Yet Another Way Affirmative Action Hurts

From Yahoo News:

Black and Latino students may be getting less critical, but helpful, feedback from teachers than their white counterparts, a new educational study indicates.

“The social implications of these results are important; many minority students might not be getting input from instructors that stimulates intellectual growth and fosters achievement,” study researcher Kent Harber, a Rutgers-Newark psychology professor, said in a press release.

This positive bias in feedback to minority students may be contributing to the achievement gap between white and minority students, a stubborn national problem, Harber said.

The study “tested” 113 white middle-school and high-school teachers in two public school districts, one middle class and white, and the other working class and racially mixed. Both are located in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tri-state area.

Harber and colleagues developed a poorly written essay that they gave to the teachers to grade, under the pretense that it was the work of a student. In some cases, the teachers believed the student was white, in others black and in others Latino.

The teachers believed their feedback would go directly to the student.

The researchers found that, indeed, the teachers were prone to give more praise and less criticism if they believed a minority student had written the paper, as opposed to a white student.

The researchers also considered the support the teacher received from colleagues and administration. This turned out to be an important factor if the teachers believed the student was black, with only teachers who lacked support showing the bias. However, when teachers thought the student was Latino, they showed the bias toward positive feedback regardless.

“These results indicate that the positive feedback bias may contribute to the insufficient challenge that undermines minority students’ academic achievement,” the researchers conclude.

The study appeared online April 30 in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

Of course, the teachers may believe that minority students have had a tougher time in life, and that a poor essay represents a reasonable effort for them. But this pervasive belief that minority students are not “up to” the intellectual demands that white students can handle has more bad consequences than we can count.

Stopping and Searching People Just to Obtain Racial Balance

It’s the “logic” of affirmative action taken to its logical (or rather illogical) conclusion.

From The Guardian:

Thousands of people are being stopped and searched by the police under their counter-­terrorism powers – simply to ­provide a racial balance in official statistics, the government’s official anti-terror law watchdog has revealed.

Lord Carlile said in his annual report that he had “ample anecdotal evidence” of it happening, adding that such a practice was “totally wrong” and constituted an invasion of civil liberties.

“I can well understand the concerns of the police that they should be free from allegations of prejudice,” he said. “But it is not a good use of precious resources if they waste them on self-evidently unmerited searches.”

He said there was little or no evidence that the use of section 44 stop and search powers by the police could prevent an act of terrorism.

“While arrests for other crime have ­followed searches under the section, none of the many thousands of searches has ever resulted in a conviction for a terrorism offence. Its utility has been questioned publicly and privately by senior Metropolitan police staff with wide experience of terrorism policing,” said Carlile. He added that such searches were stopping between 8,000-10,000 people a month.

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the ­“section 44 stops” allow the police to search anyone in a designated area without suspicion that an offence has occurred.

But Carlile is critical of the use of the powers by the Met police, saying that he felt “a sense of frustration” the force did not limit its use of section 44 authorisations to some boroughs or parts of boroughs but used them across its entire area.

“I cannot see a justification for the whole of the Greater London area being covered permanently. The intention of the section was not to place London under permanent special search powers.” He noted that the damage done to community relations was “undoubtedly considerable”.

Examples of poor use of section 44 abounded. “I have evidence of cases where the person stopped is so obviously far from any known terrorism profile that, realistically, there is not the slightest ­possibility of him/her being a terrorist, and no other feature to justify the stop.”

He later said that while the police should not discriminate racially, it was equally important that they should not balance the statistics.

“If, for example, 50 blonde women are stopped who fall nowhere near any intelligence-led terrorism profile, it’s a gross invasion of the civil liberties of those 50 blonde women.

“The police are perfectly entitled to stop people who fall within a terrorism profile even if it creates a racial imbalance, as long as it is not racist.”

Former British diplomat Sir Edward Clay told BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight programme he was subjected to a stop and search five weeks ago while on his way to work at the National School of Government, near Victoria Station in central London.

He said he had found the experience “sinister” and “intimidating”. He told the programme: “I’m 63, I’m a grey-to-brown-haired white male, I’m 5ft 10 ins tall, looking extremely conventional.”

The latest police figures show that ­117,278 people were stopped under section 44 in 2007-08, of whom 73,967 were white, 20,768 were Asian and 15,218 black.

No Racial Bias in Decisions of Milwaukee County District Attorney

This morning Wayne McKenzie of the VERA Institute presented the results of a large-scale study of decision-making in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office at the Marquette Law School. A small crowd including several Marquette Law School students, a few “community activists,” a couple of Marquette faculty and District Attorney John Chisholm was present.

The study included 52,784 felony and misdemeanor accusations brought to the District Attorney’s office in calendar year 2006.

