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[In 2013] about 10% of the population over 12 years of age had used illegal drugs in the previous year, and that this use was more or less evenly distributed across the largest racial groups: 8.8% for Hispanics, 9.5% for whites and 10.5% percent for African Americans.
Convictions for drug crimes are another matter entirely. Thirty-three percent of those serving prison terms for drug offenses are African Americans, two-and-a-half times their proportion in the population. [...] Overall 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.
[...] Sixty percent of the drug exonerations we know about occurred in Harris County, Texas, home to Houston (133/221). The defendants in these cases pled guilty to drug possession before the supposed drugs they possessed were tested in a crime lab, and were exonerated weeks, months or years later after testing was done and no illegal drugs were found. Why did these defendants plead guilty even though they possessed no controlled substances? Some may have had powders or pills that they thought contained illegal drugs but did not. As far as we can tell, however, most pled guilty to get out of jail.
[...] Most, if not all of these innocent black defendants in Harris County pled guilty rather than go to trial because it was their best option, given that they had been arrested and charged, and were held in jail. But why were so many innocent black defendants arrested for drug possession when there is no reason to believe that African Americans are more likely than whites to use illegal drugs?
Two-thirds of the arrests in the Harris County guilty-plea exoneration cases (89/133) were based on cheap and notoriously inaccurate "presumptive" field tests for drugs, usually on substances found in searches following traffic stops. Anybody who is subjected to that process is at risk of false arrest and conviction. Across the country, African Americans drivers are about as likely to be stopped as white drivers, but after that, they are three times as likely to be searched. As a result, they bear much of the brunt of drug-law enforcement—including false drug possession convictions, which may number in the thousands if not tens of thousands a year.
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @12:05PM (1 child)
But now, correlate with income.
Unfortunately a rich guy can get drugs in a more stealthy way.
And no, I do not advocate for leveling income either.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by qzm on Monday March 13 2017, @12:59AM
Also they make no differentiation between casual and regular drug use, that makes a HUGE difference.
And, as the article does correctly point out, they are counting cases where people have taken plea deals with little or no punishment to avoid risk of prison.
Thats a bit of a no brainer, and one that grows increasingly tempting for people at the lower end of the economic scale, as they have less ability to defend themselves.
Seems like they are trying to paint a rather specific picture here as to cause, while ignoring a lot of interpretations and facts that wouldnt support their particular view.
Of course it would be more useful for them to be trying to identify actual issues in society which drive people to break laws, but no, they just seem to be looking for excuses
for some who do.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Nuke on Sunday March 12 2017, @12:07PM (14 children)
Most drug findings are from searches in the course of apprehending a suspect for some other more visible misdemeamour. That raises more relevant questions.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday March 12 2017, @01:18PM (11 children)
This is how the system works. We cannot try even 1% of the accused. So pretty much every criminal pleads guilty to a lesser charge then what he was arrested for. They did not plead guilty because they thought the labs would show that they had drugs on them, they plead guilty because otherwise they would of had to go to court for assault and their were 20 witnesses.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday March 12 2017, @02:11PM (9 children)
Isn't this almost the definition of good lawyering?
I don't use tobacco or fight, but for the sake of argument lets say I had legal tobacco and rolling papers in my jacket pocket when I beat up an antifa. The police arrest me for weed and assault because the dumb cops think my tobacco is weed. My lawyer gets me a plea deal where they drop the assault charge if I plea to misdemeanor weed possession. I take the plea. The test results come back weeks after my plea, I get it overturned, basically I got away with everything, didn't I?
