Incarceration and Crime
Blacks are being contained at a severely inappropriate and alarming rate. There is no explanation for this besides the systemic inequality in the system.
One scholarly article goes well into depth about this problem. It opens up with a strong statistic. "while making up only approximately 12% of the U.S. population, African Americans constitute 49% of its inmates." [CRI1] The expert continues on government actions taken against police’s racist judgments. The proportion of minorities arrested is alarming, especially since it is unreasonably high, with over 35% cars pulled over with only 13% containing the passenger or driver.
The author then provides extra context, adding on the war on drugs as an additional problem. "the federal sentencing guidelines … dispense more severe punishments for ... African Americans, than for ... White Americans." The disproportional rate of guilty to the arrest is appalling. The author highlights that African Americans are only 13% of the population and drug users, "however, [they] constitute 35% of drug arrests, 55% of drug convictions, and 74% of drug imprisonments." This is no longer a mere correlation, this is causation due to the police’s natural biases getting in the way of their jobs.
After this, the author notes how the amendments do not protect minorities. There is an impossible way to enforce Equal Protection, displaying that the judicial branch didn't help reduce systemic racism. "Even in the United States v. Clary,153 … the district court [failed to focus on] actual results by attempting to prove that its purpose was subconsciously discriminatory.."
Silton further follows through with the nail in the coffin, noting how the Supreme Court's interpretations precisely destroyed the Constitutional amendments themselves, by lowering the standard to "mere articulable suspicion."
Though opponents suggest that blacks may commit more crimes, more in-depth research proves that Hispanics are the ones especially at risk in this argument. Within the point of black-and-white prison rates, the true overrepresentation is due to Hispanics inherently having a disadvantage. The key takeaway to a lengthy study display that due to their inability to understand the law, lack of resources, and poorness, they are overrepresented in prison [CRI2]. In the expert's words, officials believe they are less likely to rehabilitate -- despite lack of backing for this, lacking resources against sanctions, and especially limited English language skills. And so they conclude, "the white–Hispanic gaps in arrest and incarceration are large." Remember that my argument is primarily that we are partially at fault with assuming minorities to be criminals or evil, merely due to the societal disparities.
In summary, the standards for arrest are lower for blacks and other minorities, thus, the systemic racism is contributed through our laws’ loose restrictions.
Impacts
There are also inherent problems within the police themselves, causing inequality and enforcing the racial profiling stereotype that we have in the US. In yet another study, it's noted that "...the Police Services and local media discourse enact gaslighting... included a sense of alienation, disenfranchisement from the community, and distrust toward the police." [CRI5] This has long been used and is continued to be allowed in the US. And police further yet another reason behind systemic racism. The impact of the police's bias is clear and has caused the public to also believe that serving as part of the system, the police are part of the systemic racism.
David Williams is a famous researcher who proved my precise point here. The inherent problems of racism on multiple levels have caused countless deaths and jailing in terms of crimes. Socioeconomic inequality alone cannot explain this statistic [CRI3]. The combination of structural, cultural, and individual racism makes up the undeniability of Systemic racism.
Addressing Concerns
Some opponents may argue with the well-known study by David Johnson that white police are no more likely to shoot minorities, however, this has received much criticism. As Science Magazine tells, Knox and Princeton political scientists noticed that the conclusion was too hasty. It was possible that all police could be biased against blacks, and that the study assumes the “black and white officers encounter black civilians in equal numbers” [CRI4]. With the counter study from 2015 that “unarmed black men are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than unarmed white men”, the relationship of benchmark to population or crime rate is much clearer here. Furthermore, the authors had retracted the article, stating that they do not speak of issues regarding racial biases in fatal shooting or policing. “Our data and statistical approach… are inadequate to address racial disparities in the probability of being shot”. [CRI7] Johnson’s study is flawed as a result.
Senior applied scientist, Laura Bronner also addresses similar concerns. Roland Fryer, and economist at Harvard, finds the similar idea that whites, Blacks and Hispanic are shot at equal rates, giving illusion of equal treatment. However, since Black and Hispanic are stopped more often in the first place, this leads to bias. The White persons were more likely to carry weapon and have contraband. Despite seemingly equal treatment, the different hit rate means the discrimination is clear. [CRI6] Thgough the use of force among those who were stopped is equal, the use of force among all observed people is not.
CRI5. Sustaining Systemic Racism Through Psychological Gaslighting: Denials of Racial Profiling and Justifications of Carding by Police Utilizing Local News Media - Heston Tobias, Ameil Joseph, 2020 (sagepub.com)
CRI6. Why Statistics Don’t Capture The Full Extent Of The Systemic Bias In Policing | FiveThirtyEight
CRI7. Retraction for Johnson et al., Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings | PNAS
Well why don’t we have a debate over it? We could get 30000 characters so that I can show you my entire research…
There is no racism in policing. There is no institutional racism. There is NO systemic racism.
FACT: blacks just simply commit a hugely disproportionate amount of crime, and a sliver of the % of black males in this country commit over 50% of the entire nation's violent person crimes.
Cops go where the crime is, not where it is not.