There are many points in the criminal justice process at which racial discrimination might show itself, including the decision to prosecute (the DA’s office simply declines to prosecute some cases), the decision as to what charges are appropriate, the decision as to what plea bargain to offer (over 90% of cases are plea bargained), and what sentence to recommend for a guilty offender.

The VERA institute studied one of these: “declination,” the decision not to prosecute a particular person accused by the cops of a crime.

The results were virtually identical by race. 40% of the misdemeanor charges against whites were not prosecuted, and 40% of such charges against non-whites were likewise declined. Where felonies were concerned, the declination rate was 32% for whites, and 33% for non-whites. That’s about as equal as you can get.

Of course, equality in the aggregate can mask fairly serious disparities in specific cases, so the VERA Institute “drilled down” to see whether specific categories of crime showed a pattern of racial inequality.

There was one, although it was a fairly minor one.

VERA found that in cases of possession of drug paraphernalia (a misdemeanor) 41% of the time whites were not prosecuted for the crime, but in only 27% of the cases was prosecution of cases against non-whites declined.

Does this suggest racism at work? It would be odd if prosecutors who are fair in dealing with the vast majority of offenses put on their white sheets and turn into Klansmen for this one kind of offense.

District Attorney Chisholm investigated, and found that the very junior and inexperienced prosecutors in the misdemeanor unit were looking at cases where black drug offenders had large numbers of prior offenses, and deciding to go ahead with prosecution.

It wasn’t racism, it was a racially neutral process operating to the detriment of (mostly) black offenders.

So that means there isn’t a problem, right?

Even a racially fair process has to pass a cost-benefit test, and Chisholm argued convincingly that prosecution of this particular offense doesn’t meet it (except in unusual cases, such as when the person charged is a known gang leader). Not only is this charge difficult to prove in court, the typical sentence is only a month in jail, if it involves incarceration at all.

These offenders, for the most part, are addicts (drug dealing is a felony), and aren’t going to be helped by the sentence.

Chisholm has responded to this situation by merging the felony and misdemeanor units, such that more experienced prosecutors get to look at these cases.

As the debate over the supposed “disproportionate” incarceration of blacks in Wisconsin continues, we can point to this case as an example of doing things right. Former District Attorney E. Michael McCann initiated a study that was clearly a bit politically risky. The study mostly vindicated his office (since occupied by Chisholm), but when one area of questionable practice was found, the DA moved decisively to fix it.

Things are supposed to work like that, although they rarely seem to.

Black Incarceration in Wisconsin: More

Our article on the supposed “disproportionate incarceration of blacks” in Wisconsin seems to be getting some attention.

Some leftist moonbat bloggers have taken a swing at it, and mostly proved they have no idea about the issues involved.

But some of the response has been more serious.

Wisconsin Public Radio is preparing a segment on the issue, and asked Prof. Pamela Oliver, at the UW-Madison, to reply to our essay. She did so, and gave us permission to publish what she wrote in a private e-mail to a WPR producer. So we are publishing her entire critique of our article here, along with a “preface” she sent us in a later e-mail. We are publishing the “preface” below the main e-mail, since we think it makes more sense that way, but in fairness to Oliver, do read it.

. . . this is a long complicated essay that makes many different points and responding to it point by point would take a week. Here are some responses.

(1) Racial disparity refers to the statistical pattern that Blacks (and to a lesser extent Latinos and American Indians) are arrested and incarcerated at higher rates than Whites. This is indisputably true.

The Commission is charged with trying to reduce these disparities.

But does one want to reduce these disparities? If they result from disparities in committing crimes, we don’t think so.

Note that some of the statements below suggest that the Commission is thinking of ways to reduce crime in the black community. If black crime rates decline (relative to white crime rates) we certainly would want disparity in incarceration to decline.

(2) At this juncture, 40% of the Black male population nationally is under the supervision of the correctional system and about a third of young Black men are expected to spend some time in prison. McAdams seems to think this is an acceptable state of affairs if he can show that it is “as predicted” by control variables. Other people think this is a terrible problem with enormous consequences for whole Black communities.

But is the problem that the system discriminates against blacks, or that blacks commit too many crimes? It makes a huge difference. One is on a fool’s errand trying to fix the criminal justice system if the problem is not with the criminal justice system.

(3) Any reasonable person who has dug into the data recognizes that there are two components of the statistical disparities. Some of the difference is coming from differences in the rate at which Whites and Blacks commit crimes, and some of the difference is coming from differences in the way people are treated in the system given that they have done something wrong. Roughly half of the presentations the Commission has heard and roughly half of the Commissioners have an orientation that is primarily focused on reducing crimes committed by Black people. That is, they have raised concerns about funding for education, about programs to strengthen families and reintegrate fathers into communities, about jobs programs and job discrimination, about bringing people to God, etc. In short, a lot of the people on the Commission think this is a terrible crisis that should be addressed by dealing with underlying problems of crime. Where they differ from McAdams is that they think there is more to reducing crime than incarcerating an ever-growing share of the Black population.

