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This has not been established on this thread nor anywhere else. It may have been claimed by you(or others), with zero evidence to support it. That establishes nothing. Your claim is utterly false.
It's 2015. You're already on the internet. You could spend 20 minutes on C-D looking at crime stats of rural counties in Appalachia or the Cumberland Plateau.
I'm not wasting my time googling stuff for you on an already well established issue. If you want to disprove it - go for it.
beats me i am one of them and living the life that most dream about. that is what i love about coming to this country, you can climb out of the pit of poverty here, you cant do that in france ever.
Your perspective is definitely more fact based than most on this forum but you are absolutely wrong on two of your points, which seem to be the only two we disagree on, and are the most significant two when thinking about the original question of differing degrees of violence in poor communities.
Aggressive police tactics are recent to YOU. Black americans have been the victims of hyper-aggressive policing since the inception of "freedom".
But you're not "black americans." You're one guy who has lived in as many different communities as one person can live in a lifetime.
I'm in my 40s. I know what aggressive policing looks like because I've seen it come and go over the years - mostly when politicians think it's expedient to care. Unless you're in your 70s (and if you are more power to you) you didn't experience policing in black communities in the 1950s let alone going back to "the inception of 'freedom.'" What you "know" of that period is from written and oral history. Everyone has access to the same written history. Since 5 generations of my family have lived in NYC I also have access to a rich oral history.
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Broken windows polices were the solution to police brutality and corruption in black communities.
1950 to 1980 was the era of hyper policing in black communities, coupled with massive corruption and scapegoating of blacks as the cause of a drug trade we had/have no way of impacting. Something you are continuing with your idea that good suburban americans are innocent drug users not worthy of the systems time. We could also note that crime and violence dropped dramatically after massive waves of police corruption arrest in most major cities in america during the 80's. broken windows was applied directly after.
You're trying to make this chicken and egg when it really isn't. Aggressive policing isn't unique to black communities in northern cities and it's existed since the black population of northern cities numbered in the hundreds or low thousands. Organized crime and official corruption are as old as western civilization. The 1950s and 1960s was a period of mass black migration from (mostly smaller cities in) the South to bigger northeastern/midwestern cities as well as to the west coast but in smaller numbers. For a lot of reasons crime exploded toward the end of this period . . . but that crime exploded when the drug trade was still in its infancy. Police efforts stepped up in response to the crime - people didn't all of the sudden start robbing and killing their neighbors in response to police brutality that came out of nowhere. That's not saying that cops (or their bosses) did the right thing back then but you definitely have it backwards.
the broken windows theory was developed in the early 80s, not as a response to police corruption (which still hasn't been dealt with on most forces) but as a response to the urban disinvestment of the 60s and 70s and the general retreat of civil society from inner cities. Crime peaked in the early to mid 90s, there's a lot of debate as to why, but locking up a few corrupt cops might change the amount of drug arrests in a particular cop's district but it's not going to change the number of agg assaults or robberies.
I, for one, am not blaming the drug trade on any one group of people. It should be clear that I'm not asking black people to apologize for crime. I've seen pretty plainly that crime is a manifestation of poverty but especially of income inequality. That said I'd really like to know when police and prosecutors ever target the user. Prostitution? Rarely. Stolen goods? Not often. Illegal prescription narcotics? Rarely. Otherwise legit prescriptions from Canada? Nope. Loosies? No. Underage drinking? Rarely.
Illegal guns are the only product I can think of where the weapons manufacturers get off the hook and it's the middlemen or the end purchaser who bears the brunt of law enforcement. But then that's nowhere near on the scale of drug use in this country. All the cops, national guard, army, and marine corps wouldn't be enough to round up, prosecute, and institutionalize 1/3 of the country. And besides, the drug trade is too big a part of the legit economy, locking up 100 or even 60 million Americans would bankrupt the country not to mention destroy the global economy.
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When it comes to policing suburban police forces are made up of people from those communities, who have generational history with the people they are policing.
Yeah man, sorry, but this couldn't be further from the truth. First of all, the average american moves at least once every 7 years. We're talking the suburbs of major US metros. At least the largest 100 where 2/3 of Americans live. There is no "Suburban P.D." There are lots of small departments. The chances that someone in the suburbs is living in the same area they grew up in are pretty slim. The chances that someone who grew up to become a cop is policing in the same town he or she grew up in is also slim. 2nd - Outside of a few big cities residency requirements are a thing of the past and most police departments don't like them because they severely limit the candidate pool. 3rd - most suburban cops go to a county police academy and so they can police anywhere in that county. They move around from department to department as much as anyone chasing better pay and promotions.
