***** ...While violent-crime categories began to record drops both nationally and locally in 1993, a Dispatch analysis of Columbus police crime reports during the past six years shows that blacks continue to be overrepresented -- both as victims and suspects -- in all categories of serious crime.
Although they made up 24 percent of the city's population, blacks from 1993 through 1998 accounted for 42 percent of all victims of homicide, robbery, rape and assault.
Arrest rates for the six-year period show even more disparity. Blacks made up 56 percent of all adults charged by police with serious offenses, known as Part 1 crimes: homicide, robbery, rape, assault, burglary, larceny, auto theft and arson.
Blacks accounted for nearly 78 percent of those charged with drug offenses of possession and sales.
"It's completely out of whack," Public Safety Director Thomas W. Rice said.
But deciding what the figures mean is tricky, risky business.
"You have some people who still believe this is somehow genetic," said C. Ronald Huff, director of the Criminal Justice Research Center at Ohio State University. "Well, if that were true, you'd see it all over the world. You don't. Control for class, and almost all of the differences disappear.
"Look at middle-class whites and middle-class blacks, and the crime experience is the same."
Also difficult, experts say, is knowing whether disparate arrest rates signal any intentional discriminatory practices on the part of police. Those who study crime say officers often have little discretion in whom they arrest for violent acts.
Fuzzier, though, are drug offenses, disorderly conduct and drunkenness.
"It's a lot easier to arrest the street dealer than someone in a house, and markets run by blacks tend more often to be in the street," said crime expert Al Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University in Pitts-burgh.
"The same goes for disorderly conduct," Blumstein said. "Low-income people are often disorderly in the street, whereas I might be disorderly in my living room. The vulnerability is different."...
<http://www.dispatch.com/news/special/race/day7/day7.html> *****
Decriminalizing drugs & leaving "quality-of-life" crimes (e.g., disorderly conduct, drunkenness, etc.) & other minor offenses alone will make a lot of difference & help diminish racism. As for violent crimes, since almost all the racial differences disappear when stats are controlled for income & wealth, what makes sense is re-distribution of income & wealth so as to minimize income & wealth inequality, while raising real wages, decreasing unemployment rates, etc., in addition to reforms specific to law enforcement & criminal justice. Easier said than done, but that's what it takes.
Yoshie