Some of those proposed ideas for reducing black crime sound good to us (strengthen families and reintegrate fathers into communities, bringing people to God), and some sound like more of the same things that have failed (more spending on education, jobs programs). But even the things we like aren’t easily manipulated by public policy.

Are the commissioners saying that locking up black criminals is not part of the solution? We hope not.

Anybody with even a casual interest in crime in the Milwaukee area is aware of the reality shown on a map provided annually in the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission Public Safety Report.

So far as we are concerned, anybody is welcome to go find ways of reducing crime with this or that warm fuzzy-sounding liberal program. But until they can fix the crime problem that way (and we aren’t holding our breath), cops need to catch criminals, and prosecutors and courts need to punish them.

That is one social program that actually works, in contrast to all the programs that the liberals are always touting.

We’ve probably all heard the story about the man sitting in a bar over his drink, lamenting the fact that he drinks too much. A fellow patron asks “why do you drink so much?” The man replies “to forget my problems.” The fellow patron asks “what problems.” The man replies “I drink too much.”

Thus we find liberals blaming crime on the problems of the inner city. Fair enough. But what is the chief problem of the inner city? Crime.

(4) What McAdams leaves out of his statement -- because that would contradict his arguments -- is that the time trends for crime and incarceration don’t support his arguments that this is just tracking crime. Crime generally went down while incarceration skyrocketed. So it just is not true that incarceration is simply tracking crime.

Liberals often see it as a problem that, in the last couple of decades, as the incarceration rate has gone up, crime has gone down. Actually, the way they always say it is that “as the crime rate has gone down, the incarceration rate has gone up.”

Somehow it never occurs to them that crime went down because of increased incarceration!

Oliver’s statement, by the way, doesn’t really address the point that we made, which is that higher incarceration rates of blacks reflect higher rates of offending by blacks.

A more complicated problem to dig into is the possibility of an incapacitation effect, and I’m now persuaded that there is some incapacitation effect in the data, for property crime but not for violent crime. Most criminologists now think that drug incarcerations have absolutely zero impact on reducing illegal drug use or sales, and some argue that they actually increase it through indirect effects. But really digging into these issues is to complex for a short response.

If somebody wants to dig into the issue, they might check the works we cite on incapacitation in our article. There seems to be good evidence for an effect both for violent crimes and property crimes.

(5) The Sentencing Commission report clearly found a substantial racial difference in the probability of being sentenced to prison rather than probation for drug offenses and for lower-level violent and property offenses. This analysis controlled for prior record and controlled for multiple offenses at the trial, as well as for other factors available in the record.

That is indeed pretty much what the Sentencing Commission found, but they admitted to real problems with their data. Quoting their report:

. . . many legitimate bases for distinguishing among defendants, such as prior criminal record, fewer educational opportunities, and erratic work history, are likely correlated with being Black, which also systematically disadvantages Black offenders (p. 4).

And this:

Ideally, a report of this scope would rely upon data tracking offenders by race from the initial police call through investigation, arrest, the prosecutor’s charging decision, plea negotiations, trial, conviction, and finally, sentencing. Data would include, not only the race of the offender, but the race of other actors, including the responding officers, victim, prosecutor, judge, and jurors, as well as whether the offender was assigned a public defender or retained private counsel. Beyond race, numerous socioeconomic factors may also contribute to differential involvement in crime and differential treatment by the criminal justice system. All of these data points, collected in a consistent and integrated system, would contribute to a fuller understanding of the role of race in sentencing decisions and throughout the criminal justice system.

Currently, Wisconsin does not collect this data in a coordinated way conducive to analysis by race.

[. . .]

For instance, the Commission collects data regarding the factors that influence a judge’s sentencing decision for sentencing guideline offenses when judges submit sentencing worksheets. These worksheets, when submitted and fully and properly completed, contain information about factors, such as employment history and family support, that might influence a judge’s sentencing decision. These factors are likely correlated to race and thus, might help explain the role race may or may not play in sentencing decisions. However, the Commission recently found that judges only submitted worksheets for 23% of the guideline offenses for which worksheets should have been submitted. Furthermore, worksheets were not submitted proportionately from all parts of the state, resulting in overrepresentation of Milwaukee County cases in the available data. Finally, even when judges do submit worksheets, the worksheets often are not filled out completely or correctly. As a result, the data collected by the Commission is less reliable, and our ability to use the available sentencing data to explain the role race may or may not play in sentencing decisions decreases significantly (pp. 5-6).