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It is more than the judge can see they have people who care behind them. Judges and police officers are not born and do not live in isolation. They are more likely to have a common connection with the people they are arresting and sentencing and that plays into who get continued without a finding and who gets felonies.
maybe in Mayberry that was true but it's not true in the suburbs of any big city where someone who broke the law gets to a sentencing phase of a trial. The trial is going to take place at the county courthouse (probably nowhere near where you live) and the judge and prosecutor could be from anywhere in your county of 600,000 people and the chances of them knowing someone you know, let alone being from your neighborhood, are slim to none.
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Inner-cities admit as much and many all cities went through a phase of requiring officers to be from the cities they were working in. This has turned into to most now only being required to live in their cities for a certain amount of years. So we still get huge percentages of officers who have no connection to the people they are policing and in many instances see these people as something not worthy of quality policing.
You're completely off base here as well. Most big cities are trying to professionalize their departments by requiring 4 year degrees and a certain investment in a full-career of police work and trying to weed out thugs who are just in it for a paycheck and to crack some heads. You can't do that by offering the joke starting salaries you see in a lot of big cities and you definitely can't do that by restricting your candidate pool to one municipality.
While it may be advantageous to have people with a connection to the community they're policing there are also a lot of dangers associated with that - like how familiarity in these circumstances can breed corruption and on the flip side can put cops and their families at risk.
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Your bend on police budgeting is off base. Many city police forces have huge departments dedicated to drug arrest, they do not use resources only going after major players those are different departments. Major cases are made by information provided from minor arrest and investigations.
Sure, most cities do have special drug task forces because the drug trade garners a lot of attention for obvious reasons . . . but that doesn't mean that these departments aren't underfunded. You can see that in the salaries, in the 911 response times, and in the very fact they have to prioritize calls so that if you call about a man with a gun the cops will be there in seconds but if you call about a stolen bike they'll show up 90 minutes later and ask you why you need a police report. In fact, in Philadelphia, unless someone is seriously injured they won't show up to car crashes anymore. Police budgets in most big cities were very dire in the 80s and took another big hit during the recession.
Also, cities don't take down big players anymore. They can barely take down the mid-level management because they don't have the resources to do it. Most of the big actions nowadays come from regional task forces made up of city, state, and federal LE.
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When it comes to who controls the drug trade in this country, there absolutely no law enforcement evidence anywhere that blacks are more involved in serious drug distribution. Organized crime not street gangs is the source. The reason why the violence exists is because the money has greater value to someone who feels like they have no other options. Some 24 years old selling cocaine or heroin in the suburbs get ripped off for a couple of thousand and he can eat it and go finish college. People in the most violent communities see that same amount of money as a reason to kill someone. This ties to my first point. The answer is the perception of desperation that their daily reality creates.
I didn't say that blacks are more involved in serious drug distribution - I'm sure by the numbers white people will top that list because there are 5x as many white people as black people. But as a percentage of the black community I don't think it's close. Before you get all knee jerk let me finish. The drug trade is more of a problem in inner city black communities because there's desperate labor pool, there's decent cover (people will be reluctant to tell police the details), and there's easy access to the nearby wealthy communities who are buying it.
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I have cousins who have killed each other. Most of the men in my family have been to jail, most before 21. I'm the only one over 18 that graduated form college. I lived this as well. I also grew up in that desperation, raised by a single mother, who had me when she was 18 and a senior in high school.
Statistics are not emotions and your comments reflect that you have personal experience seeing but no experience actual living through those emotions.
Right, but this is a thread about poor white people, and we were talking about how policing is different in black urban communities and poor white communities (which, for the most part are rural). None of the rest of this is really pertinent because I'm not trying to argue that black poverty exists because there's something wrong with black people. That might be someone else's argument but it's never been mine. I know why black poverty is higher than white poverty.
But cops aren't on the street to police the causes of historical injustice. They're there to bust someone for walking around right now with an unlicensed handgun. The legacy of slavery and jim crow might be a long root of some neighborhood beef but it's not an excuse for it. We need to do something real about addressing poverty in this country but doing that doesn't mean that we stop policing or let people off the hook for violent crime because as poverty is a cycle violence is a contagion.
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Those kids who terrorize your neighborhood are the byproduct of 20 generations of victimization and desperation.
Some of them are. Most of them are the products of working class homes where dad is a postman or works for the gas company or mom drives a bus or is a 911 dispatcher. For different reasons they got sucked into the life of the street and their parents want to pretend that they're not bothering anyone.
There's a lot that needs to change about policing - but that's only going to fix police brutality - it's not going to fix any of the root causes of any of the problems we've discussed.
If you think he's not exaggerating, you're more than welcome to name for me all of these white people beating murder charges with a self-defense plea.
Did you read his post? Your story indicates that the police are quite busy trying to enforce the law in largely white rural areas. This is the opposite of what Larry is claiming.
