Unclear On The Motivation
By Mitch Berg
I’ve read articles more or less exactly like this one, from Insight News, a local Afro-American community paper, since I was probably ten years old (although few of those pieces have buried the lede as far as this one, down in paragraph nine or ten. For your convenience, I’ll try to exhume the lede for you):
According to the State Council on Black Minnesotans, as of the year 2000 census, Blacks make up approximately 18.03% of Minneapolis and 11.71% of St. Paul. However, the number of Blacks in Minneapolis accounted for 40.12% of the Black population statewide, while the St. Paul population accounted for 19.565% statewide.
Minnesota blacks are concentrated in the metro – got it.
Now come the all-important Minnesota incarceration rates, and according to Tom Johnson, former Hennepin County Attorney and current president of the Council on Crime and Justice, “We know for example that in 1999 in Hennepin County you had [a number equal to] over half of all African-American males between eighteen and thirty arrested in that one year.”
It’s the “Blacks are overincarcerated” meme.
And it’s true. The number,and per capita rates, are astounding, and a national scandal – one that should shame…
…well, lots and lots of people. Almost forty years worth of leaders, in both the black and white communities.
But we’ll get back to that.
(And what’s this “[a number equal to] over half of all African-American males between eighteen and thirty arrested” number supposed to mean? Could the writer even pretend to give this statistic some meaning? Does it mean “half of all black males in Henco were arrested?”, or does it mean “Five percent were arrested ten times each?”, or…)
The reaction by some is that the police are patrolling in minority neighborhoods whether they are Hmong, Native American, Hispanic, Somali or African-American, because that is where the majority of the crimes are occurring.
But according to Johnson, the numbers do not support this: “To use who is arrested as a gauge to make a decision about who is committing crime isn’t accurate or fair.”
Er…why?
I mean, could we be bothered with some evidence of this claim? Because it’s a big one and, given that North Minneapolis and Frogtown and Phillips and Dayton’s Bluff seem to be where most of the crime in the cities themselves happens, I’d be interested in knowing – both as a city resident and someone who is concerned about equality in our society, exactly how that’s “inaccurate and unfair”.
Because from where I sit, it sounds like lawyer weasel-words.
Others look to racial profiling – where police stop Black people just because of the color of their skin – as a potential cause for increased incarceration rates for African Americans.
In a study conducted over a six-month period in 2000, Minneapolis police stopped Black drivers at a rate of more than twice the numbers in their population, and an examination of St. Paul police records showed a similar trend.
Question for those “others” that look to racial profiling; are these “stops” (as opposed to arrests for specific incidents of crime) converted into convictions? Is there any evidence that these convictions are based on wholesale fraud?
Because if there is evidence of masses of Afro-American citizens being framed and railroaded, we do have a scandal here.
Consequently, when studies show further that once they are in the Hennepin County or Ramsey County criminal justice system, Blacks are more likely to be charged with certain crimes like drug offenses, and Blacks are more likely to serve time in jail.
And again – and I ask this knowing I’m skirting on the edge of the usual, tiresome charges of “racism” by the usual bleating classes – is there any evidence that this likelihood of being charged is disconnected with a likelihood of having actually offended?
The resulting statistics equate to Blacks in Minnesota having the highest incarceration rates in the country as compared to whites. In addition, seven out of every ten inmates who leave prison come back, so the question then becomes: what, if anything, can be done about this alarming trend?
The article – incoherent as it often is – focuses on recidivism programs. Which is, I suppose, more manageable than, say, trying to reverse the damage caused by forty years of debilitating nannystatism, which began about the time 400 years of slavery and discrimination ended.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:16 am
or does it mean “Five percent were arrested ten times each?”,
more like a couple dozen times in the case of the black drug dealers that inhabited the street corner near my house in 1999. They were always back selling drugs the next day (even when they were arrested with firearms) because the Henco Courts (see Kevin Burke) have a “Catch and Release” program
December 19th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Bleating classes, or peeving classes?
December 19th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Mitch explained: “The article – incoherent as it often is – focuses on recidivism programs. Which is, I suppose, more manageable than, say, trying to reverse the damage caused by forty years of debilitating nannystatism, which began about the time 400 years of slavery and discrimination ended.”
Yet another silly right-wing take on race in America. The Cliff Notes version: The solution to centuries of racial discrimination in America? More tax cuts.
For those of you scoring at home, wingnuts think racism ended about 40 years ago cause that’s when the racists started voting Republican instead of Democratic.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Oh, goody, the “racists all vote Republican” bit again.
And again.
And again.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:43 am
In response to the “there’s no more racism” thing again? Yeah.
December 19th, 2007 at 10:44 am
And don’t forget, we hate the children too!
