Crime statistics

A Department of Justice report titled "Race and Hispanic Origins of Victims and Offenders, 2012-15 found that a majority of most violent crimes are committed by people who are the same race as their victims, dispelling this dumb idea idiots and racists alike peddle that black people are some huge threat to white people. According to the report, 57 percent of crimes involving white victims were committed by white perpetrators, while only 15 percent were committed by blacks, and 11 percent by Hispanics. Black crime victims fell along similar racial lines, with 63 percent of the crimes committed by black perpetrators, while 11 percent were committed by whites, and 6.6 percent by Hispanics. Furthermore, the study finds that the rate of white-on-white violent crime (12.0 per 1,000) was about four times higher than black-on-white violent crime (3.1 per 1,000). The rate of black-on-black crime (16.5 per 1,000) was more than five times higher than white-on-black violent crime (2.8 per 1,000). The rate of Hispanic-on-Hispanic crime (8.3 per 1,000) was about double the rate of white-on-Hispanic (4.1 per 1,000) and black-on-Hispanic (4.2 per 1,000) violent crime. This can be seen in Figure 27, 28, and 29 below. Although this is a US government organization reporting these numbers, it didn't stop president Trump from retweeting false crime statistics attributed to a fake organization which originated from a neo-Nazi twitter account (which has since been deleted).

Using interactive charts from Mapping Police Violence, it is evident that police shoot and kill 65 unarmed white people and 48 unarmed black people annually, on average. Using FBI data from 2016, 2017, and 2018 it is evident that white people commit 5,601,375 crimes annually, on average and black people commit 2,200,063 annually, on average. Thus, using math (annual average number of unarmed people shot and killed by police divided by the annual average number of crimes committed), it can be determined that police kill 0.00116% of unarmed white criminals and 0.00218% of unarmed black criminals. This means that police kill unarmed black offenders twice as much as unarmed white offenders.

It is important to note that the fact that black people commit 2x as much crime as white people is irrelevant here, as we are looking solely at the relationship between unarmed people being killed by police and number of crimes committed. Regardless of how much crime one group is or isn't committing the ratio between unarmed people killed and crimes committed should ideally be equal since it doesn't take into account population. But it's not.

A study from the Criminology & Public Policy journal, which I link the full text to on SciHub since the publisher does not offer a free version of the full text, analyzed the 990 police fatal shootings (963 which included race data) which occurred in 2015 and found that minority groups (not white) were signifgantly more likely to have not been attacking the officer when they were shot and Black civilians were more than twice as likely as White civilians to have been unarmed. See Figure 30 below for the data visualized.

• The data shows that 93 civilians were unarmed when they were fatally shot by police - 32 were white, 38 were black, and 23 were "other." In total there were 495 white offenders, meaning 6.46% of white people police shot and killed were unarmed. There were 258 black offenders, meaning 14.72% of black people shot and killed were unarmed. There were 210 "other" offenders, meaning 10.95% of "other" people police shot and killed were unarmed. So in 2015 police shot and killed unarmed black people 2.27x as much as unarmed white people and shot and killed "other" people 1.69x as much as unarmed white people.

• Data shows that 212 civilians were not attacking when they were fatally shot by police - 83 were white, 63 were black, and 66 were "other." In total there were 495 white offenders, meaning 16.76% of white people police shot and killed were not attacking. In total there were 258 black offenders, meaning 24.41% of black people police shot and killed were not attacking. In total there were 210 "other" offenders, meaning 31.42% of "other" people shot and killed by police were not attacking. So in 2015 police shot and killed non attacking black people 0.68x as much as non attacking white people and police shot and killed non attacking "other" people 1.59x as much as non attacking white people.

• "Fifteen percent of Black civilians shot and killed by police last year were unarmed at the time of their death compared with 6% of White civilians," showing that, like the data above from the FBI and Mapping Police Violence, unarmed black people are shot and killed by police 2x as much as unarmed white people.

  • "Black civilians were significantly more likely than White civilians to have been unarmed when they were shot and killed by police, net of other factors. Indeed, the odds ratio indicates that Black civilians who died by police gunfire were more than twice as likely as Whites to have been unarmed, holding all else constant."

• The research ultimately concludes that "Our findings showed that citizens in the other racial/ethnic group were significantly more likely than Whites to have not been attacking the officer(s) or other civilians and that Blacks were more than twice as likely as Whites to have been unarmed when they were shot and killed by police. These findings suggest evidence of implicit bias in real-world scenarios."

Using data from Statista's "Number of people shot to death by the police in the United States from 2017 to 2020, by race" chart and their "Resident population of the United States by race from 2000 to 2019" data it is evident that police annually kill a larger percentage of the black population than the white population, about 3x more black people than white people relative to population. In 2017 police shot and killed 0.000183% of the white population and 0.000514% of the black population, that is 2.8x as much. In 2018 police shot and killed 0.000159% of the white population and 0.000477% of the black population, that is 3x as much. Then in 2019 police shot and killed 0.000147% of the white population and 0.000533% of the black population, that is 3.6x as much. All percentages were calculated by (# of people of a certain race shot and killed by police in year X / population of that race in year X) x 100.

Using this same Statista data and FBI data it is evident that black people account for about 2x as much crime as white people, relative to population. In 2017, 2.257% of the white population was arrested for a crime and 5.122% of the black population was arrested for a crime, that's 2.2x as much. In 2018, 2.128% of the white population was arrested for a crime and 4.837% of the black population was arrested for a crime, that's also 2.2x as much. Then in 2019, 1.887% of the white population was arrested for a crime and 4.117% of the black population was arrested for a crime, that's 2.1x as much. All percentages were calculated by (# of people of a certain race arrested for a crime in year X / population of that race in year X) x 100. So despite the fact that black people have accounted for an average of 2.16x more crime than white people between 2017-2019 they are being shot and killed 3.13x as much as seen above.

This is obviously disproportionate, as in an equal system it would be expected for black people to be killed 2.12x as much as white people since they account for 2.12x more crime than white people, relative to population, but that is not the case. Either white people need to be shot and killed more or black people need to be shot and killed less. I prefer the latter.

2017 FBI crime statistics

2018 FBI crime statistics

2019 FBI crime statistics

Statista - Number of people shot to death by the police in the United States from 2017 to 2020, by race

Statista - Resident population of the United States by race from 2000 to 2019

Brief from the Center for Strategic & International Studies - The Military, Police, and the Rise of Terrorism in the United States

• The majority of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in the US in 2020 is attributed to the far-right: "White supremacists, extremist militia members, and other violent far-right extremists were responsible for 66 percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in 2020—roughly consistent with their share in other recent years."

  • This is visualized below in Figure 31.

• While fatalities were rather low, 2020 saw the most domestic terrorist attacks and plots since 1994: "In 2020, the number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots increased to its highest level since at least 1994, though fatalities were relatively low."