In fact, we think that, by the usual social science standards, the Sentencing Commission data is pretty good. But it frankly omits some factors that might legitimately affect sentencing, and it only deals with one point in the whole process. It can’t touch the issue of whether black offenders are more or less likely to be arrested, more or less likely to be charged, more or less likely to have their cases dropped by the district attorney, and so on.

It found no difference in sentence lengths. The findings of the Sentencing Commission for Wisconsin are exactly parallel to what has been found in other states. No difference in sentence length, a big difference in the in/out decision for lesser offenses and drug sentences but not for the most serious offenses. McAdams stresses the sentence length part of the analysis but ignores the in/out part of the analysis. While many of the actors on the sentencing commission wanted and got language that stressed that maybe something else would explain away the in/out result, anyone familiar with the logic of statistical analysis would recognize that the effects are large enough and that enough other factors have been controlled that they are probably “real.”

We are not at all sure of this. We have seen quite large estimated effects in a statistical model entirely go away when the proper controls were put in place.

Oliver goes on:

This seems especially plausible as the pattern -- no difference in sentence length, big difference in the in/out decision for lessor offenses -- is exactly what is found over and over in by other studies in other jurisdictions. (It is interesting that McAdams is sure the sentence length part of the analysis is definitive, while he dismisses the in/out part of the analysis as inconclusive.)

The differences shown by the Sentencing Commission may very well be real, although we have to note that they only claim racial disparity in sentencing for lessor crimes -- which get shorter sentences and contribute less to overall racial disparity ratios.

But again, see above for the limitations of their study.

(6) I did a detailed analysis comparing aggregate counts of arrests and prison admissions broken down by race and UCR crime categories for Wisconsin counties the late 1990s -- I have not yet been able to get the data to replicate for more recent years. Basically what I found parallels again what is found in other studies. First, the biggest disparities are at the point of arrest and these disparities are very high for serious crimes -- this is consistent with seeing differential crime as a big component of the problem (although there are issues with arrests, see below).

OK, we think she is saying that there are disparities in arrests, which probably parallel disparities in committing crimes. Which they should.

Second, for the most serious crimes, there is very little or no racial difference in the ratio of prison to arrest. Third, for the less serious crimes, there is a significant racial difference in the ratio of prison sentences to arrests, with this ratio being in the ballpark of 1.5 to 2 times as high for Blacks as for Whites. (And in these data, Hispanics are counted as White, because of the way arrests are recorded.)

This is all interesting, but to show discrimination it is necessary that the black arrestees are in fact comparable to the white arrestees.

Doing that, unfortunately, would require data that nobody has.

It does seem, however, that Oliver has pretty much conceded that there is no racial discrimination where the most serious crimes (those most likely to draw prison sentences and indeed long prison sentences) are involved.

Fourth, for low level drug possession offenses, the ratio of prison sentences to arrests was 9 times as high for Blacks as for Whites. In short, there is substantial prima facie evidence of something happening post arrest; it cannot all be just a matter of differential crime.

We are not sure precisely what data she is talking about, but would point out that the Sentencing Commission, in the report she cites, doesn’t even bother to analyze drug possession, looking only at drug trafficking.

We conceded in the article that drug enforcement is particularly tough on the black community. We would just make two additional points:

1.) There is a rational basis for tough drug enforcement in the inner city, since that is where drug dealing and the visible effects of drug use are most severe.

2.) Tough drug enforcement in the black community is not something that racist whites imposed. It has had the strong support of both black leaders (the Congressional Black Caucus) and rank and file black citizens.

Neither point proves that current policy is good. But let’s be clear on why we have it.

(7) Arrests as a proxy for crime is a tough nut. Most criminologists believe that arrests track crime pretty well for the most serious offenses. That is, yes, there is a serious problem with serious crime among African Americans, and no reasonable person thinks there isn’t.

But the problem is, there are a lot of unserious people around!

You might talk to some faculty members at Marquette. No, not the criminologists, who are sensible on the issue. But some other professors (especially in the humanities) who haven’t realized this.

I have certainly never talked to an African American person who did not think there was a problem with crime in poor Black communities, and a lot of the talk on the Commission, especially by the Black members, has been about problems with crime and violence. As I said, about half of the Commission’s time has been spent with people talking about programs to reduce disparities in criminal justice by reducing the rates at which people commit crimes.

This is good.

It’s at the lower end of the crime scale and the drug crimes where there is evidence of a difference in treatment in the system. Some people are much more likely to get caught and prosecuted for what they do than others.

