 percent of those red jelly beans taste like shit (liteerally) and 10 percent of the blue ones also taste like shit. of course after eating the jar of jelly beans you're gonna be all like i hate those ****in red jelly beans they taste like shit.


my point? its easy to stereotype a group of people if you see a lot of them doing something you object to. look how big america is and black people are spread from one end to the other. white people are too. now you say its 15% black, spread that 15% out across the whole country and voila wow look at all these black people who are criminals and waiting to shank me and jack me for my wallet in a dark alley. now lets spread the white guys (i estimate ~65% -70%) across that same area. same percentage of white guys as black guys doing the same crimes. but since theres so many white guys its all like oh yeah those white guys arent so bad.

i forgot what i was getting at. but i dont belive everything i see on the news and neither should you.

i have friends who are more scared of a white guy walking down a street than a bunch of black guys walking the same street with guns in their hands in broad daylight. TV tells them that white guys are all rapists, and serial axe murderers. My friend lives in the suburbs with 95% white people and when she walks the street at night a white guy walking the same street sends her into a panic.

it goes both ways and racial profiling is wrong.

[steaLer]

what about profiling and take actions based on historical evidence? i would argue that it is only common sense to use a "profile". no?

[Princess]

what about profiling and take actions based on historical evidence? i would argue that it is only common sense to use a "profile". no?

Can you be more specific?

[Dissman]

The thing is, we have such sensitivity to minorities that it gets in the way of law enforcement doing it's job. Things that i, a white male would never get away with, minorities can do with impunity, and people blame the cops... if i was to resist arrest, i'd get my ass kicked. Yet, there are classic examples, Rodney King... he was on PCP when he was arrested... if you watch the entire video, Rodney King takes a beating, and as he is taking a beating, he keeps trying to get up... yet, the cops are held responsible... and during the riots over Rodney king, a group of rioters, pulled a trucker out of the cab and beat the crap out of him, and a camera overhead captured it all, they got off.

In cincinatti, there were race riots a few years back, immeadiately after the race riots, black on black crime was up nearly 200% and has yet to go back down to where it was... black on white crime was up as well, but not so much. The city of cincinatti police, to even give a traffic ticket, need to fill out two pages of "sensitivity paperwork" saying that they didnt racially profile the person... therefore, they rarely give out traffic tickets to anyone going any less than 15 or 20 over the limit.

Now, to airport security... there's a rule, saying you can only question a certian number of arab americans per flight... i believe that number is five. There was recently a flight with arab american musicians, and they basically freaked out everyone on the plane... the people on the ground at the departure airport wanted to question them all because there was just something not right about them and they were not allowed to becuase of that federal rule... in fact, even after 9/11, that rule is strictly enforced.

I'm not saying that racial profiling is a good thing... i'm just saying, that if we go to such lengths to be "sensitive" and make it impossible for law enforcement to do their job, we will all be very bad off, and totally unable to prevent another 9/11.

[Smokey]

LOL!

[Smokey]

Michael Carpenter
March 19, 1999

Michael Carpenter

Michael Carpenter's death is the only one so far to result in a Cincinnati Police officer being reprimanded.

The 30-year-old Mount Airy man attracted officers' attention about 1:20 a.m. March 19, 1999, at a Northside convenience store. Officers Brent McCurley and Michael Miller ran the plates of the blue Pontiac he was driving — which would turn out to be a friend's — and found them expired.

Within two minutes of the computer check, the officers radioed for help. One of the officers had fired his gun and Mr. Carpenter was dead.

That is pretty much all that police, witnesses and family members agree on.

The police said that Officer Miller approached the Pontiac after it pulled over on narrow Pitts Avenue. Mr. Carpenter refused to get out and instead reached for the glove box. Officer Miller reached through the driver's window and tried to pull him out.

Mr. Carpenter drove about 15 feet, dragging Officer Miller and hitting a parked van. Officer McCurley, standing behind Mr. Carpenter's car, said he saw the backup lights come on. He shot nine times.

Neighbors, however, said the van was not damaged and the Pontiac seemed to be neatly parallel-parked.

“There were a lot of things that didn't go with what I saw,” nearby resident Jewell Day now says. “Maybe it wasn't handled right.”

Investigations indicated similarly mixed feelings among officials. Officer McCurley was exonerated by the U.S. Department of Justice, the county prosecutor and an internal police division investigation.

The city's Office of Municipal Investigation (OMI) and the independent Citizens Police Review Panel called the shooting unjustified.

Ultimately, Officer McCurley received a written reprimand and was ordered to receive 40 hours of retraining because of several tactical errors leading to the shooting.