Data from the Southern Poverty Law Center - "REPORT TO THE NATION: 2019 FACTBOOK ON HATE & EXTREMISM IN THE U.S. & INTERNATIONALLY"

• When looking at hate crimes by bias motivation for select major US cities in 2018, anti-black hate crimes were either the first or second most reported crime in 13 of the 19 major US cities, and anti-white crimes were never the most reported and were only the second most reported in one instance. In total, 310 anti-black crimes were committed and just 83 anti-white crimes were committed in these major cities. Thus, anti-black crime occurs 3.7x as often as anti-white crime (Figure 6 below). In cities that provided more specific breakdowns, it is evident that black people were most frequently targeted - 23.5% of all crimes motivated by bias - and white people were only targeted 9.1% of the time.

• "Race-based or anti-African American hate crimes were again the top bias categories in most cities, followed closely by anti-Gay and anti-Jewish hate crimes." (page 6)

• "In our latest 2018 multi-city study, race and ethnicity-based hate crimes, led by anti-Black hate crimes, again accounted for the greatest share" (page 10)

  • "In those cities with more specific breakdowns, African Americans were the most frequent target at 23.5 percent" (page 11)

• White supremacy continues to be the most occurring hate/extremist motivated ideology of violent perpetrators. That same SPLC report includes data that shows that 48.6% (18/37) of all hate/extremist motivated homicide incidents from 2016-2018 were committed by white supremacist perpetrators (Figure 19). Only 2.7% (1/37) of all hate/extremist motivated homicide incidents were committed by black supremacist perpetrators. Thus, white supremacists account for 18x more homicide incidents than black supremacists. In terms of total homicides, white supremacists accounted for 26.8% (33/123) of all hate/extremist homicides whereas black supremacists accounted for 2.4% (3/123) of all hate/extremist homicides. Thus, white supremacists account for 11x more homicides than black supremacists (Figure 20).

  • White nationalism/far right extremism continue to be most ascendant" (page 3)

  • "SPLC states far right and white nationalist extremist homicides rose from 17 in 2017 to 40 in 2018 in the U.S. and Canada. SPLC cites a 'mainstreaming of hate' by intolerant politicians, cable news celebrities, and various groups, along with fears over demographic change and immigration, as factors influencing a 'flourishing' white supremacist movement," (page 39)

Data from the Center for Strategic & International Studies - "The Escalating Terrorism Problem in the United States"

• After reviewing a data set of 893 terrorist plots and attacks in the United States between January 1994 and May 2020, "far-right terrorism has significantly outpaced terrorism from other types of perpetrators, including from far-left networks and individuals inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Right-wing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994, and the total number of right-wing attacks and plots has grown significantly during the past six years."

• Between 1994 and 2020, right-wing terrorist attacks caused 335 deaths, left-wing attacks caused 22 deaths. So, right-wing terrorism and violence kill 15x more people then left-wing terrorism and violence.

  • "right-wing terrorist attacks caused 335 deaths, left-wing attacks caused 22 deaths, and ethnonationalist terrorists caused 5 deaths."

• Right-wing attackers were most likely to cause more deaths in any given year: In 14 of the 21 years between 1994 and 2019 in which fatal terrorist attacks occurred, the majority of deaths resulted from right-wing attacks.

  • "right-wing perpetrators were responsible for more than half of all annual fatalities in 14 of the 21 years during which fatal attacks occurred."

  • "In eight of these years, right-wing attackers caused all of the fatalities, and in three more—including 2018 and 2019—they were responsible for more than 90 percent of annual fatalities."

  • Furthermore, the CSIS identify that right-wing extremists perpetrated two thirds of the attacks and plots in the United States in 2019 (Figure 7). "Right-wing extremists perpetrated two thirds of the attacks and plots in the United States in 2019 and over 90 percent between January 1 and May 8, 2020."

2019 data from the Anti Defamation League - "Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2019"

• Data shows that 90% of all extremist related murders in 2019 were the act of right-wing extremists: "As is typically the case, the extremist-related murders of 2019 were overwhelmingly (90%) linked to right-wing extremists."

• "Over the past 10 years, right-wing extremists committed 76% of extremist-related murders, making the 2019 figure higher than average." See Figure 24 below.

  • Of these right-wing extremist murders, the overwhelming majority were committed by white supremacists, 78% to be exact (Figure 25). So, white supremacists alone commit more violence than the entire left-wing extremists.

• Of the 10 deadliest acts of domestic extremism in the US since 1970, five were attributed to right-wing extremists and two were attributed to left-wing extremism (Figure 26).

• Check Your Fact, a part of The Daily Caller News Foundation, (a right-wing news organization founded by Tucker Carlson) conducted an independent analysis of domestic extremism for the same 10-year time frame as the ADL did in this 2019 study and came to the same conclusion: "our findings support the ADL statistic. Using their definition of right-wing extremists, we found that 92 percent of ideologically motivated homicide incidents were committed with a right-wing extremist or white supremacist motive."

The number of white supremacist murders in the United States more than doubled in 2017 compared to the previous year according to the ADL (Figure 8).

• "The number of white supremacist murders in the United States more than doubled in 2017 compared to the previous year, far surpassing murders committed by domestic Islamic extremists and making 2017 the fifth deadliest year on record for extremist violence since 1970."

Data from a paper published by the Government Accountability Office - "COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM Actions Needed to Define Strategy and Assess Progress of Federal Efforts"

• Uses statistics from the United States Extremist Crime Database which includes foreign and domestic terrorism.

• Prior to 2016 (the most recent data this paper analyses) "there were no attacks since 1990 by persons associated with extreme leftist ideologies that resulted in fatalities to non-perpetrators." (page 4)

• "Of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since September 12, 2001, far right wing violent extremist groups were responsible for 62 (73 percent) while radical Islamist violent extremists were responsible for 23 (27 percent)." (page 4)

• In an 18 year span, the GAO found that "fatalities resulting from attacks by far right wing violet extremists have exceeded those caused by radical Islamist violent extremists in 10 of the 15 years, and were the same in 3 of the years since September 12, 2001." (page 4)

Independent researchers looked at politically motivated plots and attacks from 2008-2016 and found that domestic terrorism is primarily motivated by right-wing causes (Figure 9). The methodology and instances of terrorism can be found here with this interactive map and in a separate article here which lists the several organizations and agencies data was drawn from.

• The research identified 63 cases of Islamic domestic terrorism, of which 76% were foiled plots, and 115 cases of far-right domestic terrorism, of which 35% were failed plots. So despite happening more often, right-wing domestic terrorism is stopped less than Islamic terrorism. This comes from a study done by Type Investigations the authors cite later on.

  • "From January 2008 to the end of 2016, we identified 63 cases of Islamist domestic terrorism, meaning incidents motivated by a theocratic political ideology espoused by such groups as the Islamic State. The vast majority of these (76 percent) were foiled plots, meaning no attack took place. During the same period, we found that right-wing extremists were behind nearly twice as many incidents: 115. Just over a third of these incidents (35 percent) were foiled plots. The majority were acts of terrorist violence that involved deaths, injuries or damaged property."

• Research also showed that right-wing domestic terrorism was more deadly: "Right-wing extremist terrorism was more often deadly: Nearly a third of incidents involved fatalities, for a total of 79 deaths, while 13 percent of Islamist cases caused fatalities. (The total deaths associated with Islamist incidents were higher, however, reaching 90, largely due to the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas.)" See Figure 23 below.