However, our analysis of data from the Incident Based Reporting System showed that, in the city of Milwaukee, blacks commit violent crimes at a rate eight times that of whites.

Now, since the data on property crimes are pretty much useless where race of offender is concerned, it might be that the disparity in offending is much less where that is concerned. But we have trouble seeing why this would be so. Are vandals more likely to be caught in a black neighborhood?

The virtue of the incident data is that it doesn’t matter if the offender is arrested or not. So differential rates of arrest (or prosecution or conviction) don’t matter.

(8) Public health data tell us that young White people use all illegal drugs -- including cocaine and crack cocaine -- at higher rates than Blacks do, but White kids have a very low chance of getting caught and prosecuted for their drug use, while policing patterns pick up huge numbers of young Black kids on drug charges. Studies of “driving while Black” drug interdictions find that Whites who are stopped are just as likely (in some studies more likely) to be found carrying illegal drugs than Blacks who are stopped, but because Blacks are so much more likely to be stopped, they account for the overwhelming majority of drug arrests. McAdams tries to get around this by minimizing White kids’ drug use (they are just puffing marijuana while the Black kids are doing the really bad stuff) but this just isn’t what the data show. When I talk to White kids, they don’t dispute that White kids do a lot of illegal drugs, they just think Blacks kids do drugs as much as they do. It is true that the vast majority of drug prison sentences are for “possession with intent to deliver” but most of those are cases involving less than 5 grams of crack cocaine, many involving less than 1 gram that were still prosecuted as delivery charges. A very odd thing about cocaine arrests and incarcerations is that it is a market that -- according to arrest data -- has many more dealers than users.

Which might suggest that a lot of cocaine users escape detection and don’t get arrested.

Also note that “dealer weight” is a legally defined concept. It means you are found with a greater quantity of the drug than an individual might have in a personal “stash,” and are presumed to be selling it. Unless one wants to posit that cops are planting drugs on a lot of black people, the argument seems very odd.

This makes no economic sense. Prosecutions of people as presumptive dealers in the possession of very small amounts of the drug are highly indicative of patterns of over-charging, and the absence of a pool of customers in the arrests are highly indicative of policing patterns focusing on some people and not others. Marijuana arrests, for example, do not have this pattern -- there you see what you would expect in a market, a lot more customers (users) than dealers.

See our discussion of drug crimes (above).

We do note that Oliver is here relying heavily on anecdotal data. Note that she has also ignored our key arguments about drug crimes. It’s not that white kids don’t use drugs. It’s that their use is seen as a personal vice and not a threat to the community.

We lean toward the view that drugs should be legalized. But few in the black community (nor among whites) agree with us.

(9) In a small exploratory study of juvenile court cases in Madison, I found that Whites first appearance in court records was for a felony, while Blacks first appearance in court records was for a low-level misdemeanor. Are we to draw the conclusion that White kids who commit felonies have never done anything bad before? Or that White kids who commit low-level misdemeanors are less likely to end up in the court records? Most of us in the system think it is the latter -- White kids either don’t get caught, or get handled informally, or are sent to suburban municipal courts, not to county court. The net effect is that a White kid presenting a felony has a shorter record than a Black kid presenting the same felony, so everyone thinks it is fair for the Black kid to get a worse sentence because he has a longer record. But that longer record is, itself, a product of differential enforcement or responses to low level crime. The Commission has been struggling with ways to get a handle on the policing of White kids in the suburban jurisdictions. Again, not denying differences in serious crime, but the policing of low level crime is part of what is feeding into the disparities, as it produces differences in criminal records.

This may well be true, although we would hope that black juveniles would “get the point” and learn something that would carry into adult life. It’s also the case that juvenile records don’t get carried into adult sentencing decisions.

(10) Another thing that people express concern about that is harder to get a handle on is charging by police and DAs. We certainly hear stories that sound like massive over-reaction and over-charging for a given offense. Complaints like two kids get in a fight, one White one Black, the White kid gets sent home with a warning, the Black kid is arrested on a assault charge. Or a Black woman being picked up and held in a suburban jail without bail on a 10-year-old shoplifting warrant from when she was 17. It’s very hard to get systematic data on this kind of thing, but there are lots of stories people tell.

Unfortunately, this is admittedly anecdotal data.

If social psychology has taught us one thing, it is that people are more attentive to accounts (stories, tales) that fit into their existing cognitive framework.

