New research finds that black sheriffs have different priorities from their white counterparts.
The phrase "There's a new sheriff in town" serves as an admonishment
that, under fresh leadership, things are about to change. It turns out
that's literally true: New research
reports that, when a black sheriff replaces a white one, there is a
notable shift in who gets arrested under the new regime, and who
doesn't.
"I find compelling evidence that the race of the sheriff
affects the race of arrestees, especially for less-serious offenses,"
writes economist George Bulman of the University of California–Santa Cruz.
Specifically,
Bulman finds that the ratio of blacks to whites who are arrested is
significantly higher under white sheriffs, in part because white
sheriffs place a greater emphasis on policing criminal behavior that is
traditionally associated with black Americans.
Bulman created a data set noting the race of every county sheriff between 1991 and 2015. Sheriffs
are the top law-enforcement officers in each of the United States'
3,100 counties, primarily patrolling unincorporated areas and cities too
small to have their own police forces.
The economist discovered 102 counties that had seen at least one
transition between a black sheriff and a white one over the course of
those 24 years. Utilizing comprehensive arrest records kept by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, he compared the records of the old and
new sheriffs, and found a clear pattern.
"The estimates reveal
that years during which a county has a black rather than a white sheriff
are associated with a reduction in the arrest rate of blacks relative
to whites of 6 to 8 percent," he writes. This ratio remained valid after
Bulman controlled for a variety of factors, including the arrest rates
of municipal police forces located within those same counties.
Bulman
found that, after a black sheriff takes command from a white one,
"arrests of blacks fall relative to whites. During years in which a
black sheriff is in office, there are approximately 1.6 fewer arrests of
blacks per 1,000 black county residents."
Digging deeper into the
data, he found no statistically significant change in the racial
composition of arrests for the most serious crimes, but identified
"large and significant" changes for less-serious ones—the sorts of
infractions where officers have considerable discretion over whether or
not to make an arrest.
Bulman then looked at the specific crimes people had been arrested
for. He compared crimes for which blacks are more frequently arrested,
such as robbery, gambling, murder, vagrancy, fraud, and prostitution,
with those for which whites are more frequently taken into custody,
including driving while under the influence, sex offenses, manslaughter,
arson, and vandalism.
He found that, after a black sheriff took
office, there was a significant reduction in arrest rates for crimes
traditionally associated with black Americans. In contrast, there was no
change in the arrest rate for crimes traditionally associated with
whites.
This finding suggests that the black sheriffs, and the
deputies they hired, had followed different priorities than their white
predecessors in deciding what types of crimes to pursue aggressively.
Bulman
notes that an overwhelming majority of county sheriffs are white; only 4
percent of counties had a black sheriff during any year between 1991
and 2015.
White sheriffs who are committed to justice for all may
want to think about why, compared to their counterparts of color, they
put a greater emphasis on policing crimes that a white majority
traditionally associates with black people. Black residents of their
counties may not have these statistics at their fingertips, but they
know when they're being targeted.
(Source: psmag.com)
Blog Cientifico enfocado a difundir y desvelar los puntos referidos a la realidad racial en cuanto forma de identidad y pertenencia.
jueves, 28 de mayo de 2020
Black Sheriffs Are Less Likely to Pursue Low-Level Arrests Against People of Color
Etiquetas:
#antiwhite,
#whitegenocide,
anti-white,
Arrests,
Black Sheriffs,
crime,
Donald Trump,
people of color,
race,
racial,
racial composition,
racial crime,
racism,
racist,
Sheriffs,
white genocide
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