Are you serious? People with deep pockets can and do beat murder raps all the time in this country because they can afford good lawyers who are good at picking gullible jurors. That's why so few millionaires wind up in prison for whatever their crimes. Pick any state, urban or rural, and search for some famous criminal cases.
Most people and most law enforcement are located in the small cities and towns in our areas. They get out to the rural areas when they can. There's 1 SP helo to hunt the pot farms across three counties and parts of two others, which is well over 5,000 square miles. It's at least a 30 minute drive, even at 60 mph, from the county seat to the NE corner of my county. There might be only 2 or 3 active sheriff's cars on "patrol" in this county after midnight to cover well over 1,500 square miles which is divided, SE to NW, by a 17 mile lake with only a single crossing point.
It's 2015. You're already on the internet. You could spend 20 minutes on C-D looking at crime stats of rural counties in Appalachia or the Cumberland Plateau.
I'm not wasting my time googling stuff for you on an already well established issue. If you want to disprove it - go for it.
Unlike yourself obviously, I've done the research. I could demolish your false claim in fewer than 5 minutes with multiple sources, but it isn't my responsibility to disprove it. It's your claim, you own it. You have the obligation to support it.
Everyone here knows that what you are claiming is simply not true. Stand behind what you say. Back it up with some facts or retract it.
Are you serious? People with deep pockets can and do beat murder raps all the time in this country because they can afford good lawyers who are good at picking gullible jurors. That's why so few millionaires wind up in prison for whatever their crimes. Pick any state, urban or rural, and search for some famous criminal cases.
Most people and most law enforcement are located in the small cities and towns in our areas. They get out to the rural areas when they can. There's 1 SP helo to hunt the pot farms across three counties and parts of two others, which is well over 5,000 square miles. It's at least a 30 minute drive, even at 60 mph, from the county seat to the NE corner of my county. There might be only 2 or 3 active sheriff's cars on "patrol" in this county after midnight to cover well over 1,500 square miles which is divided, SE to NW, by a 17 mile lake with only a single crossing point.
That's all great Linda, but you seem a bit confused. Whether or not the wealthy can better defend themselves is not what we're discussing here.
Unlike yourself obviously, I've done the research. I could demolish your false claim in fewer than 5 minutes with multiple sources, but it isn't my responsibility to disprove it. It's your claim, you own it. You have the obligation to support it.
Everyone here knows that what you are claiming is simply not true. Stand behind what you say. Back it up with some facts or retract it.
LOL. If it was going to take you fewer than 5 minutes to demolish my claim then you would've done it instead of posting this. So yeah, I'm bored, let's go -
But a few of America's 3,144 counties . . .
Van Zandt County, TX - 92% white - 15th most murderous county in the US.
Calhoun County, AL - 79% white - 5th most violent (all violent crimes)
Taney County, MO - 96% white - 6th highest for property crimes
Cleveland County, OK - 79% white - 3rd most violent
Columbia County, FL - 80% white - 32nd for violence
Or this - http://www.sagepub.com/ballantine2st...5/Weisheit.pdf Following the example of Kposowa and Breault (1993), we
identified the 30 counties with the highest homicide rates. Of
these 30 high-rate counties, 19 were nonmetropolitan. Of these 19
nonmetropolitan counties, 11 were completely rural—that is, the
county contained no municipality of 2,500 or more. Of these 11
rural counties, 6 were in the South, 4 were in the West, and 1 was
in the Midwest. Of the remaining 8 nonmetropolitan counties, 6
had no municipality with more than 20,000, and most were in the
South. The 11 metropolitan counties in the list of counties with the
highest rates were less concentrated in the South than was true for
nonmetropolitan counties with high homicide rates. About half
(6) of the high-rate metropolitan counties were in the South, 4
were in the Midwest, and 1 was in the Northeast. Furthermore,
because these rates were averaged over a 5-year period, the findings
were not the result of an unusual single-year reporting pattern.
Thus, although nonmetropolitan counties have lower homicide
rates on average, there are pockets of rural America with
rates exceeding those in the largest cities.
LOL. If it was going to take you fewer than 5 minutes to demolish my claim then you would've done it instead of posting this. So yeah, I'm bored, let's go -
But a few of America's 3,144 counties . . .
Van Zandt County, TX - 92% white - 15th most murderous county in the US.
Calhoun County, AL - 79% white - 5th most violent (all violent crimes)
Taney County, MO - 96% white - 6th highest for property crimes
Cleveland County, OK - 79% white - 3rd most violent
Columbia County, FL - 80% white - 32nd for violence
Or this - http://www.sagepub.com/ballantine2st...5/Weisheit.pdf Following the example of Kposowa and Breault (1993), we
identified the 30 counties with the highest homicide rates. Of
these 30 high-rate counties, 19 were nonmetropolitan. Of these 19
nonmetropolitan counties, 11 were completely rural—that is, the
county contained no municipality of 2,500 or more. Of these 11
rural counties, 6 were in the South, 4 were in the West, and 1 was
in the Midwest. Of the remaining 8 nonmetropolitan counties, 6
had no municipality with more than 20,000, and most were in the
South. The 11 metropolitan counties in the list of counties with the
highest rates were less concentrated in the South than was true for
nonmetropolitan counties with high homicide rates. About half
(6) of the high-rate metropolitan counties were in the South, 4
were in the Midwest, and 1 was in the Northeast. Furthermore,
because these rates were averaged over a 5-year period, the findings
were not the result of an unusual single-year reporting pattern.