Or again I don't drive illegally or use tobacco, but for the sake of argument lets say my license plates are expired and I have legal tobacco and rolling papers in my car ash tray when I get pulled over. The cop was going to write me a ticket for expired registration but I start making jokes about pigs and pork and just being generally disrespectful, when he "discovers" my tobacco and rolling papers in the ash tray, and I tell him its weed, so instead of a "pay by mail" ticket I get arrested for weed possession. I plead guilty for weed possession, a misdemeanor, but one that costs much more than expired registration. Before I pay the court, the test results come back, that's just Virginia grown tobacco nothing illegal at all, get the conviction overturned, basically I got away with everything, didn't I?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday March 12 2017, @02:51PM (4 children)
No, you don't, because guilty pleas are exceedingly difficult to overturn. You are stuck with your plea.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:11PM (3 children)
Agreed that the paths are difficult, but isn't it the easiest of the paths? I mean the news headline style where DNA testing proves some dude on death row didn't do it, then gets released.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:40PM (2 children)
Agreed that the paths are difficult, but isn't it the easiest of the paths?
"The easiest of paths" lol
Spoken as someone who has never ever had to deal with criminal injustice system.
Dude, you are so white its a miracle that your posts aren't white text on a white background.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:52PM (1 child)
Haha, troll mod.
But when VLM says the article is proof that black people have inferior IQs that even selective breeding can't fix, [soylentnews.org] that's legit.
White fragility for the fail.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:11PM
I'd mod you up if I could; you're right on the money of course, and I bet your -1 came from VLM himself.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by captain normal on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:12PM (2 children)
Moral of story: Do not take legal advice from VLM.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)
um, if he weally, Weally thinks The Legal System works as he outlines it, um, he has terminal pollyannaism, or is simply an abject authoritarian... i think it is important to out authoritarians, those 25% are a REAL impediment to change...
for starters, get a whiff of reality with this little gem, google : December 10, 2010 Why Judicial Corruption is Invisible by John Barth, Jr. , should take you to a counterpunch op/ed which lays out why ANY 'faith' in the legal system is misplaced, ignorant, and a waste of time...
in short, that VLM thinks this is how the legal system actually works, shows how little he has intersected with it...
'officers of the court' LIE ALL THE TIME AND GET AWAY WITH IT, a mere citizen will not... you will NOT find 'justice' in the legal system, you will find careerists and opportunists, and psychopaths...
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:13PM
He *is* an authoritarian. Trust me, there is no Pollyanna in there at all; his post history shows him to be almost a textbook example of the RWA mindset (and I use the prefix "mind" in there loosely). I really hope he DOES have a brush with the law and gets to see the injustice in the system firsthand. Maybe then he'll grow the fuck up.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:35PM
You didn't get away better in either case since you spent some time in jail and had to fork over for a lawyer to try to overturn your guilty plea. Funny thing, even when the evidence proves you don't belong in jail, you stay in jail until you get a lawyer to push for your release. Even when they succeed, it's amazing how long the government will drag it's feet before you are actually released.
Naturally, this means if you don't have money, you sit and rot.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 12 2017, @08:26PM
Actually, they plead guilty because the time they might spend in jail waiting for their unfair trial is longer then the time they would spend if they copped to a lesser charge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:38PM (1 child)
Most drug findings are from searches in the course of apprehending a suspect for some other more visible misdemeamour.
Yes. Its called "driving while black" and in the cities it is "walking while black." [economist.com]
You only find criminals where you look for them, and it is a fact of black american black life that the cops are always looking at you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 13 2017, @08:04AM
If blacks were not statistically more crime-prone, would that change? Just asking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @12:23PM
The country is falling apart with crime destroying our cities. The wacky backy drives the urban dweller crazy with lust and he will rampage into areas populated by normal Americans where he will rape our women. That's why this country needs a strong leader to stop crime at any cost and take our country back from dangerous types. Wink wink.
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Sunday March 12 2017, @12:46PM (6 children)
The logical mistake in the argument is it jumps from total use rates to prison convictions which misses at least four logical jumps where the initial factoid may no longer apply:
1) Locally the cops will harrass or misdemeanor most casual users, the stereotypical college kid with a baggie of weed in his backpack. Dealers will get the revolving door "justice" system which eventually gets around to putting them in prison. So as a thought experiment take the first factoid as true (may not be) and assume 10% of white folk are weed smoking college kids and hippies and 10% of black folk are heroin dealers. Outcomes are going to be a bit different based on business model and quantity at arrest time.