• Left-wing domestic terrorism was extremely rare: "Incidents related to left-wing ideologies, including ecoterrorism and animal rights, were comparatively rare, with 19 incidents causing seven fatalities"

• Using data from The Investigative Fund database (now known as Type Investigations), the research identified that "While a majority of the incidents were perpetrated by right-wing extremists (57 percent), the database indicates that federal law enforcement agencies focused their energies on pre-empting and prosecuting Islamist attacks, which constituted 31 percent of all incidents, a finding confirmed by counterterror experts."

  • Also, this means 57% of all domestic terrorism acts in the US between 2008-2016 were committed by right-wing perpetrators

Data from Type Investigations shows that right-wing domestic terrorism occurs more often than any other form of domestic terrorism in two separate studies - one titled "Home Is Where the Hate Is," and the other titled "Domestic Terror in the Age of Trump."

• See Figure 21 for data on the first study and Figure 22 for data on the second below

A heat map documenting extremist attacks from 2002-2019 found that (surprise) a vast majority of attacks are motivated by some sort of “right-wing” cause. Between 2002-2019 there were a total of 8,770 right wing extremist incidents and just 35 left wing extremist incidents. Between 2002-2019 there were a total of 265 right wing extremist murders and 9 left wing extremist murders. So based on this data we can conclude that the right wing accounts for 250x more extremist incidents and 29x more extremist murders than the right wing.

FBI director Christopher Wray has also stated that racially motivated violence, specifically white supremacy, is the biggest chunk of the FBI's case portfolio and that white supremacists are responsible for the most lethal attacks over the past decade (as the data from this section shows) as reported here. The Hill quotes him as saying "And within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people subscribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that." Even back in 2019, Wray said that white supremacy was a "persistent" and "pervasive" threat - quoted as saying "We assess that it is a persistent, pervasive threat" by The Hill - and in 2017 the FBI opened up a slew of investigations into violent white supremacy under his direction. When talking to Congress in 2021 (skip to 43:00 in the video) Wray stated that the number of white supremacist arrests in 2020 was almost triple that of his first year as FBI director in 2017. So, according to Wray, it's evident that violent extremism is persistent and pervasive and the biggest chunk of that violent extremism is white supremacy.

In addition to all of this, a survey from the American Survey Center found that 39% of Republicans believe violence is necessary if a leader "fails to act," whereas only 17% of Democrats believe political violence is necessary. This means that Republicans are 2.3x more likely than Democrats to endorse political violence.

Data from the 2019 FBI Hate Crime Statistics Report

• The report identifies "7,314 criminal incidents and 8,559 related offenses as being motivated by bias toward race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity." So there were almost 16,000 hate crime incidents in 2019 (15,873 to be exact).

• Regarding offenders, 52.5% of hate crime offenders were white while 23.9% were black, meaning white people committed over 2x as much hate crime as black people in 2019.

  • According to Table 3 on the FBI report, white offenders committed more acts of murder and noneglicent manslaughter, aggravated assault, simple assault, human trafficking, and intimidation than black offenders. Black offenders only committed more acts of rape (12 acts committed by a white offender, 13 committed by a black offender) than white offenders.

    • Overall, white offenders committed 2.446x more crimes against persons than black offenders (2,865 offenses committed by white people, 1,171 offenses committed by black people) in 2019.

  • Also according to table Table 3 on the report, white offenders committed more acts of burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, and destruction/vandalism than black offenders. Black offenders only committed more acts of robbery than white offenders.

    • Overall, white offenders committed 3.07x more property crime than black offenders (532 offenses by white offenders, 173 offenses by black offenders) in 2019.

• Regarding the victims of single-bias hate crimes, an overwhelming 57.6% were targeted due to their race/ethnicity. The FBI identifies that "there were 4,930 victims of race/ethnicity/ancestry motivated hate crime."

  • Of these hate crimes committed with a racial motive 48.5% were committed with an anti-black motive while just 15.7% were committed with an anti-white motive, meaning anti-black crimes happened 3.08x more than anti-white crime in 2019.

  • According to Table 1 on the FBI report, there were 666 anti-white incidents to 1,930 anti-black incidents, meaning there were 2.897x (1,930/666 = 2.897) more anti-black incidents than anti-white incidents in 2019.

  • Also according to Table 1 on the report, there were 755 anti-white offenses to 2,314 anti-black offenses, meaning there were 3.06x (2,314/755 = 3.06) more anti-black offenses than anti-white offenses in 2019.

  • Also according to Table 1 on the report, there were 755 victims of anti-white offenses and 2,391 victims of anti-black offenses meaning there were 3.166x (2,391/755 = 3.166) more victims of anti-black offenses than anti-white offenses in 2019.

• Regarding bias motivation, Table 7 in the report lays out this data

  • 0 acts of murder motivated by anti-white bias to 1 act of murder motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 6 acts of rape motivated by anti-white bias to 2 acts of rape motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 108 acts of aggravated assault motivated by anti-white bias to 344 acts of aggravated assault motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 240 acts of simple assault motivated by anti-white bias to 546 acts of simple assault motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 143 acts of intimidation motivated by anti-white bias to 797 acts of intimidation motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 3 "other acts" motivated by anti-white bias to 8 "other acts" motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 17 acts of robbery motivated by anti-white bias to 17 acts of robbery motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 13 acts of burglary motivated by anti-white bias to 19 acts of burglary motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 60 acts of larceny theft motivated by anti-white bias to 19 acts of larceny theft motivated by anti-white bias.

  • 3 acts of arson motivated by anti-white bias to 11 acts of arson motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 82 acts of destruction/vandalism motivated by anti-white bias to 569 acts of destruction/vandalism motivated by anti-black bias.

  • 15 "other acts" motivated by anti-white bias to 22 "other acts" motivated by anti-black bias.

  • So, black people are more likely to experience murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, intimidation, burglary, arson, and vandalism committed with an anti-black bias when compared to white people experiencing anti-white bias. White people are more likely to experience just rape and larceny theft committed with an anti-white bias.

A study done by the Anti Defamation League found that from from 1991-2000, one police officer was killed by a left-wing extremist and 16 were killed by right-wing extremists. Then from 2001-2010, two police officers were killed by left-wing extremists and 25 were killed by right-wing extremists. Then from 2011-2019, 8 police officers were killed by left-wing extremists and 11 police officers were killed by right-wing extremists. So, in the past 30 years, left-wing extremists have killed 11 police officers and right-wing extremists have killed 52 police officers, 4.72x more than left-wing extremists. See Figure 13 below.

• Link to study because it is a pdf: https://www.adl.org/media/14107/download

The United States Sentencing Commission, a government entity, identifies that black male offenders receive longer sentences than similarly situated white male offenders. The US government acknowledges that the criminal justice system has a harsher impact on black offenders who've committed similar crimes as white offenders. Specifically, the report found that black male offenders receive 19.1% longer federal sentences than similarly-situated white male offenders.

