Social A Judge Asked Harvard to Find Out Why So Many Black People Were In Prison

I think Denzel said it best when he said something like “if the system gets you, it’s already too late”
 
hat they found is the criminal justice system is unequal on every level. Cops in the state are more likely to stop Black drivers. Police are more likely to search or investigate Black residents. Law enforcement agents charge Black suspects with infractions that carry worse penalties. Prosecutors are less likely to offer Black suspects plea bargains or pre-trial intervention. Judges sentence Black defendants to longer terms in prison. And get this: The average white felon in the Massachusetts Department of Corrections has committed a more severe crime than the average Black inmate.
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People keep talking about the sentencing but the results were about EVERY level.

1) More blacks get stopped.
2) More blacks are going to get searched when stopped.
3) The get charged with more serious infractions.
4) LEss likely to be offered pre-trial intervention.

That means that when you're more likely to stop black people than white people then you're shifting the pool of potential arrestees towards your black population. Then you're more likely to search/investigate the black residents, which means that within the shifted pool, you're further shifting the potential arrestees towards the group that you're searching. This matters for possessors of contraband like drugs. If you're not searching one group of people, you're not going to find contraband on them as frequently as you do on the group that you're searching. This shifts the arrestee pool further towards your black population.

So, you're stopping fewer white people and searching a smaller percentage of the ones you are stopping. If this was a math problem and you had 100 black people and 100 white people but you randomly stop 60 blacks for every 50 whites, the potential criminal pool is going to shift black. Then you search 50% of the blacks but 40% of the whites. That means searching 30 blacks and 20 whites. So now you've gone from a 50/50 population group to a 60/40 group.

Then you offer pre-trial intervention to 50% of the whites but only 40% of the blacks. So, 12 blacks get pre-trial intervention and 10 whites. That leaves us with 18 blacks going to jail vs. 10 whites. What started as a 50/50 split has been shifted to one where the black population is almost 2x as likely to go to jail, although they're not committing the more severe crimes.

The percentages that I used don't really matter, the point is to show how an unsupported disparity at one level results in greater disparities at the next level. It is a cumulative effect. By the time you get to sentencing, it's almost irrelevant. The impact of bias has already skewed the outcomes.
 
HOLA said:
"The average Black person’s sentence is 168 days longer than a sentence for a white person. Even when the researchers controlled for criminal history, jurisdiction, and neighborhood, they concluded: “[R]acial disparities in sentence length cannot solely be explained by the contextual factors that we consider and permeate the entire criminal justice process.”
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Why compare to only whites? What aobut Asains or jews?
 
I didn't go to harvard but I can answer the question...priors
 
I haven't read most of the replies in the thread.

My initial thoughts concerning the Harvard findings has me wondering about location. In America as a people we tend to separate our selfs on the location we live - most hispanics live in hispanic neighborhoods, most whites live in white neighborhoods, and most black Americans live in black neighborhoods.

In mostly black neighborhoods and towns a large percentage of those in charge of the local government and court system are black and members of the Democrat party. In most black neighborhoods and cities mayors are often black, police chiefs are often black, district attorneys are often black Americans, etc.

So my initial thought is that black Americans who run the local government and court system tend to be harder on those that live in their neighborhoods/cities.
 
Sounds like the judge should look up violent crime rates.
 
panamaican said:
People keep talking about the sentencing but the results were about EVERY level.

1) More blacks get stopped.
2) More blacks are going to get searched when stopped.
3) The get charged with more serious infractions.
4) LEss likely to be offered pre-trial intervention.
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and why is that?
 
ShadowRun said:
That's the system... it needs human input right? what you think there is some telekinetic racism happening by individual people in different states that black people in high power don't know about?
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<{CMPALM}>
 
OK, so that's America explained. But it also appears that systemic racism is so powerful and wide reaching that it still makes people commit high levels crime in countries where there aren't even any white people about.
 
So does every country In the world have systemic racim? Because in any country where there is a prevalent black population, they are over-represented in the prison population and also commit way more violent crimes per capita than other races.
 
My Spot said:
Sounds like the judge should look up violent crime rates.
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No. That's be racist and would undo this brilliant research that makes sure that people arent held up to any standards
 
Diogenes of Sinope said:
Men are more likely to commit crime. its behavioral.


LBJ incentivized the black community to break up the nuclear family, completely compromising the culture decades down the road from a psychological perspective.
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So what incentive was there for only blacks?
 