2) A classic drug argument that no one outside of libertarian circles cared about is in the 80s if you cooked coke into crack after the anti-crack laws took hold because you were black, you got tons of prison, whereas selling coke "paleo" "raw food" or "vegan" style to white folk to sniff instead of smoke was always much milder punishment. As if there was kosher and non-kosher coke with differing punishments based solely on serving style. Would not be surprised to hear "white folk drugs" in 2017 have different punishments from "black folks drugs" in 2017. If black folks want to get punished more, they can use black drugs or get punished less by using white drugs its a free country and if dumb people intentionally choose to suffer I don't see it as my place to prevent them from getting what they clearly enjoy. On a large scale its an injustice that black soul food cooking drugs is punished, but on a small scale its just stupidity and they deserve what they get.
3) The data might be wrong, in which case its not much of an argument.
4) Along the lines of #2, different drugs have different lifespans. For instance my old neighbor took most of a lifetime to accumulate more than a half dozen drunk driving convictions and finally scored years of prison time pled down to almost a year of work release if I recall. Anyway for the sake of argument lets say race A likes to smoke weed and that kills them from cancer in, on average, 200 years, meaning most users will live a full although stoned life and for most users the only negative effect on their lives is the cops and justice system. And lets say heroin kills its users on average in a decade. That might actually be high, but the exact numbers don't matter. Say every decade a user has an "interaction" with the police and injustice system from random stop and frisk or bad luck or whatever it don't matter. Obviously the weed smoker on average is going to experience around 6, 7, 8 police interactions in his weed smoking lifespan. Obviously only half the heroin users will live long enough to experience more than 1 police interaction in their careers. So if the average drug using white is popping pills and heroin their death rate is so high they'll never interact with the cops much other than the cops picking up their body, while if the average drug using black is blazing weed for his entire life he's statistically likely to live so long the cops will harass him for at least half a century and eventually after the 3rd 4th 5th arrest they toss him in the can for a couple years, and after he gets out he blazes up again and gets arrested for a 6th time. On paper the situation looks dismal for blacks but the fact they're not dying young is actually pretty good, assuming you think prison is a superior experience to death.
There is no binary requirement that only one of the above is true. The most likely outcome is something like the initial factoid was false due to sample selection bias (survey at a NORML rally or prison survey or whatever) while simultaneously the average white user is more likely to die of heroin and the average black weed dealer is more likely to visit the jail than the coroner and simultaneously the average white weed smoking college kid isn't getting 30 yrs in prison while the most extreme black heroin dealer could get 30 yrs maybe if combined with some conspiracy and murder charges.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @01:00PM (4 children)
Excellent rationalization. The world is just.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday March 12 2017, @02:01PM (3 children)
Excellent rationalization. The world is just.
Its hard to figure out the original logical fallacies because there are so many in the summary. Its like the whole wikipedia page came to visit.
Your specific logical fallacy is "Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies [wikipedia.org]
Aside from the small scale argument this is a classic example of macro vs micro. Why all the focus on the micro-injustice, which admittedly is micro-interesting, when the macro problem is so much more interesting?
At the macro level, no one would disagree with the idea that neighborhoods are better when they have fewer criminals and laws are enforced, that most neighborhoods in the country are racially segregated to some extent. So if you assume all the propositions in the article ... black kids are being unfairly rewarded by growing up in neighborhoods with unfairly lower crime than white kids, because black criminals are being segregated from society in prison FAR more than white criminals are, to the extreme that innocent blacks are going to prison while criminal whites are at home screwing up their neighborhoods and screwing up the next generation of white kids. That seems rather unfair to white people, especially our most vulnerable such as kids, who did nothing wrong yet have to grow up in a den of white neighborhood criminality, whereas the black kids are growing up in a crime free paradise where all the criminals, plus a little extra, are all in prison far away from society, unable to ruin future black culture. Won't anyone think of the (white) children?