• This study states that the dependent variable is "an offender’s total sentence length, in months, which included alternatives to imprisonment" and the independent variables were as follows:

  • The presumptive sentence, which is the bottom of the applicable sentencing guideline range that applies in a case (i.e., the minimum sentence, in months, to which the offender was subject under the sentencing guidelines, taking into account all guideline, statutory, and mandatory minimum provisions);

  • Type of offense committed (violent, sexual, pornography, drug trafficking, white collar, immigration, or other);

  • Whether a statutory mandatory minimum punishment was applied at sentencing;

  • Whether the court determined that a sentence outside the applicable sentencing guideline range was warranted;

  • on bail prior to sentencing);

  • Whether the offender pleaded guilty;

  • Race of the offender paired with the gender of the offender;

  • Citizenship of the offender (whether the offender was a United States citizen);

  • Educational level of the offender; and

  • Age of the offender.

• The study states that "Black male offenders continued to receive longer sentences than similarly situated White male offenders. Black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders." (page 2)

• The study states that "Black male offenders were 21.2 percent less likely than White male offenders to receive a non-government sponsored downward departure or variance," and "when Black male offenders did receive a non-government sponsored departure or variance, they received sentences 16.8 percent longer than White male offenders who received a non-government sponsored departure or variance," and, "there was a 7.9 percent difference in sentence length between Black male and White male offenders who received sentences within the applicable sentencing guidelines range." (page 2)

  • Departure and variance refer to sentences imposed outside of a specific range: "variance is a sentence imposed outside of a specified range based on specific sentencing factors codified by Congress in the U.S. Code (U.S.C.). A departure is a sentence imposed outside of a specified range based on specific sentencing guidelines and policies written by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch that publishes federal sentencing policies" according to Bloomberg Law. So essentially this means that black men are less likely to receive a sentence higher or lower than guidelines, but when they do it is always a sentence longer than similar white male offenders.

A 2017 paper from the National Registry for Exonerations found that innocent black people are 7x more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people and that black prisoners convicted for murder are 50% more likely to be innocent than any other convicted murderer.

• "Judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about seven times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people." (page ii)

• "African-American prisoners who are convicted of murder are about 50% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers." (page ii)

• Paper link because it is a pdf: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf

An examination of federal data done by the University of Michigan found that Black Americans spend about 10% more time in prison when compared to comparable White Americans who commit the same crimes: "blacks receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites arrested for the same crime"

• "Black arrestees are also disproportionately concentrated in federal districts that have higher sentences in general. Yet even after we control for these and other prior characteristics, an unexplained black-white sentence disparity of approximately 9 percent remains in our main sample. The disparity is nearly 13 percent in a broader sample that includes drug cases" (page 1,323)

• "Black male defendants in federal criminal cases receive much longer prison sentences than white men do" ( Page 1,321)

  • See Figure 14 below

• Used data from "multiple agencies" which covered "the universe of black and white male US citizens who were arrested for violent, property/fraud, weapons, and public order offenses and referred to federal prosecutors for potential prosecution" (page 1,321)

  • "These data allow us to compare the sentencing outcomes for black and white men who are arrested for the same offenses and appear comparable when they enter the federal justice system" (page 1,322)

• Link to the paper because it is a pdf: https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/11/16/black-men-sentenced-to-more-time-for-committing-the-exact-same-crime-as-a-white-person-study-finds/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2e26662cc5f3&httpsredir=1&article=2413&context=articles

A study from Michigan State University found that Between 1990 and 2010, state prosecutors struck (eliminate a potential juror) about twice as many potential black jurors than jurors of any other race.

• "In cases with non-black defendants, the average strike rate was 51.4% against black venire members and 26.8% against all other venire members. In cases with black defendants, the average strike rate was 60.0% against black venire members and 23.1% against other venire members." (page 12)

  • A venire is a panel of prospective jurors

• "Based on the MSU study, the Court found that prosecutors statewide struck 52.6% of eligible black venire members, compared to only 25.7% of all other eligible venire members. The probability of this disparity occurring in a race-neutral jury selection process was less than one in ten trillion." From the Death Penalty Information Center.

• The study’s authors testified the odds of this taking place in a race-neutral context were around 1 in 10 trillion (see item 49 on page 59).

In regards to sentencing and plea bargains, a research summary from the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the US Department of Justice found that collected data strongly indicates a racial bias against black people with regards to sentencing and plea bargains. More specifically, black people are less likely to receive a reduced charge compared with white people and studies suggest there is a relationship between race and whether or not a defendant receives a reduced charge.

• "The majority of research on race and sentencing outcomes shows that blacks are less likely than whites to receive reduced pleas." (page 3)

• "Studies that assess the effects of race find that blacks are less likely to receive a reduced charge compared with whites...one study found that blacks are also less likely to receive the benefits of shorter or reduced sentences as a result of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion during plea bargaining" (page 3)

• "Studies have generally found a relationship between race and whether or not a defendant receives a reduced charge," and the race which does not receive reduced charges the most is the black race.

A report from the Yale law journal found that black men are twice as likely to have charges which carry mandatory minimum sentences filed against them than similarly-situated white men.

• "research shows that after controlling for the arrest offense, criminal history, and other prior characteristics, there remains a black-white sentence-length gap of about 10%. But judges’ choices do not appear to be principally responsible. Instead, between half and the entire gap can be explained by the prosecutor’s initial charging decision—specifically, the decision to bring a charge carrying a 'mandatory minimum.' After controlling for pre-charge case characteristics, prosecutors in our sample were nearly twice as likely to bring such a charge against black defendants." So prosecutors are more likely to pursue a charge that has a mandatory minimum sentence when prosecuting black defendants than similarly situated white defendants.

A University of West Florida study found that black defendants with multiple prior convictions are 28% more likely to be charged as habitual offenders ("habitualized") than similarly-situated white defendants.

• "For example, consistent with the prior studies, Black offenders are significantly more likely to be habitualized than White offenders. Specifically, Blacks’ odds of being habitualized are 28% greater than Whites’ odds of being habitualized."

• Habitual offenders are more likely to receive "harsher sentences, greater penalties overall and specific consequences," than non habitualized offenders and some states have specific habitual offender laws. For example, under Mississippi state habitual offender laws "a person convicted of a third felony can be harshly punished, regardless of the severity of the crimes."

A study from The Urban Institute analyzing the histories of four probation offices found that black people were extremely more likely - 18 to 39% more likely - than similarly situated white people to have their probation revoked.

• A motion to provoke a probation is "a document that says you did something wrong while on probation."

• "In all four study sites, black probationers experienced probation revocation at significantly higher rates than white and Hispanic probationers. Revocation rates for black probationers in our study samples ranged from 55 percent higher than that of white probationers in Dallas County to over 100 percent higher in Multnomah County." (page 3)

• When Controlling for Nonracial and Nonethnic Characteristics the study found that "In every study site, black probationers had substantially and statistically significant higher odds of revocation than white or Hispanic probationers. The odds of revocation for white probationers were between 18 and 39 percent lower than for their black counterparts after controlling for available factors." (page 4)

Research from the Boston Law College Review finds that while black and white offenders of severe felonies receive similar sentences, white offenders are 25% more likely to have their principal initial charge dropped or reduced to a lesser crime than similarly situated black offenders, white defendants who face initial felony charges are less likely than similarly situated black defendants to be convicted of a felony, white defendants initially charged with misdemeanors are more likely than similarly situated black defendants to be convicted for crimes carrying no possible incarceration or not being convicted at all, and white offenders with no prior convictions received charge reductions signifgantly more often than black offenders with no prior convictions.

