Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Go and search?

If "Black people were almost seven times more likely than white people to be stopped and searched by police last year", why isn't the arrest rate seven times lower if they are being unfairly targeted!?!

"Of those black people stopped, 13% were subsequently arrested. This compares to 12% of stops leading to arrest across all ethnic groups."

3 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Hmm.

You could also argue that 12%-13% of any racial group is up to no good at any time (unlikely but possible) and therefore, perhaps the police are failing to stop and search enough whites.

That said, if their hit-rate is 12%-13% that suggests to me that the police are doing a good job at picking out the baddies.

Anonymous said...

Either there is a disproportionate incidence of certain major types of crime among blacks OR they are being discriminated against as a result of unnaceptable racism and sent to prison when whites would not be in the same circumstances.

Either veiwpoint at least has the merit of logicality. What is not logical is what we have, to continue disproportionate sending of blacks to prison while at the same time denying there are any cultural problems in black society.

Anonymous said...

oh please