Reduce black incarceration

Published October 13, 2015

Editorial by Greenville Daily Reflector, October 10, 2015.

Whether it is fair or accurate for a group of protesters to “indict” local prosecutors for “unjustly criminalizing blacks” by citing a few cherry-picked cases is debatable. By citing broad statistics showing higher rates of criminal convictions among blacks, however, the group highlights a troubling problem within the criminal justice system — and one that is not unique to Pitt County.

A protest group calling itself The People’s Grand Jury gathered in front of the Pitt County Courthouse on Tuesday to “charge” local district attorneys with various counts of prosecutorial misconduct resulting in alleged racial discrimination. In doing so, the group cited statistics showing black residents of Pitt County far more likely than white residents to be charged with various low-level offenses.

Those statistics are in line with national incarceration numbers that show much higher percentages of blacks, mostly males, incarcerated in state and federal prisons than any other race.

According to the most recent inmate population figures from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Blacks account for 37.7 percent of inmates with whites accounting for 58.9 percent. Those percentages have changed little since 2013, when almost 3 percent of black male U.S. residents were imprisoned, compared to 0.5 percent of white males.

The depth of the problem of black incarceration rates is illustrated in a recent article in The Atlantic magazine titled, “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.” The article reaches back 50 years to accuse Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s well-intentioned report, “The Negro Family,” of tragically helping to create the imbalance in today’s criminal justice system.

The group protesting in Pitt County builds its argument of institutional discrimination along the same political and historical lines spelled out in The Atlantic as the building blocks for today’s criminal justice system. Holding local prosecutors accountable for being tough on crime is a large portion of the system’s foundation.

District Attorney Kimberly Robb, who works under that political climate, issued a statement suggesting Tuesday’s protesters could spend their time and resources more productively reaching out to at-risk youth.

Whether painting the protesters as neglecting those at risk is fair or accurate also is debatable. What is not debatable is that Pitt County is representative of a society plagued by the problem of mass incarceration disproportionately affecting black residents.

The Atlantic article reaches the conclusion that, “… it is not possible to truly reform our justice system without reforming the institutional structures, the communities, and the politics that surround it.”

Working toward such broad reforms must be the common ground and purpose among those protesting the criminal justice system and those entrusted with running it.

http://www.reflector.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-reduce-black-incarceration-3008845

October 13, 2015 at 11:27 am
Richard L Bunce says:

So we can start by ending the government War On Drugs. Second just looking at ethnicity/culture of inmates does not tell the whole story. What were charge rates versus incarceration rates? What were investigation rates versus charge rates? What were law enforcement contact rates versus investigation rates? What were enforcement emphasis rates versus contact rates? If group A and group B have divergent incarceration rates it makes a difference if group A and group B are actually committing crimes at roughly the same rate or not. We likely do not have a good metric for who is actually committing crimes but some of the metrics listed above may give us a better idea as to what is behind the incarceration numbers.

October 15, 2015 at 10:09 am
Norm Kelly says:

Are there any statistics showing which has done more damage to the black family: Demoncrat socialist policies OR incarceration?

There should be. Cuz demons INTENTIONALLY implemented policies to break up black families with the benefit being more low-information voters dependent on demons for their lively hood - resulting in demon voters. It worked!

Of course, the other question is if crime is more prevalent in black male 'communities' than other race locations. Do black males commit more crime? Or is it possible for the stats to show that when a white male commits the same crime as a black male that the white male gets a slap on the wrist while the black male spends time in jail? Libs use stats, to this day, to force certain hiring rules in order to get blacks jobs, even going so far as to count the number of blacks in management positions as opposed to whites. Test scores have been purposely skewed by libs in order for blacks to qualify for promotions. (some of us remember the lawsuit from the northeast proving that test scores were changed for blacks in order to promote them.) Are those same libs now trying to get us to agree that statistics should be used in crime fighting?

How about we use some stats from lib strong-holds, such as Chicago and Detroit. Are blacks, who kill each other virtually every week, in Chicago ignored BECAUSE they are black and the stats can't get skewed by arresting and prosecuting these killers? We know the current occupier doesn't consider these deaths important, and most of the 'black leaders' ignore the problem of killings in Chicago. Is this because it's black-on-black crime and therefore meaningless? Or is it that these crimes don't support the lib talking points? Don't believe me that people including the occupier don't consider these deaths important/relevant? Just watch one of them react when this topic is brought up to them. The do the Billary thing - deflect & distract.

In Detroit, lib leaders let the environment deteriorate for decades, letting crime run rampant, businesses leave because of the environment, and debt sky-rocket to the point of bankruptcy. To this day, libs refuse to admit that it was lib policies that destroyed Detroit. Part of the lib scheme was to ignore the high crime rate. Was this because it was libs in power and blacks committing so much of the crime that arresting and prosecuting would have skewed their beloved statistics?

Seems libs are more concerned with stats than peoples' lives.

At some point, even low-information lib-voting blacks will realize they are nothing but a stat. Someday even these voters will realize they are responsible for themselves. Someday even these voters will realize that government monopoly schools have trapped them for the purpose of indoctrinating them. And so far, it has worked. How will using stats for crime improve the life of a single black? If we ignore more black crime in the nation, will it improve black lives, improve black neighborhoods, improve employment stats for blacks?

Until someone can show stats relating the crime to the skin color of the perp, the rest of the stats don't count. Don't tell me how many blacks are incarcerated. Tell me how those same blacks were convicted & sent to jail while the white person doing the same crime was simply slapped on the wrist and sent home. I won't hold my breath waiting for this comparison. If it were available, libs would bury it as much as they try to bury information proving the lie of global warming or global cooling or climate change or whatever they've decided to call it now!