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Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

eurekalert.org

101–110 of 333 posts

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#102

I find this frankly implausible. What percentage of people you know have been arrested? I'm guessing very small (even assuming that many hide it and so you're knowledge is substantially skewed). So maybe that's because of your high/squeaky-clean socio-economic class? No: imagine yourself in any class you care to. Unless that class is much, much larger than your "real" class, then it would have to have an astronomical…

> I find this frankly implausible. What percentage of people you know have been arrested?

The group of people I know is irrelevant. The group of people I currently know is but a small subset of the US population. Upper-middle class, white suburbia. Double income household, with both in the six figures. Yeah, we're just a slice of typical Americana right there. (Though I have been arrested...several times. I was a bad boy once.)

But, hey, if you want to talk anecdotes then we can talk about the group of people I used to know. Lower class, much higher percentage of blacks (I currently have no black friends, and barely a few acquaintances). Though it's been a few decades, there were plenty from that group that had been arrested (some of whom I bailed out). Notice how I mention black folk? Yeah, in Indianapolis at the time that was important because the county prosecutor decided that a car full of young black males was probable cause for a traffic stop (swear to $DEITY, that's all that was needed for a stop). So race might skew those numbers a bit through no fault of the folks involved (other than the fact that they were young, male, and "driving while black").

And hence we render anecdotal data useless, which is why we use peer-reviews studies with much larger data sets. Because when you take data just from a redneck city with a redneck prosecutor, race might just make a teensy bit of difference. Or maybe the environment of that particular city. Or maybe it was just the ne'er-do-well friends I hung out with.

> I wanna see the data.

And you're not looking at those data with your own eyes because...? Platter's not silver enough? Have to hold the spoon yourself?

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#103
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, stuff like that is why we need a right to be forgotten in the US. People tend to see an arrest and leap to conclusions. I say this as a person who has never been arrested. :/

Your comment has been noted for posterity as "arrested criminal sympathiser"

If saying people who are acquitted shouldn't have arrest records showing up via Google Search means that?

Then yes, I guess I am.

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#104
post #79

If you are just arrested in the UK, without any charge or caution, you become ineligible for the Visa Waiver program for entry into the United States. Interesting statistic, therefore, from this side of the pond, having strong links family, business and social in the US. It has often been a double standard in many fields. The trademark laws are highly favorable to US companies versus Madrid Treaty Protocol countries,…

Are you a bot?

Oh man, thank you for asking this question.

If so, it's a pretty intelligent way to test chat bots, assuming you interpret karma as "votes" the the bot is human.

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#105
Laws in the US are far too strict.

I am one of the people that are covered by this statistic, I was arrested around age 16. For curfew.

Curfew, the law that says you can't be outside after an arbitrarily dictated time.

Absolutely ridiculous. For what it is worth--my record has been "expunged" and this arrest has not affected my adult life at all.

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#106
post #99

[deleted]

Sorry if I misunderstand your point, but are you saying that the US is a police state because they wouldn't allow you to drive drunk (endangering other people) or with a gun in your car? I think it is a good thing that it hasn't hurt your ability to get employment since these things are not related, but I still don't understand the police state connection.

What changes are you proposing? That everyone should be able to have a loaded gun with or without a permit or that everyone should be allowed to drive while under the influence?

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#107
post #52
post #18

One key point with this study is that it only covers people who were born between 1980 and 1984, and follows them through their lives. The summary articles tend to ignore that, and imply the same stats apply to people born in all years.

Do you have reason to believe that people born during that window are particularly jail-prone?

Crime is definitely way down in the last 10 years. If you assume that most people are getting arrested in their 20's, then that would imply the rates would change for different birth years.

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#108
post #58

I think that this trend, at least in part, has been influenced by a change in the way that we treat adolescent crime. For example, even when I was a kid (early 90's) you would not get arrested for getting into a fist fight at school. Nowadays, bam; call the cops. Get caught with some pot? Arrested. Get caught performing some petty vandalization? Arrested. Get caught at a party drinking as a minor? Arrested. We arrest…

I understand that this is also partly due to legal liability issues. Nowadays, due to civil suits, schools often have little effective way to discipline the uncooperative students besides calling the police. When any potential physical contact can result in an expensive lawsuit, or maybe even sexual harassment/molestation accusations, they tend to play it safe and dial 911.

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#109
post #91

I really want to see a heat map of this phenomena. I have a feeling there is strong geographic and urban/rural differences here. I would also like to see the percentage of the population that has been arrested by age. This statistic is definitely not representative of where I live, that being said I don't disbelieve it, I just want to understand the details. P.S. I am also disgusted when children are charged as adult…

http://xkcd.com/1138/

I think you missed the point of that XKCD. If you're going to publish a heatmap of absolute numbers, then yes, it'll end up looking pretty much like a population distribution map. If you publish a heatmap of percentages, then you will probably get something quite different (assuming that the percentage isn't linearly correlated with population).

Re: Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23

#110
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have a right to make people forget that I have a bad attitude, never shower and am prone to cursing anyone in my vicinity?

The topic is arrests. The fact you never shower is not going to get you arrested.

You didn't actually limit what you said to that topic. You said there should be a "right to be forgotten," and when someone wondered what it should apply to, answered "Anything that might make someone unemployable that didn't result in a conviction or other defeat in court" (emphasis mine). The fact that someone never showers falls under that heading. At no point have you said anything to suggest you were only talking about arrests, and the EU law does not limit itself that way. Did you instead mean for it to apply only to arrests and nothing else?
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