"Justice" in Ferguson? Blacks Arrested 4 Times As Much As Whites

[theHandpuppet]

Ferguson Missouri Crime Stats 2014: Blacks Arrested 4 Times As Much As Whites
By Howard Koplowitz@howardkoplowitz[e-mail]
on August 14 2014

In Ferguson, Missouri, blacks outnumber whites by more than 2-to-1. But African-Americans are arrested at a rate roughly four times higher than their white neighbors, according to Census data and Ferguson crime statistics released by the Missouri Department of Public Safety. Ferguson's arrest rate of blacks outpaces national and state numbers. The St. Louis suburb has been the site of unrest and protests in the wake of the police-involved shooting of Mike Brown, an unarmed black teenager, over the weekend.

About 14,000 blacks live in Ferguson, compared with more than 6,500 whites, according to U.S. Census data for the Missouri city. From January to April of this year, there were 27 whites arrested in the city compared with 217 blacks, or about 8.1 times as many black arrests as white arrests.

The Missouri Uniform Crime Reporting Program lists 36 offenses in its data, including murder and runaways under 18 years old. Most black people were arrested under a category called "all other offenses." In all, that represented 79 of the 217 arrests involving black people. At least 65 black suspects were arrested for larceny, the second largest category. In contrast, 13 whites were arrested for the same crime, meaning five times as many blacks were arrested for larceny as whites. Seventeen blacks were arrested on marijuana possession charges, the third-highest arrest total among African-Americans; only two whites were arrested on that offense.

Ferguson’s black-to-white arrest ratio is much higher than that of St. Louis County, which includes Ferguson. At the county level, black suspects were arrested at a rate about five times higher than whites, according to Department of Public Safety data, or 21,734 blacks compared with 12,948 whites. For Missouri as a whole, which is about 80 percent white, blacks were arrested at a rate more than three times higher than whites....

MORE at http://www.ibtimes.com/ferguson-missouri-crime-stats-2014-blacks-arrested-4-times-much-whites-1658846

[clydefrand]

1. question

which group actually commits the most crimes? This never seems to be mentioned
when talking about no. arrests between the races? I wonder if a better indicator would be the number of 'found guilty's' by whites vs. blacks?

[yeoman6987]

2. I would imagine that the larger population group

no matter the race would be arrested more. Just a numbers thing.

[yeoman6987]

3. One more thing

I know that whites are arrested in Arnold, Maryland more than any other group.

[Gothmog]

4. The police is out of touch with the town

[mythology]

5. The article doesn't effectively support its conclusion

Just because blacks are more likely to be arrested doesn't by itself indicate that the cause is racism by the legal system. I'm not saying that it's not accurate, but it's sloppy work. There's plenty of research into the effects of racism on the legal system, but just stating that blacks are more likely to be arrested doesn't actually prove anything.

It would need to establish that the correlation is racially based rather than say poverty based. If most sort of small crime is committed by the poor, who are disproportionately black, then it would follow that blacks would be arrested more frequently.

Also it would be helpful to show if blacks are more likely to get longer sentences than whites for the same crimes and from the same socio-economic background. Which on average they are. But that evidence isn't given in the article.

Sorry I just dislike sloppy work as it leads to people often making poorly informed decisions.