Officer Miller resigned from the force.



Mike was my brother in law so I know the cops story was bs.



Timothy Thomas
April 7, 2001

Timothy Thomas

Timothy Thomas ran from police twice before. Both times, he got away.

Mr. Thomas, 19, knew he had more than a dozen misdemeanor warrants out for his arrest and he knew police were looking for him. On April 7, he knew he'd been spotted by two off-duty officers working outside The Warehouse nightclub on Vine Street.

Mr. Thomas took off, and the chase was on. The officers called in backups. Twelve officers joined in. Police said Mr. Thomas jumped fences and darted behind buildings, finally turning down an alley off Republic Street, one of the city's most dangerous.

Officer Steve Roach was joining the pursuit from the other direction. He saw Mr. Thomas emerge from behind a building at the end of the alley and told authorities that Mr. Thomas was reaching for something in his waistband. He thought his life was in danger.

Officer Roach fired one fatal shot, hitting Mr. Thomas in the chest. No weapon was found on Mr. Thomas.

All evidence in the case is under seal. Hamilton County prosecutors say they will present the case to a grand jury this week.

The shooting touched off a week of protests and violence unlike any seen since the 1968 Avondale riots that followed the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. That riot, on April 8, 1968, ended with two dead, 220 arrested and $3 million in property damage.

Since when is having misdemeanor warrents a reason to get shot.

This one case wasnt the reason for rioting... from 1995 to 2001 there had been 15 black men killed by police officers and a lot of the reasons were bs.

Being that I am black I can tell you from experience that you have no clue about racial profiling.

[blue]

Officer Steve Roach was joining the pursuit from the other direction. He saw Mr. Thomas emerge from behind a building at the end of the alley and told authorities that Mr. Thomas was reaching for something in his waistband. He thought his life was in danger.


Since when is having misdemeanor warrents a reason to get shot.

Its not, but the former is.
you threaten a cops life, you threaten your own.

i would have done the same thing.

A) Suspect Runs
B) Reacing for somethign in your wasteband

bad combination

lets not even mention he had a prior record, or that the he had evaded the cops 2 other times. now, im not saying racial profiling doesnt happen. it does. this is a bad example as the victim clearly was antagonizing the officer.

[Thordic]

I agree with sniper there, if you are running from the cops, and reaching into your waistband as you run, you are asking to get shot.

With the first guy, no offense, but the fact he was your brother in law makes you just as biased as the cops. Theres always more to the story.

[blue]

i think "cop cams" on the dashboard should be mandatory on all cars. then you have proof of what happened... then there wouldnt be so many issues. if a cops tape is tampered with, then you have an even bigger problem.

[acme420]

cops must be great where you guys live, cuz wherever smokey lives those cops are just like chicago cops, or maybe its just cuz were black? life in danger my ass, theres reports in the paper every other week about how a cop shot a guy who was supposedly going for a weapon but no weapon is ever found in most of the cases, and weapons are sometimes found, but the guy they find it on wouldnt ever have a weapon. thats like me getting killed and the cops saying they shot me cuz i had a gun and some drugs on me, no one would ever buy that cuz i dont **** guns nor would i ever sell drugs. the cops in this city are so corrupt and lazy its not even funny, i see cops do so much illegal shit, right in the cop shop (aka police station) and were supposed to trust them to uphold the law when they feel they are above it, or immune to it? and dont even think anything is gonna happen to a cop who does something wrong, or breaks a law. they stick together like white on rice. so many cops over the years shooting innocent civilians not a single one is behind bars. i have to look up the news reports and get back to you, but one sticks out in my mind of an off duty cops who shoots a homeless man because supposedly he had a gun. a homeless guy wouldnt have a gun, he would have sold it a long time ago to buy food, they never found the supposed gun, and 10 years after the incident the cop walks free on the street. theres other stories, the woman who got shot because the cops thought her cell phone was a gun, the homeless guy who got shot because he happened to be near the scene of a fight involving an off duty cop and the cop thought he was one of the guys involved, etc...etc.. no one ever goes to jail for these shootings. and people wonder why cops are hated.

[J.A.C]

With the first guy, no offense, but the fact he was your brother in law makes you just as biased as the cops. Theres always more to the story.


They shot him 9 times, and he didnt have a gun, I really dont no much about american laws, but isnt there suppoesed to be a warning shot or anything like that? If an unarmed man get shot 9 times theres something wrong.

[J.A.C]

Again, I dont know much about american laws, I dont have any stats to show you, but im pretty sure you wont find anything like this in any europena country, somethings wrong, I could say what I think, but im pretty sure that wouldnt be to popular since this is a american forum, the world laughs at you, ask any non american.