• "Similarly situated" here referring to white and black offenders who are of the same age and gender with the same prior convictions who were charged with the same crime (and same severity of that crime) and had the same type of trial (adjudicated by a bench or jury). Such data came from the Consolidated Court Automation Programs (CCAP) case management system. This is expanded upon on pages 22 and 27 of the text.

• After controlling for certain variables - a defendant's age, gender, criminal history, type of crime, severity of crime, type of trial (adjudicated by a bench or jury) the research finds that "Black defendants receive on average sentences that are 1.23 months longer than white defendants, a difference that is statistically significant and represents 32.6 percent of the average sentence in this sample of cases (3.77 months)."

  • Specifically, black offenders convicted of at least one felony offense receive prison sentences 3.19 months longer than similarly situated white offenders and black offenders in cases involving misdemeanors receive prison sentences 0.44 months longer than similarly situated white offenders.

    • "Black defendants convicted of at least one felony offense receive prison sentences that are 3.19 months higher than those received by white defendants, a difference that represents 30.9 of the average felony sentence in the sample. Although the difference in sentences received by black and white defendants in cases involving misdemeanor convictions, 0.44 months, is small in magnitude, it represents 45.4 percent of the average sentence in the misdemeanors sample."

• Looking specifically at incarceration rates for felony and misdemeanor charges, black offenders more likely to be incarcerated than similarly situated white offenders: "Black defendants are generally 15.1 percentage points more likely than white defendants to be incarcerated, a difference that represents 35.6 percent of the average incarceration rate in the data."

  • "In cases involving felony convictions, black defendants are 10.2 percentage points more likely than white defendants to be incarcerated, a difference that represents 24.3 percent of the average incarceration rate for felonies. In misdemeanor cases, the rate of incarceration for black defendants is 17.1 percentage points higher than that of white defendants, a difference representing 40.1 percent of the average incarceration rate for misdemeanor convictions."

  • "The results presented above show that black defendants are incarcerated at higher rates than white defendants and that the former also receive longer prison and jail sentences."

• Specifics on white offenders' charges being dropped or amended to a lesser charge more often than black offenders: In cases in which a defendant was initially charged with a crime that carries a potential jail or prison sentence "white defendants see their top charge dropped or amended to a lesser charge in 45.40% of the cases, while the charge reduction rate for black defendants is considerably lower, 35.98%. The difference between these two groups of defendants, 9.42 percentage points, is not only statistically significant, but is also of considerable magnitude - white defendants are over 25% more likely see their top charge dropped or amended to a lesser one than black defendants." In cases where defendants were initially charged with a less severe felony offense "white defendants received a charge reduction 49.83% of the time while black defendants received a charge reduction 39.87% of the time."

  • Focusing only on misdemeanor cases, "white defendants are 45.10% more likely than black defendants to see their top charge dropped or amended to a lesser one" and "white defendants are74.72% more likely than black defendants to see all misdemeanor charges carrying a potential imprisonment sentence dropped, dismissed or amended to lesser charges."

    • "not only are black defendants originally charged with misdemeanors more likely to be convicted of a misdemeanor than white defendants, but conditional on a misdemeanor conviction these black defendants are more likely to be punished by incarceration than white defendants."

  • Focusing only on felony cases, "white defendants receive charge reductions 5.99% more often than black defendants, a difference which is relative small, though still statistically significant," and "white defendants see their felony charges dropped or amended into a misdemeanor charge 14.56 % more often than black defendants."

  • Based on data from misdemeanor and felony cases the research suggests that "white defendants are more likely to be treated more favorably than black defendants in cases that involve low-level felonies, those “nearer” to the misdemeanor level."

    • Interestingly in cases with more severe or serious initial felony charges there is no disparity between white and black defendants.

  • For defendants with no prior convictions "White defendants charged with misdemeanors are more likely than black defendants to be ultimately convicted of crimes carrying no potential incarceration or have their charges dismissed. 200 Similarly, white defendants charged with felonies are more likely than black defendants to be convicted of a misdemeanor or lesser charge."

• White defendants with no prior convictions receive charge reductions 63.91% of the time while black defendants with no prior convictions receive charge reductions 50.66% of the time: "White defendants with no prior convictions receive charge reductions in 63.91% of the cases, 13.25 percentage points higher than the rate of charge reductions for black defendants with no prior convictions, 50.66%. In other words, white defendants with no prior convictions are over 25 percent more likely than black defendants to receive a charge reduction."

  • White defendants with no prior convictions who are charged with a misdemeanor are "33.06% more likely than similarly situated black defendant to see their top charges dropped or amended" and "46.27% more likely than black defendants to have all misdemeanor charges carrying a potential sentence dropped or amended to charges that carry no potential imprisonment."

  • White defendants who no prior charges who are charged with a felony "see their top felony charges reduced 63.67% of the time, while black defendants do so 55.47% of time" and "white defendants see all their felony charges dropped to a misdemeanor or lesser charge (or dropped entirely) in 59.96% of the cases, while for black defendants with no prior criminal history this favorable outcome occurs 48.33% of the time."

  • "there are substantial disparities in the rate of charge reductions received by white and black defendants who have no prior criminal records."

  • White defendants with at least one prior conviction and black defendants with at least one prior conviction see equal odds at receiving charge reductions though.

• Why all this disparity? - "Prosecutors trying to make optimal decisions may be employing race as a heuristic by, for example, being tougher on more dangerous criminals who would be more likely to recidivate. The use of race as this type of proxy would explain the cross-sectional differences in racial disparities identified earlier For example, defendants with a prior conviction have already proved their likelihood to recidivate, making race a less useful proxy. This could explain why disparities arise in the sample of defendants with no prior convictions (where race serves as a proxy for recidivism) but not in the sample of defendants with prior convictions (where race is a less valuable proxy for recidivism)." Essentially black defendants are perceived as more dangerous or more criminal because they are black: "in cases involving less severe crimes, it is harder to tell ex-ante how dangerous a person might ultimately be. Under these circumstances, a defendant’s race could be more useful to the prosecutor as a proxy of an individual’s latent criminality." A self fulfilling prophecy: black people are more dangerous criminals because they are black.

• Basically a summary of what this research has found: "Black defendants who are convicted of a crime are more likely than white defendants to be imprisoned and receive sentences that are on average longer than white defendants. Going back one step in the criminal justice process reveals similar disparities. White defendants are generally more likely to have their top charges dropped or amended to a lesser charge than black defendants. As a result, white defendants are more likely than black defendants to see their felony charges dropped or amended to misdemeanor charges and to see their initial misdemeanor charges reduced to charges carrying no potential imprisonment."

• The research concludes with "White defendants are more likely than black defendants to receive a reduction in their principal initial charge. As a result, white defendants who face initial felony charges are more likely than black defendants to end up being convicted of misdemeanors. Similarly, white defendants initially charged with misdemeanors are more likely than black defendants to be convicted for crimes carrying no possible incarceration or not being convicted at all. The disparities in plea bargaining documented in this article appear to be driven by cases in which defendants have no prior convictions and which involve less serious crimes. These cross-sectional patterns in plea-bargaining outcomes suggest that a defendant’s race may be serving as a proxy for his or her likelihood to recidivate and latent criminality."

