Statistics Relating to Institutional Racism
Multiple topics with studies and statistics showing evidence of institutional racism - Originally shared on July 27th, 2020
Quick side note before I post this: I'm trying my best to be PC and I promise if I say something incorrect it isn't on purpose, let me know and I'll edit to fix it. Thank you.
This post is going to contain multiple topics pertaining to institutional racism within the United States. I will have statistics and studies backing up each claim I bring up. I hope you all look further into the studies in your free time, I'm just barely scratching the surface and providing you with the main points of them. So, without further ado, let's get started.
Institutional Racism
https://www.sentencingproject.org/.../Black-Lives-Matter.pdf
• Extensive document on racial biases in our criminal justice system
• Studies seem to indicate that about 61-80% of black overrepresentation in prisons can be explained by higher black crime rates, with the unexplained portion largely attributed to racial bias
• Remember - the factors which lead to disproportionate criminality amongst black Americans are also in large part a product of racial bias. Underfunded public programs, redlining, generational poverty, bad schooling, and a myriad of other factors which influence criminality can also be traced to racial bias
https://www.justice.gov/.../ferguson_police_department...
• Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department
• Between 2012 and 2014, black people in Ferguson accounted for 85 percent of vehicle stops, 90 percent of citations and 93 percent of arrests, despite comprising 67 percent of the population
• Black people were twice as likely as whites to be searched after traffic stops even after controlling for related variables, though they proved to be 26 percent less likely to be in posession of illegal drugs or weapons
• Between 2011 and 2013, black people also received 95 percent of jaywalking tickets and 94 percent of tickets for "failure to comply". The Justice Department also found that the racial discrepancy for speeding tickets increased dramatically when researchers looked at tickets based on only an officer's word vs tickets based on objective evidence, such as a radar
• Black people facing similar low-level charges as white people were 68 percent less likely to see those charges dismissed in court. More than 90 percent of the arrest warrants stemming from failure to pay/failure to appear were issued for black people
Biases in Stops, Searches and Arrests
http://www.justicepolicy.org/mobile/research/1953
• The Concentrated Racial Impact of Drug Imprisonment and The Characteristics of Punitive Counties
• While white and black americans admit to using and selling illicit drugs at similar rates, black americans are vastly more likely to go to prison for a drug offense
• In 2002, black americans were incarcerated for drug offenses at ten times the rate of white americans
• Today, black people are 3.7x as likely to be arrested for a marijuana offense as whites, despite similar usage
• 97% of "large-population counties" have racial biases in their drug offense incarceration
https://www.cato.org/.../militarization-fails-enhance...
• Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation
• Police militarization does not lead to a decrease in crimes committed or officer injuries, may actually increase both
• Police militarization (including the adoption of SWAT teams) decreases public trust in police, which may contribute to increases in crime
• Militarized police are disproportionately deployed in African American communities, even when accounting for crime rates
https://www.acludc.org/.../2020_06_15_aclu_stops_report...
• ACLU Analysis of D.C. Stop and Frisk Data
• This ACLU report reviews 5 months' of data from DC police stops and searches by race and outcome
• The black population of DC is 25% greater than the white population, but black people were 410% more likely to be stopped by the police than white people
• This disparity increases to 1465% for stops which led to no warning, and 3695% for searches which led to no warning, ticket or arrest
• This data indicates the disproportionate stopping and searching of black people in the DC area extended massively beyond any disproportionate rate of criminality
https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aoas/1507168827
• The Problem of Infra-Marginality in Outcome Tests for Discrimination
• Analysis of 4.5 million traffic stops in North Carolina shows black people and latino people were more likely to be searched than whites (5.4 percent, 4.1 percent, and 3.1 percent respectively)
• Despite this, searches of white motorists were the most likely to reveal contraband (32% of whites, 29% of blacks, 19% of latinos)
https://drivingwhileblacknashville.files.wordpress.com/...
• Driving While Black: A Report on Racial Profiling in Metro Nashville Police Departments
• Between 2011 and 2015, black drivers in Nashville's Davidson County were pulled over at a rate of 1,122 stops per 1,000 drivers - so on average, more than once per black driver
• Black drivers were also searched at twice the rate of white drivers, though - as in other jurisdictions - searches of white drivers were more likely to turn up contraband
https://drivingwhileblacknashville.files.wordpress.com/...