In summary the article points out the justice system in Texas is intensely anti-white because criminal activity levels are constant by race (um... OK) and Texas is not policing the white community which therefore must be absolutely overrun with white crime, compared to the tranquil, safe and heavily police enforced black communities.
The article is highly racist because it implies some basic human biological differences exist in that white folk and black folk seem to respond to law enforcement pressure racially differently, despite as the article claims being equally criminal in desire and private action. The article is white supremacist in that it implies whites are smarter so they don't get caught and don't poop where they sleep WRT ruining their own neighborhoods, while implying that decades of evolutionary selection pressure STILL haven't taught the blacks a single lesson and they're still getting busted on a regular basis, the article is implying a genetic biological racial IQ difference.
The implied macro level conclusions of the article seem rather fascist by SN standards or any standards. Well, reality does have built in political biases, but still...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:44PM (1 child)
implying that decades of evolutionary selection pressure STILL haven't taught the blacks a single lesson and they're still getting busted on a regular basis, the article is implying a genetic biological racial IQ difference
Yep, I knew it. The world is just.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:59PM
implying that decades of evolutionary selection pressure STILL haven't taught the blacks a single lesson and they're still getting busted on a regular basis, the article is implying a genetic biological racial IQ difference
Yep, I knew it. The world is just.
... and VLM is a fucking racist who finds justification for his racism where ever he looks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 12 2017, @07:14PM
> implying that decades of evolutionary selection pressure STILL haven't taught the blacks a single lesson and they're still getting busted on a regular basis, the article is implying a genetic biological racial IQ difference
Jesus motocrossing Christ. We GET it, you're an irredeemable husk of a human being who's sunk so low you'd need to say "Sir" to a snake's gut in a wagon rut. Enough already; you're run out of anything new or original to say. Now you're just getting boring.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:01PM
If black folks want to get punished more, they can use black drugs or get punished less by using white drugs its a free country and if dumb people intentionally choose to suffer I don't see it as my place to prevent them from getting what they clearly enjoy. On a large scale its an injustice that black soul food cooking drugs is punished, but on a small scale its just stupidity and they deserve what they get.
The key is that "black drugs" are cheaper for the dose and can be purchased in smaller lots. Both are important for poor drug users. It's straightforward economics. For example: [wikipedia.org]
In the early 1980s, the majority of cocaine being shipped to the United States, landing in Miami, was coming through the Bahamas and Dominican Republic.[1] Soon there was a huge glut of cocaine powder in these islands, which caused the price to drop by as much as 80 percent.[1] Faced with dropping prices for their illegal product, drug dealers in Los Angeles and Oakland made a decision to convert the powder to "crack," a solid smokeable form of cocaine, that could be sold in smaller quantities, to more people. It was cheap, simple to produce, ready to use, and highly profitable for dealers to develop.[1] As early as 1981, reports of crack were appearing in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego, Miami, Houston, and in the Caribbean.[1]
Initially, crack had higher purity than street powder.[2] Around 1984, powder cocaine was available on the street at an average of 55 percent purity for $100 per gram (equivalent to $230 in 2016), and crack was sold at average purity levels of 80-plus percent for the same price.[1] In some major cities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, Houston and Detroit, one dosage unit of crack could be obtained for as little as $2.50 (equivalent to $5.76 in 2016).[1]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Type44Q on Sunday March 12 2017, @03:09PM (6 children)
The fact that blacks and whites are equally likely to be pulled over but blacks are three times more likely to be searched tells me that blacks are far more likely to act afraid... and cops, like dogs, sense fear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:37PM
Sounds like cops need to be more understanding and realize they serve the community instead of being "enforcers".
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:44PM (2 children)
tells me that blacks are far more likely to act afraid.