An ACLU report which reviewed almost six months of data from DC's police stops and searches - 62,611 total stops made in less than 6 months - looking at race and outcome found that while DC's population is made up of 46.5% black residents and 37.1% white residents, black residents were overwhelmingly more likely to be stopped overall and were more likely to experience stops and searches which didn't lead to a warning, ticket, or arrest (Figure 15).

• The disparity between black and white individuals stopped by police in DC are as follows:

  • Black people are 410% more likely to be stopped by police

  • Black people are 1,465% more likely to be stopped for something which leads to no warning, ticket, or arrest

  • Black people are 3,695%more likely to be searched which results in no warning, ticket, or arrest

    • You can calculate these numbers yourself by using a percentage change calculator here

• "Not only are Black people stopped more frequently than white people, they also endure more intrusive stops. Overall, Black people made up over 90% of those who experienced a search or pat down of their person or property. As compared to white people who were stopped, Black people who were stopped were more than 6 times as likely to undergo a pat-down or search of their person and 5 times as likely to undergo a pat-down or search of their property. Despite these disparities, the difference between weapons recovered after searches of Black people, as compared to white people, was negligible and not statistically significant—4.6% of white people searched had weapons seized, compared with only 6.4% of Black people who were searched." (page 6)

• "The conclusions in this report support previous assertions that MPD’s stop practices unfairly overpolice the Black community, and that these practices require serious scrutiny and structural change." (page 2)

• "Although more research is needed to determine if the disparities identified in this report arise from racial bias, three points suggest that these trends are more than correlational. First, the vast majority of people who experienced the least justifiable stops were Black. Second, racial disparities exist even in parts of the District where Black people make up a very small share of the residential population. Third, Black people are searched at higher rates than white people, even though searches of Black people and white people result in weapons seizures at nearly equal rates. Taken together, these findings suggest that Black people in D.C. are not being policed fairly." (page 3)

• The data reported here indicates the disproportionate stopping and searching of black people in the DC area extended massively beyond any disproportionate rate of criminality, meaning racial bias and/or racism are why black people are being overpoliced so much here.

Another study, this one from Stanford University researchers, analyzed 9.5 million traffic stops in North Carolina and found that blacks and latinos were more likely to be searched than whites: 5.4 percent, 4.1 percent and 3.1 percent, respectively (Figure 16). However, while blacks and latinos were stopped and searched at a higher rate than whites, searches of white motorists were the most likely to reveal contraband: 32% of whites stopped revealed contraband while 29% of black stops and 19% of hispanic stops revealed contraband. They study also infers that the search thresholds for blacks and hispanics is lower than teh search threshold for whites, meaning the bar for stopping and searching black and hispanics is much lower than the bar for white drivers. That is to say, the law treat black people and hispanic people differently than white people.

• "Relative to white drivers, the benchmark test (comparing search rates) finds discrimination against blacks and Hispanics, while the outcome test (comparing hit rates) finds discrimination against blacks, Hispanics, and Asians." (page 9).

• "In nearly all the departments we consider, the inferred search thresholds for black and Hispanic drivers are lower than for whites, suggestive of discrimination against these groups." (page 10)

Another study, this one focusing on the city of Nashville, found that between 2011 and 2015, black drivers in Nashville’s Davidson County were pulled over at a rate of 1,122 stops per 1,000 drivers, so on average, more than once per black driver, meaning that black drivers are stopped 1.6x more than white drivers. Additionally, the study found that black drivers were much more likely than white drivers to be stopped multiple times per year. Despite black people being searched way more often, searches of white drivers were more likely to turn up contraband.

• "Although black drivers make up 27.6% of the total driving age population, they make up 39.3% of all stops. White drivers were stopped, on average, 683 per 1,000 white drivers. Black drivers are stopped 1.6 times the rate of white drivers." (page 34)

• "Black drivers are up to 5 times more likely than white drivers to be stopped multiple times in a year, showing a disproportionate burden of policing on black communities" (page 38)

  • "In 2015-2016, the rate for black drivers being stopped 2-5 times was 113% higher than the rate for white drivers." (page 39)

  • "Black drivers are 374% more likely than white drivers to be stopped 6-10 times in a year, and 364% more likely than white drivers to be stopped more than 10 times in a year." (page 39)

• "Discretionary searches of white drivers result in the discovery of incriminating evidence more often than discretionary searches of black and Hispanic drivers." (page 56)

  • In 2015 ~67% of probable cause searches of whites were successful while ~53% of probable cause searches of blacks were successful and 55% of probable cause searches of Hispanics were successful (Figure 17).

  • "the white-black disparity in probable cause search accuracy has grown over the past five years, from a 5% difference in 2011 to almost 15% in 2015." (page 56)

  • Despite the fact that MNPD conducts discretionary (probable cause and consent based) searches of black and Hispanic drivers at rates significantly higher than white drivers, searches of white drivers are far more likely to result in incriminating evidence than searches of black and Hispanic drivers." (page 56)

Lastly, this large study from Nature Human Behavior journal which "analysed a dataset detailing nearly 100million traffic stops carried out by 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police departments over almost a decade" found that black drivers are stopped more than white drivers on average, evidence of racial bias and discrimination in stop and searches, and that the bar for searching black and hispanic drivers’ cars is significantly lower than the bar for white drivers.

• "Relative to their share of the residential population, we found that black drivers were, on average, stopped more often than white drivers. In particular, among state patrol stops, the annual per-capita stop rate for black drivers was 0.10 compared to 0.07 for white drivers; and among municipal police stops, the annual per-capita stop rate for black drivers was 0.20 compared to 0.14 for white drivers."

• The authors bring up this idea of the veil-of-darkness test - a method that "starts from the idea that officers who engage in racial profiling are less able to identify a driver’s race after dark than during the day. As a result, if officers are discriminating against black drivers—all else being equal—one would expect black drivers to comprise a smaller share of stopped drivers at night, when a veil-of-darkness masks their race." They put this theory to the test, they looked at the demographic composition of drivers stopped by state patrol at various times of day, looking at them in 15 minute increments - "stops occurring in a specific 15-min window (for example, 19:00–19:15)" - and found that "For each time period, the plot shows a marked drop in the proportion of drivers stopped after dusk who are black, suggestive of discrimination in stop decisions."

  • Figure 2 in the study shows this data and the authors conclude that For all three depicted time windows, black drivers comprise a smaller share of stopped drivers after dark, when a veil of darkness masks their race, suggestive of racial profiling." This can be seen in Figure 18 below.

  • Even after accounting for "the extent that driver behaviour changes throughout the year," which could "suggest discrimination where there is none," the study finds that "In all cases, we found qualitatively similarly results that are suggestive of racial bias against black drivers in stop decisions."

• The study identifies that, while black and hispanic drivers are stopped more often than white drivers, white drivers are more likely to have contraband. Aggregating across state patrol stops, contraband was found in 32% of searches of white drivers, 24.3% of hispanic drivers, and 29.4% of black drivers. Aggregating across municipal police departments, contraband was found in 18.2% of searches of white drivers, 11% of hispanic drivers, and 13.9% of black drivers.