December 19th, 2007 at 10:56 am
…and women.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:02 am
No badda, we loves da womens, but barefoot and pregnant. Right clown?
Personally, I’ve always loved the Marxist quote: “If women dressed for men, the stores wouldn’t sell much — just an occasional sun visor.” (Yeah, so it was Groucho Marx, what’s you point? He was a better philosopher than the one who pretended to be one.)
December 19th, 2007 at 11:04 am
“Yet another silly right-wing take on race in America. The Cliff Notes version: The solution to centuries of racial discrimination in America? More tax cuts.”
I would be fascinated to know how you got tax cuts from what was written. As has been proved over and over and over and over and over again, if you give everything away you remove incentive and end up with multi-generations of people on the public dole, a phenomena that transcends race, and nationality.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:14 am
nerdb… you’re killin’ me.
What about minority womens?
December 19th, 2007 at 11:25 am
(Obviously, I’m talking about the hot ones… Beyonce or Aishwarya Rai)
December 19th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I would be fascinated to know how you got tax cuts from what was written.
The same way he gets everything; by picking the stereotype of the day!
December 19th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Actually, tax cuts might do well to help “years and years of discrimination from evil conservative boogie men”.
December 19th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
It’s obvious that this is a racist website. The background is white.
Angryclown logic is fun!
December 19th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Mitch couldn’t win even if the background was black.
AngryClown: Mitch is blogging in blackface! Racist!
December 19th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I want to know why the former Hennepin County prosecutor says there’s no relationship between who gets arrested and who’s committing the crimes. What was he doing all those years when he was in charge?
Is there no relationship because cops simply arrest “the usual suspects” regardless of who actually committed the crime? If so, shouldn’t there be an impressive number of acquittals? Why are there so many incarcerations if those arrested are mostly innocent?
Left: “Because the white-bread middle class Lutherans on the jury pool hate Blacks and vote to convict regardless of the evidence.”
Right: “Because Johnson is full of it; the people who were arrested actually did commit the crimes.”
Not sure how to resolve this one.
.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
The article – incoherent as it often is – focuses on recidivism programs. Which is, I suppose, more manageable than, say, trying to reverse the damage caused by forty years of debilitating nannystatism, which began about the time 400 years of slavery and discrimination ended. ….
No action is an action – Sun Tsu.
Mitch, making the call that ‘you know best’ and they should simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps is no less condescending than anything you accuse the left of, but has the nice advantage of leaving you with no accountability to help, no responsibility to be charitable, or pay taxes, or anything. It’s a nice approach, that of course, doesn’t work at all.
That said, if you think the welfare state/help for Blacks started (to any real effect) in 1865, well I know you don’t, but you effectively said it did when you said it started about the time the slavery ended, that’s rather looney (no not the Canadian dollar – which thanks to our fiscal policies is now kicking the crap out of George W.. ashington) but rather than the vast majority of blacks suffered under defacto racist states for the next 50 plus years after the Civil War ended… and yet, interestingly, they didn’t all become wealthy, poverty didn’t end. In short, what you want has been tried, and it failed. It resulted in a perpectual underclass, no different than you claim welfare/assistance causes now. It may be true that for some, even a large overall number, living off the dole is preferred (due to low pay, lack of structure/example/healthcare/childcare), but it’s also true that poverty among the elderly in 1946 was 80% (plus – I just don’t recall the exact percentage), by 1970, it was down to being in the 20’s.. 24% as I recall. Sometimes, public fabrics of support work – Social Security has and did.. General Assistance probably has saved lives, but the perpetual poverty hasn’t changed. Time for a new approach…
December 19th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
if you think the welfare state/help for Blacks started (to any real effect) in 1865, well I know you don’t, but you effectively said it did when you said it started about the time the slavery ended,
I said no such thing, ever. Never.
Show me, right now, where I came within a hundred billion miles of saying that.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
In the immortal words of AC:
“Suck it, douchebag.”
Whoever uses that first will win this arguement.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
Maybe your creepy pal Swiftee will provide another snuff film from his collection.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Creepy, eh? Wow, I only get “scary”. Swiftee is onviously a step up the ladder of right-wing horrors in AC’s world. Go Swiftee!
December 19th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Oops, “obviously”….the b is right by the n…
December 20th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Heh.
It’s nice to see that after the drubbing he took yesterday, AssClown borrowed a nut from someone, climbed out of his shine box and is ready to recieve more hearty mockery.
Atta boy douchebag. No shame baby, no shame.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:06 pm
“there’s no more racism” thing?
An interesting oversimplification. Useful for chain yanking, and not much else.
“wingnuts think racism ended about 40 years ago cause that’s when the racists started voting Republican instead of Democratic”
Hasn’t the “Great Society” package of failed policies been around for longer than that?