Thus, although nonmetropolitan counties have lower homicide
rates on average, there are pockets of rural America with
rates exceeding those in the largest cities.
Or this - nf/poverty & crime/FEBRUARY
You could read the full report but it's behind Oxford's paywall.
Or this - http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/e/...n-Homicide.pdf
So many problems here.
First, let's reiterate your claim: "...the rates of violence in poor black and poor white communities are similar."
In support, you mention a number of counties and some accompanying stats.
1. You're including property crimes. Your claim is regarding violence.
2. There is no information on income or poverty.
3. There's no offender data.
I've only scratched the surface. Essentially what you've shown us is: "These few counties are mostly white and they have a lot of crime, so therefore "...the rates of violence in poor black and poor white communities are similar."
I would like to call that fallacious reasoning, but it's not even reasoning of any kind. It would be akin to saying "The US is mostly White and there's a lot of violent crime there, so therefore whites are committing a lot of violent crime". Do you not see the absence of logic in this?
Regarding the studies you've linked, I'm presuming you didn't actually read them. One does not even consider race or poverty. Another basically determines that they couldn't actually conclude anything on the matter. The other uses info from one city over a 3 year period(with a number of dubious variables), and no offender data.
In sum, you've offered nothing to support your claim.
But look, I don't want to turn this into a battle of studies. We both know how much fun that would be, and how futile. But let's also not pretend that your claim is widely regarded as true; it isn't. You may believe it, but it's not an established fact.
LOL. If it was going to take you fewer than 5 minutes to demolish my claim then you would've done it instead of posting this. So yeah, I'm bored, let's go -
But a few of America's 3,144 counties . . .
Van Zandt County, TX - 92% white - 15th most murderous county in the US.
Calhoun County, AL - 79% white - 5th most violent (all violent crimes)
Taney County, MO - 96% white - 6th highest for property crimes
Cleveland County, OK - 79% white - 3rd most violent
Columbia County, FL - 80% white - 32nd for violence
Or this - http://www.sagepub.com/ballantine2st...5/Weisheit.pdf Following the example of Kposowa and Breault (1993), we
identified the 30 counties with the highest homicide rates. Of
these 30 high-rate counties, 19 were nonmetropolitan. Of these 19
nonmetropolitan counties, 11 were completely rural—that is, the
county contained no municipality of 2,500 or more. Of these 11
rural counties, 6 were in the South, 4 were in the West, and 1 was
in the Midwest. Of the remaining 8 nonmetropolitan counties, 6
had no municipality with more than 20,000, and most were in the
South. The 11 metropolitan counties in the list of counties with the
highest rates were less concentrated in the South than was true for
nonmetropolitan counties with high homicide rates. About half
(6) of the high-rate metropolitan counties were in the South, 4
were in the Midwest, and 1 was in the Northeast. Furthermore,
because these rates were averaged over a 5-year period, the findings
were not the result of an unusual single-year reporting pattern.
Thus, although nonmetropolitan counties have lower homicide
rates on average, there are pockets of rural America with
rates exceeding those in the largest cities.
Homicide rates in the rural counties I am familiar with are very comparable to most urban homicide rates. The idea that poor whites don't kill each other with glee and abandon is just foolish. The idea that laws are enforced equally on whites and blacks is equally foolish. I have dark skinned cousins, who are professional people, that find themselves rousted by the police all the time, even though they are upper middle class. In the same place, doing the same thing, the cops never bother me because I am white. That's so much a part of American culture that I find it hard to believe someone in denial about it.
But look, I don't want to turn this into a battle of studies.
We both know how much fun that would be, and how futile. But let's also not pretend that your claim is widely regarded as true; it isn't. You may believe it, but it's not an established fact.
LOL. Nice how you just respond to the "quickfacts" I posted and not the well researched, well reviewed, longitudinal studies I linked to. In any case, all of those counties have higher than average violent crimes but only one of them is a standout for property crime. All of them are well below the national average for median white household income. But yeah, if you think that a 92% white county in east Texas is topping the ranks for murders because all of the murderers are coming from 8% of the population then you have bigger issues than understanding causality.
You don't want this to turn into the battle of the studies because you know you got nothing. If you had something you would have demolished my claims by now.
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