Headkicktoleg said:
Yeah people involved in drugs NEVER hurt anyone else
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The act of taking drugs hurts nobody but the user. Any violent behavior or crimes to other people’s property is not related to the act of doing a drug.
You could argue that alcohol is the largest cause of violence/death/accidents in the country, but it still remains legal. Why is that? I think there is a stigma related to drug use, if these drugs were readily available and government regulated, maybe this would make it so people addicted to drugs could try to find a better way without resorting to criminal behavior to support a habit. But the blanket argument that drug addicts are violent is overstated. You have violent criminals from all walks of life.
 
Kdup said:
The act of taking drugs hurts nobody but the user. Any violent behavior or crimes to other people’s property is not related to the act of doing a drug.
You could argue that alcohol is the largest cause of violence/death/accidents in the country, but it still remains legal. Why is that? I think there is a stigma related to drug use, if these drugs were readily available and government regulated, maybe this would make it so people addicted to drugs could try to find a better way without resorting to criminal behavior to support a habit. But the blanket argument that drug addicts are violent is overstated. You have violent criminals from all walks of life.
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Load of shit. How do people know you have drugs unless you're doing something that bothers other people?

Regardless, the reason we have drug laws is the same we have littering laws. You're not 'hurting anyone' when you litter. But littering makes society dirty for everyone else. Ever been to a city like San Francisco where drugs actually are just about legal? Bums on the street, drugged out people everywhere. None of them are 'hurting anyone'. But holy shit, fuck that. That's why we have drug laws -- to keep all that shit out public and out of sight, and keep society looking clean. Just like littering laws don't actually get rid of trash, they just hide it in a dump -- that's what drug laws are for: to hide drugs from public sight.

And unless you make your drug use public, like driving while high and then the cop can smell your stuff during a traffic stop, you're usually ignored as it is.
 
superpunch said:
Load of shit. How do people know you have drugs unless you're doing something that bothers other people?

Regardless, the reason we have drug laws is the same we have littering laws. You're not 'hurting anyone' when you litter. But littering makes society dirty for everyone else. Ever been to a city like San Francisco where drugs actually are just about legal? Bums on the street, drugged out people everywhere. None of them are 'hurting anyone'. But holy shit, fuck that. That's why we have drug laws -- to keep all that shit out public and out of sight, and keep society looking clean. Just like littering laws don't actually get rid of trash, they just hide it in a dump -- that's what drug laws are for: to hide drugs from public sight.

And unless you make your drug use public, like driving while high and then the cop can smell your stuff during a traffic stop, you're usually ignored as it is.
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I’m gonna have to disagree with you. Personal choices should not be criminalized. If you’re not hurting anyone or anything there shouldn’t be a penalty. Victimless crimes are a joke. Littering is not hurting anyone, but destroying someone else’s property, which is why it’s illegal.
I think drugs are criminalized because they are essentially a boogie man in society, all the people think that drugs are the worst thing ever, then sit back and pound alcohol. It’s hypocritical at the least. I also think San Francisco has a unique problem, I don’t think we should just let everyone lay on the street and shoot up, but we could try like what places in Europe do, where they help the people by giving them shelter and mental health counseling. This is more of a solution then throwing them in jail over and over again. Not to mention every time they get arrested is another interaction with police, that results in fatal shootings occasionally. Reducing the amount of police interactions would greatly improve the lives of all Americans. The police included.
 
Kdup said:
I’m gonna have to disagree with you. Personal choices should not be criminalized. If you’re not hurting anyone or anything there shouldn’t be a penalty. Victimless crimes are a joke. Littering is not hurting anyone, but destroying someone else’s property, which is why it’s illegal.
I think drugs are criminalized because they are essentially a boogie man in society, all the people think that drugs are the worst thing ever, then sit back and pound alcohol. It’s hypocritical at the least. I also think San Francisco has a unique problem, I don’t think we should just let everyone lay on the street and shoot up, but we could try like what places in Europe do, where they help the people by giving them shelter and mental health counseling. This is more of a solution then throwing them in jail over and over again. Not to mention every time they get arrested is another interaction with police, that results in fatal shootings occasionally. Reducing the amount of police interactions would greatly improve the lives of all Americans. The police included.
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San Francisco doesn't have a unique problem. Many cities have the same problem, such as Seattle and Portland, from the same cause. Virtually legal drugs. If you want to try some other policy such as rehabilitation to clean up the streets, fine. As long as drugs aren't ignored, and people are forced, one way or the other, to stop using them.
 
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