Uh no. It tells you that police have so much less respect for black people that they push them much harder to search their vehicles.
White guy gets pulled over for a broken tail-light "here's a fixit ticket sir, if you come to court with a receipt for the new bulb you won't have to pay it, have a good day!"
Black guy gets pulled over for a broken tail-light "if you don't let me search your car, we are going to impound it for a vehicle code violation."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @09:31PM (1 child)
And i don't recall white folks shot because they tried to grab the cops gun either....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @09:40PM
And i don't recall white folks shot because they tried to grab the cops gun either....
That's because when a white guy tries to grab a cop's gun, he gets arrested.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @05:57PM
All this talk is bullshit devised to distract us from the fact that most of these stops should be happening to anyone in the first place. The people have been derelict in their duty and now the police are nothing but thieves for the thieves in government. When you turn cops into armed robbers why do you act surprised when the "community" doesn't respect their authoriti? Then the cops catch shit and are turned into predators which most didn't sign up for and they grow to resent people altogether. We allow our reps to corrupt them and we act appalled that they are corrupt. Even what is corrupt, is corrupt itself. It used to mean a dishonest cop. well that's all of them now because we have got them committing fraud and theft on a daily basis. What do i mean? It's the little things that make up a police state. Take speeding as an example. Many states are "presumed speed limit" states. The law may say you can drive like you want as long as you're not being unsafe. What do the cops do? hide behind corners and say you were breaking the law because you were exceeding the posted presumed speed limit that was set way too low. Even if your car's top speed is 130 and your were doing 75 and no one was even around except the hiding, spying, thieving cop. Many of them know somewhere deep inside that they are committing fraud and theft but they do their "job" anyways, some actuially believing that they are saving people from you the dangerous dependant speeder.. Many of these police agencies shouldn't even exist. They are just state fronts for the national socialist agencies like the national highway safety administration. The feds can't directly tell the state's citizens what to do so they set up these fronts. The people just kiss ass and act like they are legitimate instead of doing their duty as Americans. Pulling you over because your sticker is out? stickers shouldn't even exist. If people want to fund socialist roads then they can get the money from some tax. no need to make people take off work to go stand in line every fucking year to get a stupid sticker like a school child while we pay for fat asses who couldn't get honest work to sit there and act like authority figures. They are nothing but habitual thieves! Putting people in cages because the government doesn't approve of their medicine? What kind of fucking slave pays for someone else to tell them how to treat their own illnesses? Why are we letting these scum ruin our country and pit the cops against the people so the rich can get richer and completely enslave the country and the world? The reps need to be educated or replaced immediately. Police agencies need to be scrapped or retrained depending on the situation. Stealing from people and locking them up for unconstitutional bullshit needs to stop. If they refuse, they can rightfully be eliminated.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @06:48PM
The fact that blacks and whites are equally likely to be pulled over
Except they are not equally likely.
Its just another example of lies, damn lies and statistics.
That claim is based on a naive reading of the Bureau of Justice stats [bjs.gov] which show that as a proportion of the total population of each racial group the rates of traffic stops are about the same.
That's not the right number to use. They ought to be comparing to the number of drivers.
25% of black households don't own a car.
7% of white households don't own a car.
Socioeconomic Differences in Household Automobile Ownership Rates: Implications for Evacuation Policy [berkeley.edu]
So if they are getting pulled over at equal rates, it really means black drivers are getting pulled over more than white drivers.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @04:58PM
just because we have a country full of idiotic, seditious fascists doesn't change that fact.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @09:50PM (1 child)
Afro-Americans are genetically programmed to require a stay in prison as part of their life cycle. It's like caterpillars become chrysalis before emerging as butterflies. In this case, pickaninnies become jailbirds before emerging as welfare recipients. You can't fight nature.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 12 2017, @10:03PM
That's the best explanation I've read yet regarding the high incarceration rates of Amero-Africans. You should get a Nobel Prize for this.