(11) Aggregate studies of states. I have done a lot of these and we could do dueling studies for weeks. A couple of comments. I have done the % urban studies. It turns out that %Black is the strong predictor -- states with higher % Black have lower incarceration rates. %Black and % of Blacks who are urban are highly negatively correlated and cannot be taken apart, but I have compared them, and %Black is the stronger more consistent predictor, not % of Blacks who are urban. I.e. McAdams’ dismissive “well they are just rural” analysis does not hold up to deep scrutiny. I have also compared Black and White imprisonment rates to Black and White poverty rates, and to crime rates. Basically, White imprisonment rates are correlated with White poverty rates, but Black imprisonment rates are not. Racial disparities are driven mostly by having a low White imprisonment rate, which in turn is highly correlated with the White population not being very poor. So the patterns are really complicated if you do the analysis in depth. In addition, incarceration rose steeply while poverty and unemployment were declining in the 1980s, and in the 1980s, Black incarceration rates were highest where Black poverty was lowest. In the 1980s, incarceration for everyone (Black and White) was higher in states where crime was higher, but in the 1990s, Black incarceration rates are uncorrelated with crime rates, while White incarceration rates are positively related to crime rates. The strongest predictor of White incarceration is the White homicide victimization rate, but the Black homicide victimization rate is uncorrelated with other measures of crime and with the White homicide rate, and is uncorrelated with Black incarceration. Etc. etc.

Frankly, we haven’t following all the twists and turns of Oliver’s attempts to model racial diaparity rates, since they seem arcane and convoluted. We started with the plausible notion that blacks in the central cities of Metropolitan Statistical areas are more likely to commit crimes than blacks in suburban, small town or rural settings. This idea best explains the low diaparity ratio of Southern states. They still have substantial rural black populations. Thus in states where a large proportion of blacks live in such central cities, the black crime rate (and thus the disparity rate) will be higher. Contrary to what Oliver asserts, the relationship was quite strong.

We then added the poverty rate among blacks (which we believed would tend to drive up black crime), and the poverty rate among whites (which we believed would increase crime among whites and drive down the disparity ratio). Voilà! The model was a very good predictor of disparity ratios.

This is the way graduate students are taught to model things. At least in political science.

In short, if you treat the data honestly, you see lots of different patterns that cut lots of different ways. The Commission is staffed by people who agree that mass incarceration of Black people is a very serious problem but who understand that there are many different sources of the problem that will require many different solutions.

Oliver then added the following in an e-mail to us:

I wrote the response quickly with only a quick skim of what you wrote because I did not have time for a long response.

This was fair enough. When dealing with the media, one simply has to respond quickly.

There are points where, on a second read, I can see that you acknowledge some of the complexity that I don’t give you credit for. Each of the specific points is a complex issue that has a lot of nuance to really get it right in the statistics. We both agree that differential crime rates are part of the picture. Where I think we disagree is that I think there is substantial evidence that differential treatment within the criminal justice system also plays a role. And we seem to disagree about whether extraordinarily high rates of incarceration are a good thing or a bad thing as a way to deal with the problems of poverty, racial discrimination in job markets, weak schools, and the other factors that play into crime rates.

We certainly do seem to disagree about this. We think the evidence is highly robust: incarceration deters crime, and incarceration incapacitates criminals, keeping them in prison when they would be out doing nasty things otherwise.

And since black criminals overwhelmingly prey on black people, to fail to incarcerate black criminals is to fail to protect black people.

We frankly think that a “law and order” policy is a precondition for doing anything else that might help the black community.

I assume we also disagree about whether the drug war is being fairly prosecuted and about whether there ought to be a supply side drug war.

We in fact, probably don’t disagree. See above.

Summarizing

So what can we conclude.

First, Oliver has essentially conceded that, for the most serious crimes (generally, Uniform Crime Reports “violent” crimes) there is virtually no evidence of racial disparity. Given that these are the kinds of crimes that are most likely to result in incarceration, and likely to produce long prison sentences, that’s quite a lot to concede.

Second, we’ll happily concede that the enforcement of drug laws is particularly tough on the black community. (Indeed, we said this in our article.) This isn’t any sort of evidence of white racism toward blacks. But neither is it a benign situation.

Finally, an open question conserns “mid-level” offenses: felonies which are not the most serious felonies. The Sentencing Commission has produced some good, but hardly decisive evidence of racial discrimination. However even the liberal Journal-Sentinel, in discussing the Sentencing Commission study, said that:

Poor data collection and sentencing factors make it unclear, however, what role race and ethnicity play, the commission concludes. . . .

. . . [A]nswering the question on the role of race and ethnicity - without leaving any room for doubt - is what it will take for the right people to take ownership of the right changes necessary. In other words, using true, straight-up, apple-to-apple comparisons. . . .

Our own data show that among persons imprisoned for Uniform Crime Report “property” offenses blacks serve shorter sentences.

What is going on with all this is a puzzle, but we have a considerable problem seeing how a criminal justice system that is pretty clearly not discriminating against blacks where the most serious offenses are concerned would be doing so with lesser offenses.

