A Little Criminology Related to Racism and Police

Some friends began a discussion on Facebook on racism, crime, and police.  The answer to the problem is complicated and complex.  What follows is my rather lengthy response to the issues they raised.

Thank you for allowing me to join this conversation.  The answer to the issues simply stated is, “It’s complex and it’s complicated.”

Let me first explain crime rates in general.  The FBI for several decades has maintained what is referred to as Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).  UCRs have been criticized for its inability to gather all crime data; however, the vast majority of police agencies across the country submit UCR data on a monthly basis and those data are consistent.  Two indicators on UCR are considered to be valid and accurately representative of crime in the United States.  Murder rates and vehicle theft rates are considered accurate because it is difficult to conceal a murder and when a person loses a car to theft the tendency is to file an insurance claim, and insurance companies require police reports to validate the theft.  These UCR data are validated through two other sources: self-report data and data sampling done through the State University of New York-Albany.

Now, some very valid points have been made in your discussion here.  But, let me move on to crime rates of blacks and whites.  As it turns out, race has absolutely nothing to do with crime rates.  The three most important factors in crime “causation” (and I use that term cautiously) are economics, education, and employment.  Crime rates are consistent among blacks and whites when you look at those three factors.  Yes, blacks are over-represented by population in prisons, but it isn’t because they commit more crimes or because police pick on blacks; it is because there are more blacks than whites who are unemployed or underemployed, have significantly less education than whites, and have a lower economic status.  Put whites in the same set of conditions and their crime rates are nearly identical.

Bruce brings up a very interesting point which should not be summarily dismissed.  Why is it that blacks are incarcerated for drug violations at a higher rate than whites?  Again, the answer to this is complex.  The most common drug charge for blacks is associated with crack cocaine.  Several years ago when crack took an upswing in use and sale, legislatures enacted stiffer and mandatory penalties for crack offenses.  What we are slowly realizing is that crack, besides being cheaper than coke, is not any more dangerous than the whites’ drug of cocaine and meth.  It would be easy to say that the real culprit here would be the legislatures that enacted stiffer penalties for crack offenses, but like I said, it is complex and complicated.  It is important to realize also that few people go to prison for mere possession unless there are large enough quantities to establish an intent to distribute.  For the most part, what you have in prison on drug offenses are those who are dealing or manufacturing drugs OR are part of a larger criminal enterprise.  It is the larger criminal enterprise that lands people in prison even though the records show that the offender is in prison for drug related offenses.

Criminal enterprise is often a euphemism for gang activity.  Gangs tend to be racially exclusive.  You don’t find blacks in Hispanic gangs, nor do you find whites in black or Hispanic gangs.  Just like violence in gangs, drug activity within gangs takes the form of one of two objectives: (1) Dealing in drugs to finance activities or (2) drug use as part of the activities—a sort of byproduct of gang activity.  Gangs tend to form in communities where there is a high rate of absentee fathers.  And, where do we find the highest rate of absentee fathers?  Where there is poverty, low education rates, and unemployment.  Gangs function as substitute families for a lot of people surviving on the streets.

Therefore, what?  We know that the easiest route to conviction of people engaged in criminal activity is through drug charges regardless of all the other crimes they may commit.  The reason for the ease of conviction?  Drug crimes are referred to as strict liability offenses.  Prosecutors do not need to prove criminal intent.  All they have to do is show that a person committed certain acts and they let the criminal statutes do the rest of the work.  Most other crimes committed by gangs require proving malicious intent.  That, at times, can be a high standard to meet.

 Additionally, there is often a culture of violence that attends to any group of people who suffer from poor economic status, unemployment, and lower education, and that is not reserved to blacks alone.  What may start out as an interaction between police and a potential offender can quickly escalate to violence.  This happens when the offender is mad at the world for his/her status in life.  Since police are recognized not only as authority, but also as representative of the oppressive ruling class (and the class that makes the rules) it is highly likely that there will be a clash between the police and the offender.  It is that violent clash that gets the offender in trouble.  What may have started out as a simple confiscation of illicit drugs or the issuance of a criminal summons escalates to assault on a police officer—a felony in any jurisdiction.

There is no doubt in my mind that there is racism in law enforcement, just as there is in any sub-population in our society.  Yes, there are bad apples and I think we would all like to see those apples removed.  However, this cannot explain the overwhelming assertion that police have more enforcement contacts with blacks than they do with whites.  Consider the fact that many of these contacts occur at night in traffic stops when police do not know the race of the person stopped until the officer is face-to-face with the offender.  What happens next is dependent upon what the officer sees inside the car and the driver’s and occupants’ reaction to the stop.  It can go uphill or downhill from there.  If the occupants of the car believe they are being singled out and act out, things will go downhill quite fast.

Another factor to consider in crime causation is the proximity relationship of one ethnic group to another.  Criminologists George Herbert Mead, Robert Park, Walter Reckless, and Edwin Sutherland did extensive studies on what has become known as the Chicago School or Ecological School of Criminology.  Their research shows that the closer ethnic groups are to each other and the more they mix the more likely it is that crime will take place.  Part of their research showed that poorer people tend to live in urban centers, but as they accrue more wealth the more likely it is that they will move further away from urban centers.  They referred to this movement as moving through concentric zones.  It is where the zones meet or overlap where you find crime.  These concentric zones tend to be inhabited by ethnically homogeneous groups.  It is where these zones meet where heterogeneous groups clash.  Remember, the poorer you are the more likely it is that you will be in the center zone (where you find urban plight, slumlords, etc.).  Historically, there are two groups that have never been able to get out of the center zone: blacks and American Indians (aka/Native Americans).  As much as they would like to move out of those zones, they are stuck, so they push on the outer edges of their zones and that is where you will see crime and violence.  Additionally, those center zones tend to be overpopulated, which is a sure predictor for criminal activity and violence (remember your psychology and sociology studies involving lab rats in confined spaces?).

President Lyndon Johnson tried to address this through his social experiment called the Great Society.  With a few exceptions, it failed miserably.

Well, I’ve told you much more than you bargained for; much more than what you wanted to know.  If you are still awake and reading at this point, congratulations! The bad news is that there is so much more involved in this issue than what I’ve explained.  And, the sad news is that nobody really wants to address the real problem.  People want a quick fix by placing body cameras on police and giving them sensitivity training.  (My barber says we want to put body cameras on the wrong people.  He says that the bad guys should have the body cameras so they can record the actions of police.  Oh, and don’t get me started on body cameras.)  Mark my word.  That will fix nothing.  That is akin to treating cancer with a bandage and calling it good.

A final word is in order and then I’ll slink away and let you tear everything apart that you want.  You must be careful what you use for reference material.  As a criminology professor I never allowed my students to use online references from .com or .org.  The .coms and .orgs tend to have their own agendas and slant their research to meet their objective.  Unfortunately, you must also be careful with .edu references as more and more undergraduate students are putting their research papers online through their college websites.  When you look for theories look for .edu  papers written by graduate students, PhDs, and post-docs, and look at .gov for data generated information.  Some of the best information comes from SUNY-Albany, Sam Houston University, Michigan State University, and (believe it or not) UC Berkley, but most major universities are going to provide you with excellent resource information.  I just wish that Washington along with state and local governments would let people who know something about reality work on the problem rather than assembling a blue ribbon panel that has an axe to grind.