[blue]

warning shot. lol nope.

[Doc Wattson]

They laugh at us because we are different, we laugh at them because they are all the same.

-Gary-

[J.A.C]

I read some place that there is about 360 killing is Britain yearly, in USA there is over 11 000. Why is this, we watch the same movies, we play the same games we do the same things, somethings wrong with your precious country, you cant blame econmy either, since your 1 of the richest countries in the world, can you tell me whats wrong with you?

[steaLer]

boredom? im not kidding.

[Thordic]

The UK has 1/5th the population of the US, so your 360 killings are more like 1800 when you factor in the population ratio.

Also, one of the UK websites I found that had crime statistics seemed to say between 750 - 800 homicides, not 360. thats more in the range of 3750 - 4000 homicides per year (the year given was 2000, fairly recent). So I'd argue your 360 is a just a TAD on the low side.

Also, we have more of an inner city homicide problem. Homicide rates among blacks is six to seven times that those of whites (Department of Justice website), and most of that I would attribute to gangs and inner-city violence (Im sure the trends among suburban blacks is much the same as suburban whites).

When you look at the population, you'll see blacks are roughly 12% compared to whites 80% in the US.

So about half of the nations homicides are taking place in 12% of the population. Again, I don't think that blacks are more likely to shoot someone due to their color, but simply because they are more concentrated in inner-city areas, and are more likely to get involved in gang & drug violence due to their location.

The problem is, the country is run mostly by whites, not blacks, and if black gang members and drug dealers shoot each other, the white leaders don't care that much. If we could stamp out drug and gang violence, our murder rate would drop steeply.

I'm not saying there aren't gangs or drugs in the UK and the rest of Europe, but I feel fairly confident in saying they are a much more prominant social issue here.

I think that kinda addresses JACs post as well as the profiling, to an extent.

[Thordic]

Forgot to note this in my last post.

Assume that the US has 12,000 homicides per year. If you just ignore the other races, for a second, and split that between whites and blacks, thats 6000 homicides per race (the numbers above support a 50/50 split). With a black person being 6 to 7 times more likely to become a victim of homicide, if you could reduce that down to the same levels as it is for white people, and have a homicide rate that wasn't race-dependant, you would bring that 12,000 homicides down to less than 7,000, a much lower number, and slightly more on-par with the UK's adjusted ~3,750 - 4,000, especially when you adjust for the fact guns make homicides much easier, where in the UK you have to work a little harder to kill someone.

And in case anyone wants to argue that white people are killing black people or vice versa or some such nonsense, the odds are in the mid-80 percentile range of being killed by someone of your own race.

[Uthor]

boredom? im not kidding.

I'll Kill you!

Anyway, cops shooting people... My old military history prof. taught me that the difference between a cop and a soldier is that the cop is trained not to fire until he is 100% sure the person he is shooting at is poses an imediate threat. A soldier is trained to shoot someone who may be a threat.

For a police officer (and anyone), a guy running down the street reaching into a waistband is a threat. However, a cop should not fire until he sees that weapon. His job is to work around, and with, innocents promoting peace and order, not to suspet everone in a hostile territory like a soldier would.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I would suspect the cops of wrong doing if they are shooting people reaching for things. I know being a cop is not the safest thing in the world, espessially in a large urban area (as apposed to a small rural town), but a cops job is to save lives, which includes making 100% sure your target when firing your gun is a justifiable target. The gun is a last resort.

[blue]

excelent point Uthor. agreed.

[Thordic]

By the time that gun becomes visible, it may be too late. Plus, there are lots of shapes and sizes of guns, and plenty of things can look like guns, especially in high-stress situations.

The gun is a last resort, true, but you can't put yourself in a position like that. I mean, first off the guy was a criminal and obviously not the most trustworthy and safe of individuals. Then he is trying to evade the police, strike two. Then he reaches into his waistband? I would have shot him too. Thats darwinism at work.

If you feel the need to run from the police, do it with your hands where they can see them. Unless of course you are really shooting at them.

[blue]

haha funny story, yet completely off topic...

today my boss brought his new K-37 into work to show it off (nice rifle) he says its 95% grade (almost mint)... not a probablem noramlly...

but he walks it in at 11:55 or so...
the president lands 100 feet from our building at noon - 12:15...

he was VERY lucky no cops saw him.. lol GG imagine the people coming in... he wasnt doing anything bad, cause there all gun nuts here... but BAD TIMING.

=D

[Princess]

I'm just spectating at this point, but I would think cops are trained how to shoot a gun. Why aim for the head?