Perhaps some good will come out of the Racial Disparity Commission. Oliver’s statements are, in fact, hopeful.

But let’s be clear on what the danger is. A lot of loose rhetoric about racial bias could lead to a sort of affirmative action program in which, to make the numbers “look better,” black offenders who ought to be charged, convicted and sent to prison aren’t. No change in the law would be necessary for this perverse result. Pressure on cops, prosecutors and judges could cause it to happen.

And we know who will be the victims.

“Bizarro World” Post Resonates in Blogosphere, Talk Radio

We felt the need to chronicle the sham “hearing,” held yesterday, of the Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System.

After all, we sat through virtually all of it, and didn’t want the experience to be entirely for naught (although it was clear to us it was mostly for naught).

But it seems it has resonated with a fair number of people.

Charlie Sykes discussed it at some length this morning, and linked to it on his blog page.

As of right now, it is linked on the front page of Mark Belling’s site and WisOpinion (both links will go away over time).

And it has created quite a stir in the blogosphere. The Texas Hold ‘Em Blogger discussed it, as did Patrick McIlheran, Rick Esenberg and Dad29.

Not in response to our post, but an independent report came from Glenn D. Frankovis on the Badger Blogger.

Who also reported on the event, but didn’t bother to mention our testimony, nor that of Frankovis? Dani McClain of the Journal-Sentinel. Her article is nothing but a puff piece about the Commission.

Typical of the article is the following:

The commission has heard firsthand accounts of racial profiling, inconsistent application of prosecutorial discretion, and the classification of certain offenses as misdemeanors in suburban communities but felonies in urban areas.

“The themes have come up consistently at these public hearings,” said Ryan Sugden, spokesman for the Office of Justice Assistance, which coordinated the hearings.

One statistic was repeated several times Monday: African-Americans make up 6% of Wisconsin’s population, but 45% of inmates in state correctional facilities are black, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Sugden seems to think that since certain themes come up “consistently” they must represent the reality of criminal justice in Wisconsin.

The fact that only certain kinds of people, with certain grievances and certain agendas show up at the hearings doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind.

McClain got pretty thoroughly roughed up by people leaving comments at Badger Blogger. In fairness to McClain, she did not hear our testimony, did ask us for contact information at the hearing, and left us a voice mail today asking for an “executive summary” of our testimony, to be used “if and when” she writes further on the topic.

Being on vacation, we haven’t sent that out, but will soon.

Right now, our assessment is that she is trying to be fair, but is simply ill-informed on these issues, and didn’t know there is an alternative to the standard racial view.

But the question remains. Why has this struck a chord, especially among conservatives? It really is hard to see how the Commission is important. It was created by the Governor as a sop to some black legislators, and what it says is unlikely to have any real effect on criminal justice in Wisconsin.

The answer, I think, is that people have simply become fed up with the dishonesty surrounding the issue. The naked contrast between the harsh reality of life in the black inner city and the cosy situation of race hustling black politicians is hard to stomach. While children are being shot the politicians are wringing their hands over the fact that a greater proportion of blacks than whites is being thrown in prison.

If this was the result of real racial discrimination, it would demand a remedy. The problem is: the hustlers don’t really want to know whether it’s the result of discrimination. They don’t, in fact, actually care.

The Bizarro World of the Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System

We should have known better.

Public hearings are usually a sham. So when the Governor’s Commission on Reducing Racial Disparities in the Wisconsin Justice System held a hearing in Milwaukee this afternoon, we weren’t expecting anything great.

But since we have just finished an article on the subject which will appear in the Fall issue of The Wisconsin Interest, we thought it worthwhile to go and, in effect, fire a shot across their bow.

The Commission, it seems, has an odd charge. They have been told by Governor Doyle to “(a.) Determine whether discrimination is built into the criminal justice system at each stage of the criminal justice continuum of arrest through parole; and (b.) Recommend strategies and solutions to reduce the racial disparity in the Wisconsin criminal justice system. . . .”

But the second task assumes a particular outcome of the first. Wisconsin should not want to reduce racial disparity if it’s not the result of racial discrimination. But among the black race hustlers and politically correct whites who are interested in this issue, racial bias is assumed. It’s the default position. Evidence is not needed.

A lot of the politicians at the hearing spoke in bland bromides. Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler told the Commission he had been “closely following your work that will determine whether racial discrimination is built into the Wisconsin criminal justice system.” He said of racial disparity that he “Feel[s] strongly about this issue. . . When one of us is discriminated against, all suffer” and “systems must administer justice fairly and impartially.” OK. Better bland than wrong.

Slightly less bland (but only slightly) was Ralph Hollman, Executive Director if the Urban League. Hollman praised Governor Doyle’s courage since it would be easy for him to “not acknowledge that the high rate of incarceration – black male incarceration particularly – is a serious problem.”