• This study also looks at the threshold test, similar to the Stanford study. "The threshold test has been proposed as a more robust means for detecting discrimination," and, "aims to estimate race-specific probability thresholds above which officers search drivers." The test is important because, "Even if two race groups have the same observed hit rate, the threshold test may find that one group is searched on the basis of less evidence, indicative of discrimination." After applying this threshold test the authors concluded that, "the threshold test provides evidence of racial bias in search decisions."

  • In their threshold test, the authors identify that "the inferred threshold for white drivers is 10.0% compared to 5.0 and 4.6% for black and Hispanic drivers, respectively." That is to say, the bar for searching black and hispanic drivers' cars is much lower than it is for white drivers - the law does not treat everyone equally. The authors say "the estimated gaps in search thresholds between white and non-white drivers are large and statistically significant."

    • "Compared to by-location hit rates, the threshold test more strongly suggests discrimination against black drivers, particularly for municipal stop."

    • "the threshold test finds that the bar for searching black drivers is lower than that for white drivers"

• Ultimately, the study concludes that "Our analysis provides evidence that decisions about whom to stop and, subsequently, whom to search are biased against black and Hispanic drivers."

• Link to pdf: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0858-1.pdf

A Justice Policy Institute study found that although White & Black Americans admit to using and selling illicit drugs at similar rates - 13% of white Americans used drugs and 10% of black Americans used drugs and 17% of white Americans sold drugs and 13% of black Americans sold drugs (page 6) - black Americans are much more likely to go to prison for a drug offense. In 2002, black Americans were incarcerated for drug offenses at 9.4x the rate of white Americans (Figure 10).

• "Despite the fact that white drug users outnumber black users by a factor of five there were more than twice as many African Americans (62,087) as whites (28,314) admitted to prison for drug offenses from large-population counties in 2002." (page 10).

• This disproportional incarceration of black drug users leads to "reduced employment rates, reduced family income and stability, high rates of homelessness, reduced number of citizens who are eligible to vote, increased foster care placements and the associated risk of psychological and educational problems for children, and reduced health and well being among women in the community." (page 18).

• "The results of this study indicate that the severely disproportionate impact of drug imprisonment on African Americans is related directly to the level of African American representation in local counties, and therefore to the persistent ways in which our local communities are stratified by race. This relationship between African American representation and drug imprisonment persists even after controlling for region, crime, and important economic and labor market indicators in our multiple variable analysis," so a reason why black communities are more likely to be impoverished is because of this over-policing. "Other research has indicated that the relationship between the size of the African American population and punitive criminal justice outcomes is continuing to grow over time," so the larger a black community gets, the more policing is done and the larger the disproportional effect it has on the community (page 19).

• Link to study because pdf links weirdly don't work: http://www.justicepolicy.org/uploads/justicepolicy/documents/vortex.pdf

A study from the Journal of Drug Issues found that while black and white people in New Haven, CT use drugs at very similar rates, white individuals were more likely to have a drug problem, that black and white people sell drugs at a similar rate but black people are more likely to be charged with possession and sales, and that while white people were convicted for drug related crimes more than black people, black people received more sentences and longer sentences.

• "Blacks and Whites report similar rates of any drug use in the six months before their most recent criminal justice event (90% of Blacks and 89% of Whites)...Thirty-seven percent of Blacks and 13% of Whites reported experiencing no drug problems in the month before their most recent criminal justice event. Twenty percent of Blacks and 51% of Whites reported experiencing a drug problem all thirty days in the month before the most recent criminal justice event." This shows that more white people had a drug problem in the month prior to their most recent criminal justice event and more white people had a drug problem on all of the days in the month prior to their most recent criminal justice event. "Though almost equal percentages of Blacks and Whites in our study reported using drugs in the thirty days before their most recent criminal justice event, Blacks reported experiencing significantly fewer drug problems."

• "Second, Blacks were more likely to be charged with possession and sales, while Whites were more likely to be charged for illegal activity related to drug use, such as stealing to support their drug habit. Yet, Whites and Blacks in our study both reported the same degree of drug sales." The study identifies that since black individuals are more likely to receive charges explicitly drug related, they are "more likely to suffer the collateral consequences specifically associated with drug charges, such as exclusion from certain forms of financial aid, housing benefits, and job screening scrutiny." So even though white and black individuals use and sell drugs at similar rates, black people get charged more with drug sales and possession, leading to consequences which keep them down. Essentially, white drug offenders get less serious charges than black offenders "even after adjusting for other sociodemographic factors."

• "Blacks were convicted significantly fewer times than Whites (8.43 vs 11.29 times), but they had significantly more sentences resulting in incarceration than Whites (9.09 vs 6.15) and significantly longer last sentences than Whites (1.74 vs .71 years)."

In a US Sentencing Project letter to the United Nations, the organization stated that "more than one in four people arrested for drug law violations in 2015 was black, although drug use rates do not differ substantially by race and ethnicity and drug users generally purchase drugs from people of the same race or ethnicity," citing 2015 crime statistics reported by the FBI, a massive paper from The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, and a US Department of Justice paper.

• Table 16 in the US Department of Justice paper shows that drug users generally purchase drugs from people of the same race and ethnicity (Figure 11). "it is likely that there is an interaction between the race of the buyer and the race of the main source" (page 15). "it is evident that a tendency to buy disproportionately from a person of the same race existed in most sites for most racial groups" (page 16).

A 2017 paper from the National Registry for Exonerations found that blacks and whites use drugs at the same rate but black individuals are 5x more likely to go to prison for drug possession and innocent black people are 12x more likely to be convicted of a drug crime than innocent white people.

• "The best national evidence on drug use shows that African Americans and whites use illegal drugs at about the same rate. Nonetheless, African Americans are about five times as likely to go to prison for drug possession as whites—and judging from exonerations, innocent black people are about 12 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent white people." (page iii).

• The paper is in pdf form so here is the link: http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf

An analysis of data on the drug war from the Vera institute of justice found that "the risk of incarceration in the federal system for someone who uses drugs monthly and is black is more than seven times that of his or her white counterpart." (Figure 12).

• Link to analysis because it is a pdf: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/for-the-record-unjust-burden/legacy_downloads/for-the-record-unjust-burden-racial-disparities.pdf