[blue]

i believe they are trained center mast (chest)

perhaps i missed it, but i didnt see anyone mention a head shot

[acme420]

I have a friend who is a cop, the stories he tells have me curled up in my bed at night afraid to go to sleep. all cops arent bad but theres enough of them that are to make me not like em as a whole. one story he told me of a cop who had her gun in a suspects mouth for a few minutes while her partner was trying to talk her down. im sure if she shot the guy they could have just throw a handy pistol with some bodies on it next to him and put some crack in his pocket and called it a day.

[airwalk]

I'm just spectating at this point, but I would think cops are trained how to shoot a gun. Why aim for the head?

i might be wrong, but most states require that cops "shoot to kill".. someone check this out?

[Thordic]

Cops aim for center mass. They aren't trained to aim for the head, or the legs. Center chest is the easiest thing to hit.

Aiming for a head or legs would lead to more stray bullets which could hit accidental targets. Plus while you are trying to shoot his head, he can spin and shoot you in the chest. He wins, even if you wear a vest you won't be shooting very accurately with those nice big bruises and/or broken ribs.

Also, if you tried to shoot someone in the leg to be "non-lethal", then he can still try to shoot you, or others.

Police are trained so that if the situation breaks down to the point where they must use their guns, then the situation should be ended as quickly as possible. That means aiming for center mass (usually a kill shot).

[J.A.C]

By the time that gun becomes visible, it may be too late. Plus, there are lots of shapes and sizes of guns, and plenty of things can look like guns, especially in high-stress situations.


Dont get me wrong, I agree with you, but cmon 9 shots and he never had a gun, thats ****ed up.

And another thing, there is a lot of black people in Europe to you know, so we could come up with the same numbers you did, so my point still stands, this isnt a small problem, so why are you trying to justify it, its a problem, shouldnt you as a american try to find out whats wrong insted of trying to justify it.

[Canon]

"Profiling is wrong" is just another one of those BS ways a criminal attorney can get his client off the hook.

[Thordic]

I wasn't saying it was just that they were black.

I was saying it was an inner city issue, and we need to address gang and drug-related crime.

The only reason race comes into it is because blacks represent the majority of the population in those areas. Thats just how it is.

[Canon]

Preach on, Bruce Hornsby.

[Smokey]

Apache]I wasn't saying it was just that they were black.

I was saying it was an inner city issue, and we need to address gang and drug-related crime.

The only reason race comes into it is because blacks represent the majority of the population in those areas. Thats just how it is.


News item: Most Wisconsin counties have a greater percentage of blacks in jail than the percentage of blacks who live there.

To which some people might reasonably respond:

"So what? Now tell me something I didn't know."

It's not a shocking statistic to anyone who has been keeping track of the color of crime and punishment in the United States of America, or Wisconsin.

Or anyplace else.

It's probably not a surprise to those who already think it's natural to have more blacks behind bars than anyone else.

This is America's Dairyland, after all, which leads the nation in the disparity between white and black incarceration rates.

According to recent state statistics, the percentage of black Wisconsin jail inmates in most counties is equally impressive, given that some places with very few black residents still do a pretty good job of putting black faces behind bars.

(And we're talking about jail, you must remember. That's the place we put people charged with - but not always convicted of - a crime.)

In some rural counties, the disparity was glaring. One place, Washburn County, reported black jail admissions at 32.4% while the entire black population was only 0.2%.

Even the local law enforcement types seemed hard-pressed to explain how their predominantly white communities ended up with so many blacks behind bars.

The Washburn County sheriff blamed his statistics on the presence of a state prison work camp in his area. La Crosse County District Attorney Scott Horne said many blacks jailed in his county were non-residents arrested while transporting drugs such as crack cocaine.

Which leads me to this question:

Any chance they were buying from or selling drugs to people in La Crosse County? If so, did any of those people go to jail?

This kind of report jibes with my long-standing belief that many crime statistics about race do little more than confirm racial stereotypes without providing the necessary context to understand the problem.

As national studies have proved time and time again, whites use illegal drugs just as much or more than blacks, but blacks go to prison more.

As for those who argue that's not inherently "discriminatory," I suggest they get a dictionary.

For at least a decade, the criminal justice system has tried to deal with accusations of a sliding scale of justice when it comes to people caught using crack vs. powdered cocaine.

Most caught on the wrong side, once again, were black.

This is the main reason why the Rush Limbaughs and Robert Downey Jr.s of the world draw so much scorn, particularly from African-Americans with relatives serving hard time for their addiction to illegal drugs.

Affluent whites end up with "drug problems" while blacks get tagged with the label of "criminal."

None of this will change your mind if you want to continue to use racial statistics about crime as a justification for your personal prejudices.

