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

eurekalert.org

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

#121

Post by EpicEng »

morgante wrote: post #68
EpicEng wrote: 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 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. Well, the people in this study were born in the early 80s. So I'm not sure any modern shifts that you point to are the distinctive factor.

No, they were 18 between 1997 and 2008, so they were *born in the between 1979 and 1990, i.e., they were teenagers in the 90's or early 00's, same age as me (DOB 1983).

  "The study is an analysis of national survey data from 1997 to 2008 of teenagers and young adults, ages 18"

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

#123

Post by smackfu »

tedunangst wrote: post #67
jychang wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not implausible at all. I'm probably in the squeaky clean category. On a day of a meteor shower, I went with some friends to take pictures of the sky. A park ranger arrested us, for being in a national park after dark. After arresting us, he spent 5 mins talking on the radio with some other ranger, then spent 5 mins writing a citation. Paid it in the mail a few weeks later, never heard of it again. It doesn't take mu…

Did he arrest you or give you a citation?

This survey is based on interviewing people, not on arrest statistics, so if you think you were arrested, it counts as an arrest.

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

#124

Post by NhanH »

giberson wrote: post #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.

I'm not sure, but does this have anything to do with being common law rather than civil law?

To be more specific, it's not a matter of the law being "too strict", but rather it's too vague and have to be interpreted by a judge. So until someone actually fight a case, the interpretation could be too broad and can be used easily. In civil law, you pretty much have to iterate everything.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. I used to live in a country with civil law, and since moving to the US, the common law system has always fascinated me.

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

#125

Post by nmrm »

jychang wrote: post #43
pertinhower wrote: post #19

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…

Not implausible at all. I'm probably in the squeaky clean category. On a day of a meteor shower, I went with some friends to take pictures of the sky. A park ranger arrested us, for being in a national park after dark. After arresting us, he spent 5 mins talking on the radio with some other ranger, then spent 5 mins writing a citation. Paid it in the mail a few weeks later, never heard of it again. It doesn't take mu…

It doesn't sound like you were actually arrested...

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

#127

Post by GeorgeBeech »

petercooper wrote: post #7
byoung2 wrote: post #2

Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the U.S. are arrested by age 23, which can hurt their ability to find work, go to school and participate fully in their communities. An arrest by itself, without an accompanying conviction, cannot be used to deny employment. 1. http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm#I

While not as important as having a job, etc, it could possibly affect overseas travel. Someone couldn't travel with us from the UK to our wedding in the US as we learnt that anyone who's been arrested for any reason can't travel under the visa waiver program (they can apply for a visa though but that takes time, money, and an interview). And as far as I understand it, US VWP treaties operate on similar principles in…

Eh? The law only talks about convictions not arrests. You need to qualify for a Business or Tourism visa to be able to use the VWP. (source: http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/general/inelig...)

Sounds like your friend got screwed by an over zealous bureaucrat.

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

#128

Post by Steer »

[deleted] wrote: post #114
Steer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Thank you for the clarification, that makes more sense. On a side-note, I think a lot of this would be solved by ending the "war on drugs".

I agree on your first point, I am indecisive on your second point (What is "mass" surveillance really?) and I don't know enough about the US to understand what you mean by a "militarized police".

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

#129

Post by nmrm »

jobu wrote: post #35
pertinhower wrote: post #19

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 remember tons of people getting arrested for underage drinking in college - much more so than in high school where getting caught by parents was a bigger concern than cops.

Wow! I had exactly the opposite experience. Although by high school was very working class and my college very white.

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

#130

Post by cyorir »

agwa wrote: post #71
EpicEng wrote: 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…

This has been dubbed the "school-to-prison pipeline." It's exacerbated by the fact that many schools now have police officers permanently stationed at the school, which leads to a "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem. It also contributes to the racial disparity because predominantly black schools are more likely to have a police officer than predominantly white schools.

This was a sensitive topic while I was in high school in Colorado. I don't think the school had a majority, but the largest groups were white and hispanic groups. We always had at least 1 permanent police officer heading a group of a couple of people who could be either police or security.

Nominally this was a response to incidents throughout the rest of the state such as Columbine, but in reality the purpose was to try to combat youth gangs. In this respect I think it partially worked for the circumstances.

However, this was also used to target usage of marijuana and cigarettes by students. I'm not sure how effective this was, because data about that was not commonly released by the school. Needless to say, a lot of students didn't like this, but opinion of the student body was very divided. It would be interesting to see how things have changed in Colorado high schools since marijuana was legalized; I'll have to look into that, but in most schools marijuana is still banned (like tobacco products) so things could only get worse if school policy is unchanged.

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