He continued: “Several areas need to be examined. Are African-Americans more likely to be involved in crime and violence?” He further noted that the stereotype of blacks as violent, when filtered through the media, sends to black youth the message that “this is what I’m expected to be.”

According to Hollman, “once in the justice system, African Americans feel that African Americans are more likely to be sentenced to prison, and when incarcerated, serve longer sentences.”

Getting the Juices Flowing

A couple of speakers got some juices flowing in the crowd. Doris Jude Porter -- the Aunt of Frank Jude, Jr., who was beaten by Milwaukee police officers, said people in the community “feel we are under siege for criminal justice racism” and “racism is like a monster – a predator.” And she added that “innocent people are sent to prison and families are broken up.”

The next speaker ratcheted up the rhetoric even further referring to the “hell-hole we call America.” She added “we are still being lynched in this country” and said that the system “place[s] black males in special education as a form of genocide getting them ready to go to prison.”

Just to make it clear where she was coming from, she added “Here we got Alderman McGee in jail. I’ve seen the injustice!” And “they got Michael McGee so chained up he can’t go to the bathroom.”

She didn’t seem to be looking to the Commission for help, however. She asserted “we don’t need nobody studying us.”

A whole parade of witnesses came to promote their pet programs (it was obvious that the group was on the side of Governor Doyle in the state budget battles), or their own volunteer activities.

“Y’all Pray for Me”

It got bizarre at times. A woman who identified herself as a former cocaine addict and prostitute told how she went to her pastor and asked what she could do. “I turned my life over to God,” she explained. She then asked the crowd “Y’all pray for me.”

We are delighted that she got the spiritual help she needed, but didn’t see her testimony as particularly relevant to the issue at hand.

A young man rattled off a rap poem about the importance of self-respect and achievement. We think he would have been a dandy motivational speaker at any inner city middle school.

Several speakers complained of how relatives of theirs had been victimized by the system. It’s possible -- just remotely possible -- that in some cases they had.

Our own talk resulted in the most supefyingly bizarre moment of the afternoon. We rattled off various analyses we have done, all of which show that the “disproportionate” incarceration of blacks in Wisconsin is the result of the fact that blacks disproportionately commit crimes.

In response, Spencer Coggs asked us “are you saying that blacks commit crimes at a greater rate than whites, as opposed to being stopped more often by police?”

We responded “yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Coggs then responded that “that’s not what the studies show.”

Too dumbfounded to produce a proper response (such as “you f**kin’ idiot!”) we just said “you’re wrong.” And further, “have you looked at data on victimization? Have you looked at those maps what show where crime happens most?” Coggs looked embarrassed, and dismissed us politely.

We got very sparse and scattered applause. We weren’t telling them what they wanted to hear.

There was one other speaker who asked that the interest of the victims be taken into account. Glenn Frankovis, a former Milwaukee cop who was actually promoted by Art Jones (one of the few whites, apparently), made a plea for the victims. Recounting his experience with ordinary Milwaukee citizens he said “these good people wanted the bad guys out of their neighborhood” and further that they were “tired of the drug dealing, shots being fired into the house.”

His final hope was that “this commission does not overlook these people . . . the true victims.”

But Commission will, of course.

It’s possible that the Commission will come out with a reasonable report. Plenty of commissions have had public hearings that were a sham, and members who were buffoons, and still produced decent reports (written, of course, by the staff).

Why Don’t Black Politicians Care About Victims of Crime?

A decent report won’t, however, change the fact that black politicians, including most of those on the Commission, seem far more concerned about black criminals than about black victims.

The reason is simple, almost jejune.

Black politicians prosper by mobilizing the black community against whites. Not necessarily all whites, but at least some “racist” whites. And if not against individual whites, then against a “racist system.”

For much of American history, this was sensible enough. All blacks did have a common interest in fighting a system that was racist, and whites most of whom were racist too.

But suppose the real conflict is between law abiding black people and black hoodlums?

How about some data?

In Milwaukee, where violent crime is concerned, three fourths of the victims of black criminals are themselves black.

Looking at the percentages another way, 97% of the black victims of violent crime were victimized by a black. (Data from the Milwaukee Police Department Incident Reports.)

So when you have black hoodlums on one side, and law-abiding black people on the other, what are you going to do?

Simple. Insist that the issue is still white racism, and that blacks need to unite to fight it. Caring about the victims muddles the message.

All this is why things like the beating of Frank Jude play into the hands of the race hustlers.

When is a new generation of black leaders going to rise up with an agenda in tune with new realities? Such leaders are long overdue, and the old con game continues to work well.