But I think the Racine chapter of the NAACP has it right by objecting to a proposed jail expansion until someone takes a hard look at the incarceration policies there.

The folks in Racine seem to understand a basic rule about crime and punishment in America:

If you build it, they will come. If they don't, we'll go out and get them anyway.

Particularly if they are black.




From the Jan. 22, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[Smokey]

Some cops treat black and hispanic people differently even if they arent doing anything wrong. In no way am I biased... im just speaking from experience. I know that all cops arent bad and I've had friends who were cops but more times than not whenever I come in contact with a cop I end up being insulted harassed or in handcuffs in the back of their cruiser. Its the same all over america and I get the same reaction when I tell my white friends about cops. They just dont believe it because it doesnt happen to them.

The fact that I knew Mike and the fact that I knew that he had a lot to live for like his daughter and his future plans of going to college doesnt make me biased by the way. A few days before all that happened I was in the car with him talking to him about what he was going to do with his life and all he talked about was his daughter. Now what would make a man go from a loving father to an insane cop killer in 3 days.

[Thordic]

And no one knew Jeffrey Dahlmer was a serier killer till he got caught. Sometimes you just don't know.

And as for that article, I'll use a local example. I live in western Essex County, NJ. Essex County is home to Newark, a city full of crime and drugs and whatnot. Its about 15 miles away on the other side of the county. In the town next to me, there is the Essex County Jail Annex.

I would bet good money that the jail annex is full of black inmates, even though most of the towns around here in western essex county are at least 90% white.

The racial makeup of the town where the jail sits has nothing to do with the racial makeup of the prisoners inside the jail. My example is on a County scale, on a state scale you can have prisoners from much farther away.

As for crack dealers getting harsher punishments than crack addicts, well, that makes sense to me. A crack dealer is selling crack to dozens of people, a crack addict isn't forcing other people to take crack, he uses it all himself. Therefore, a crack dealer is causing a lot more of a problem than the users. True, he couldn't sell if they didn't buy, but the opposite is true too.

If you lock up five drug dealers, you are taking away the supply for, lets say even at only 10 customers each, 50 addicts. So you are saying we should arrest fifty people instead of five? We already have a problem with overcrowding in the jail system, I'll vote for sticking with arresting the dealers.

[Princess]

I dunno, I think we should stop the buyers equally. I think that with the ease of getting drugs it doesn't matter if your special "dealer" isn't around because when you're addicted you're not going to say "well, that's the end of drugs for me." I think that buyers are as much in the wrong as users.

As for the head shot I said, I didn't realize how specific I got. I really just meant "why kill them?" But I think you all have answered that very nicely. I wish they could shoot the supposed gun out of the hand like in the movies, but it does leave more room for inaccuracy and non-involvement people. Thanx.

I agree with a lot of what Smokey is saying with the statistics. I wish I wasn't one of those people who said "statistics don't give all the answers" because I'd like to believe they prove something, but they don't. You can find correlations, but everyone knows you can't say this or that CAUSES it because it's not scientific. I mean, we could show relationships that may justify why the other statistics occur in the first place, but without an experiment it doesn't hold much water.

[Canon]

When I go to the airport you better believe that I am more acutely aware of those of Middle-Eastern descent. That's profiling... it's prejudiced... and it's wrong. Sadly, that's how I am made to feel due to current events and the media's coverage of them.

People get angry when the cops play on statistics and win. That's messed up... They're following the rules of precedence to potentially save innocent lives. Now, if you're not doing anything wrong and you get harassed anyone has the right to file complaints. It's a gamble on the side of law enforcement.

[Smokey]

Yeah give Jeffrey Dahlmer a gun and a badge and what do you have.

Any chance they were buying from or selling drugs to people in La Crosse County? If so, did any of those people go to jail?

Point being that there are just as many white drug dealers as there are black and hispanic.

"People get angry when the cops play on statistics and win. That's messed up... They're following the rules of precedence to potentially save innocent lives. Now, if you're not doing anything wrong and you get harassed anyone has the right to file complaints."

Yeah you have the right to file a complaint but nothing ever comes of it.

You need to get the movie Heat Wave (directed by Kevin Hooks) so you can see the type of profiling and harassment im talking about.

The general consensus is that a cop is always right, if they are harassing someone then that person must be doing something wrong. For some reason people seem to forget that a police officer is human too and has the same flaws as everybody else.

If a cop testifys in court that you took a swing at him before he punched you in the mouth the judge will always believe the cop before he believes you. I guess I could have carried a tape recorder and a video camera around with me at all times but I shouldnt have to go through all that.