Dumb, often racist, idiots are more receptive to this fabricated idea that black people are more violent because "culture" or "rap music" or some other asinine idea but that is not the case. Black people commit more crime because of their socio economic status. By socio economic status I mean that they are more likely to be living in poverty and don't have much wealth: although they make up 13% of the population they account for 4% of wealth in America (Figure 1 below) and these differences adds up over a lifetime and only widens the racial gap in wealth (Figure 2). In fact, the ratio of white family wealth to Black family wealth is higher today than at the start of the century (Figure 3). And duh there is more crime in poorer areas and by those with little wealth. But why do black people have such little wealth (relative to their population size)? Well, this can be explained by many reasons, none of which imply racism towards black people. Firstly, it is widely accepted that, in layman's terms, the situation you're born into is the situation you'll stay in for your whole life. That is to say that if you're born into a wealthy family you'll stay wealthy your entire life and if you're born into a poor family you're likely to be poor your whole life. Despite this "American Dream," in the US where you come from — where you grow up, how much your parents earn, whether your parents were married — plays a major role in determining where you will end up later in life. Data from the Equality of Opportunity Project shows that children from poor families are much less likely to work in adulthood than children from middle-class families. Only about 60 percent of children from the poorest families are working at age 30, compared with 80 percent of children from median-income families (Figure 4). This relationship extends beyond the very poor; the higher a person’s parents were on the earnings ladder, the more likely he or she is to work as an adult. Additionally, black children are overwhelmingly more likely to be living in poverty than white children (Figure 5). Thus, since black people are more likely to be born into a family below the poverty line, more than twice as likely as white people, they are more likely to stay below the poverty line. And getting a job as a black person is hard enough even without living below the poverty line, as resumes with a "black" sounding name like Jamal, Lakisha, Tyrone, Aisha, Kenya, Kareem, etc... get far fewer callbacks than similar resumes but with "white" sounding names like Greg and Emily. In terms of income and class mobility, a fancy way of saying an upward or downward movement of people from one social class or economic level to another, America ranks 27th. Meaning, it's easier to achieve the "American Dream" in other countries. So we've established that if you're born into a low income, poor and/or impoverished area you're more likely to stay there and other countries have income and class mobility than America, but why are black people more likely to be poor? Three reasons: 1). The US never made reparations for slavery 2). White people had a 200 year start ahead of black people to accumulate wealth, businesses, education, etc... 3). When black people would have successful communities, racist white people would destroy them. The first reasons needs little explanation, as it is a factual claim that the US never made reparations for slavery. The second reason refers to the civil rights movements of the 1960s where, thanks to the Civil Rights act in 1964, black Americans finally began to receive the same opportunities as white Americans had enjoyed since the country's inception. Black people have had 60 years - 2 or 3 generations - to have the same opportunities white people have had for 244 years. The third reason refers to atrocities like the Tulsa Race Massacre. The Tulsa Race Massacre occurred over 18 hours on May 31-June 1, 1921 in the predominantly black community of Black Greenwood, given the nickname the "Black Wall Street" because of how successful the community was. Evidently racist whites didn't like seeing black Americans wealthy and successful, so groups of white Tulsans—some of whom were deputized and given weapons by city officials—committed numerous acts of violence against Black people. Hundreds of black people were killed, thousands were left homeless because of the damage racist white rioters had caused. As dawn broke on June 1, thousands of white citizens poured into the Greenwood District, looting and burning homes and businesses over an area of 35 city blocks. Firefighters who arrived to help put out fires later testified that rioters had threatened them with guns and forced them to leave. According to a later Red Cross estimate, some 1,256 houses were burned; 215 others were looted but not torched. Two newspapers, a school, a library, a hospital, churches, hotels, stores and many other Black-owned businesses were among the buildings destroyed or damaged by fire. This ugly moment in US history was depicted in the TV show Watchmen and I encourage you to watch it. You can view it in two parts on YouTube - here's a link to part one and part two. So to summarize, black people commit more crime because they have a disproportionate amount of wealth and are more likely to be born into and stay in low income and poor conditions, and black people are more likely to be poor because the US never made reparations for slavery, black Americans have only recently been afforded the same opportunities as white people, and racist white people often prevented black people from being successful and obtaining wealth. Research from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that 63% of white children "live in areas with poverty rates below 10% and more than half of white fathers present" while only 5% of black children grow up in an area with poverty rates less than 10% and more than half of fathers are present. It's basically a cycle that repeats itself over and over. Because black people have less access to education (30% of white Americans have a bachelor's degree or more compared to 18% of black Americans, as per the 2016 US Census) and the higher one's education level is the higher their salary is (education and income have a positive relationship) black people are more likely to not have a high income and be poor which means they are more likely to commit crime and become incarcerated (people with low incomes are vastly more likely to be incarcerated than people with higher incomes as you can see here and here black defendants are consistently more likely to be incarcerated than similarly situated white defendants, black defendants are consistently more likely to be charged as "repeat" or "habitual" offenders than similarly situated white defendants, black defendants are more likely to have charges which carry mandatory minimum sentences filed against them than similarly situated white defendants, black defendants are consistently being given longer prison sentences and more severe charges than similarly situated white defendants, and black defendants are consistently less likely to have their charges dropped or amended to a lesser one than similarly situated white offenders) which means that a black child will grow up in poverty, perhaps without a father or mother who is incarcerated, and experience these things all over again and then their children will experience the same thing and their children's children will experience the same thing and so on.

13/50 comes from the FBI’s (UCR) statistics, but people ignore that these stats give you 13/50 for homicides and not all violent crime, and even these statistics show that black people were only 38.7% of homicides when you include other data, so the people using 13/50 should actually be using 13/38. Even when you use the 38.7% figure, this UCR data still only refers to arrests and not convictions (they collect UCR data from police, not courts) so it can be skewed by racial bias in police (which exists).

Regardless, 13/50 isn’t really representative of black people in general. Violent crime is heavily skewed towards a small portion of the population (1% does 63% in Sweden for example) so 13/50 probably is not all black people, just a small portion. Black people also account for 23% of America's impoverished people despite making up 13% of the population. Additionally, the black poverty rate is double the white poverty rate and almost double the national poverty rate.

While police brutality does have a disproportional effect on the black community as we can see above, police brutality still effects us all and it should be something we all seek to end.

The case of 13 year old Linden Cameron (a white person) from Salt Lake City, Utah shows how severe an issue like police brutality can get. Linden is autistic, specifically Asperger's syndrome, and his mother called 911 to request a crisis intervention team to assist her in calming her son down, as he was having an episode due to separation anxiety with his mom going back to work for the first time in a while. In the 911 call she said "He’s unarmed, he doesn’t have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming. He’s a kid, he’s trying to get attention, he doesn’t know how to regulate.” Well, two police officers showed up at her door and rather than deescalate the situation as they are supposed to do and as the mother requested, fired several shots into Linden. The police chief lied his ass off saying there were reports the child had a weapon (how they would get these reports considering the mother stated he was unarmed in the call I have no idea) but police later confirmed that no weapon was found at the scene and the police chief even said there was no indication of the boy having a weapon once officers arrived on scene. Essentially, police were called because help was needed but instead more harm was done when officers from the SLPD expected a 13-year-old experiencing a mental health episode to act calmer and more collected than adult trained officers. According to his mother, Linden has injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, intestines, and bladder. Linden, who was unarmed, got shot in both feet and can't feel anything in his left hand. Police have potentially crippled a child already suffering from mental health issues. The SLPD says that all their officers are CIT, which stands for Crisis Intervention Team, trained yet here are these two dumbasses shooting a child which they are supposedly trained to deal with. Many questions arise from this situation: Why was the first instinct of the two grown men who are trained officers of the law to shoot at an unarmed 13 year old with mental health issues in need of help? What threat does an unarmed 13 year old pose to two fully grown men who have been trained as officers of the law? Why were the police thinking he had a weapon when it was stated in the 911 call the child was unarmed and no weapon was found? His mother asks the question we should all be asking after hearing this story: "I just want to know why they would do such a thing. Like why, … why didn’t you do anything else, anything else?"