Pastor Who Eulogized Aretha Franklin Under Fire for Comments
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Non sequitur
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If Group W and Group B commit the same amount of crimes, why would members of Group B all the sudden be questioned and investigated at a rate 3x's Group W?
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This would be a valid point if the two groups actually committed the same number of crimes.
The problem is that even when we look at violent crimes, the type where the victim can give a description of the suspect....group B commits far far more of these crimes per capita than group W.
Unless you think that the police are getting descriptions of white suspects and arresting black men for the crimes, then the only reasonable conclusion is that something is going on in the black male community that causes this disparity.
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dgiharris
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This is a valid point 100% independent on the amount of crimes committed by each group. Similarly, the situation I describe is a "cause" for why one group could / would be seen to commit more crimes than the other group.
Lets look at how my argument relates to 3 scenarios. To recap, My argument is that if police look at Group B three times more than they look at Group W then Group B will have a higher rate of arrests.
Scenario #1) Group B commits the exact same number of crimes as Group W
Mathematically, this means Group B would have an arrest rate 3 times higher than Group W
Scenario #2) Group B commits more crimes than Group W
Mathematically, this means Group B would have an arrest rate more than 3 times higher than Group W
Scenario #3) Group B commits less crimes than Group W
Mathematically, this means Group B would have an arrest rate less than 3 times higher than Group W (Note in order for Group B to have an arrest rate less than Group W, then Group B would have to commit 3x less crimes than Group W).
What is interesting to note is that the above scenarios are mathematically linear, but in reality, the relationships between arrests and police focus is nonlinear. For the sake of argument, lets say that Group X commits 10% more crime than Group Y. In response police decide to focus 55% of their resources on Group X and 45% of their resources on Group Y (note that is 10% shifted to the group that commits 10% more crime). However, this focus will result in a higher arrest rate for Group X, so the next round of numbers will show that Group X commits 11% more crimes than Group Y. So in response, Police focus an extra 1% of resources to Group X. The next round of numbers will again show a 1% increase in arrests and in response police shift an extra 1% of resources to Group X.... Rinse and repeat and over time the arrest rate for Group X grows disproportionately to the rate of the actual crimes they commit.
PLEASE NOTE. My above argument has absolutely nothing to do with race, it is just math
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Non sequitur
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In your scenario, both groups are just a set of numbers. Numbers have no background, ideology, drive, environment, nor any other distinguishing features.
If Group W is the Mafia and Group W are Jains, then your mathematical "cause" for why the Jains have a higher rate of arrests (because the police look at them more) seems rather nonsensical and won't play out in reality.
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My point was that arrest rates alone won't tell you anything about where resources are spent. Imagine a town of 20,000 half W and half B. Last year, there were 100 robberies. Let's say that 90 were committed by W and 10 were committed by B. If police dedicated 80% of their resources on group B and 20% on W....then they made 8 arrests on B and 18 on group W.
Just looking at the arrests...we might conclude that W commits almost twice as many robberies as B. We would be making a lot of false assumptions though.
What we really need to look at to get a better understanding is how many crimes go unsolved. There's also a consideration of how different groups commit crimes. For example, if the drug dealers in group W only deal to friends they know and only out of their house....there's very little chance of them being arrested.
If the drug dealers in group B deal on the street however, and they deal to anyone who has cash...then they'll be arrested far more often. That's going to be true even if police dedicate the exact same amount of resources to each group...and each group commits the same number of crimes.
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SolomonVII
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If group A commits more per capita crime than group B, it is very possible that the problem is not over policing, or police profiling of Group A, but it is most likely that to the extent that Group A is from a poorer neighborhood, they are being under policed, and that the arrest rate ought to be much higher given the higher rates of crime.
What social justice warriors do is create a viscous circle. Police are under policing and this leads to criminals in Area A to commit more crimes with impunity. But by associating higher arrests rates with unfair profiling, what social justice warriors end up doing is creating a situation where even less police work is being done in Area A in response, and the rate of committing crimes goes up even further in Area A.
The Ferguson effect.
What social justice warriors do is create a viscous circle. Police are under policing and this leads to criminals in Area A to commit more crimes with impunity. But by associating higher arrests rates with unfair profiling, what social justice warriors end up doing is creating a situation where even less police work is being done in Area A in response, and the rate of committing crimes goes up even further in Area A.
The Ferguson effect.
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