• A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States
• Enormous study of nearly 100,000,000 traffic stops conducted across America
• Analysis finds the bar for searching black and hispanic drivers' cars is significantly lower than the bar for white drivers
• Additionally, black drivers are less likely to be pulled over after sunset, when a "veil of darkness" masks ones' race
Biases by Judges, Juries and Prosecutors
https://www.ussc.gov/.../demographic-differences-sentencing
• Demographic Differences in Sentencing: An Update to the 2012 Booker Report
• Extensive multivariate regression analysis indicates black male offenders receive 19.1% longer federal sentences than similarly situated white male offenders (white male offenders with similar past offenses, socioeconomic background, etc)
• This disparity seems to stem mostly from black males being 21.2% less likely to receive non-government sponsored downward departures or variances
• Non-government sponsored departures and variances refer to deviations to standard sentencing guidelines due to judicial discretion
• Black males who do receive non-government sponsored departures and variations still serve 16.8% longer sentences than white males on average
• In contrast, when sentencing length follows standard guidelines, that disparity is only 7.9%, and a substantial assistance departure for both groups nullifies that disparity
• IN SUMMARY - much of the sentencing disparity between similarly situated black males and white males comes down to judicial discretion to deviate from standard sentencing guidelines
• BONUS - regression analysis suggests violence in a criminal's history does not explain sentencing disparities between black males and similarly situated white males - the effect of that factor seems to be statistically insignificant
https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/1414/
• Racial Disparity in Federal Criminal Sentences
• Examination of federal data indicates black americans spend about 10% more time in prison when compared to comparable white people who commit the same crimes
• Additionally, black arrestees are 75% more likely to be charged with a crime carrying a mandatory minimum sentence
• Prosecutors contribute massively to this undeniable racial bias
https://digitalcommons.law.msu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi...
• Report on Jury Selection Study
• Between 1990 and 2010, state prosecutors struck about 53% of black people eligible for juries in criminal cases, as opposed to 26% of white people. The study's authors testified the odds of this taking place in a race-neutral context were around 1 in 10 trillion
• After accounting for factors prosecutors select for which tend to correlate with race, black people were still struck twice as often
• North Carolina's state legislator had previously passed a law stating death penalty defendants who could demonstrate racial bias in their jury selection could have their sentences changed to life without parole. The legislature later repealed that law.
https://racism.org/.../2353-different-shades-of-bias-skin
• Different Shades of Bias: Skin Tone, Implicit Racial Bias, and Judgements of Ambiguous Evidence
• In this study, two groups of mock jurors were given a collection of race-neutral evidence from an armed robbery, with one group's alleged perpetrator being shown to be light-skinned and the other dark-skinned
• Jurors were significantly more likely to evaluate ambiguous, race-neutral evidence against the dark-skinned suspect as incriminating and more likely to find the dark-skinned suspect guilty
Biases in Death Penalty Sentencing
https://files.deathpenaltyinfo.org/.../WashRaceStudy2014.pdf
• The Role of Race in Washington State Capitol Sentencing
• Analysis of 33 years of data from Washington State to determine which characteristics best predict the decision to implement a death sentence
• Black defendants are 4.5x as likely to receive a death sentence as similarly-situated whites
• Other factors (presence of aggravating circumstances, involvement of sex crimes, hostage-taking, etc.) explain only a small fraction of the disparity in prosecutors' and juries' decision to invoke the death penalty against black defendants
• Race was by far the most influental statistical factor
https://www.uky.edu/.../Eberhardt.2006.Psych%20Sci...
• Percieved Stereotypicality of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes
• Analysis of the relationship between racial stereotyping and death sentence convictions
• Black defendants who posessed darker skin and more "stereotypically black" features were twice as likely to be given the death penalty when accused of murdering a white person, as compared to lighter-skinned black defendants with less "stereotypically black" features
• This disparity disappears completely when the murder victim is black
Implicit Bias
https://ir.ua.edu/bit.../handle/123456789/3276/file_1.pdf...
• Does Appearance Matter? The Effect of Skin Tones on Trustworthy and Innocent Appearances
• Photos of capital inmates shown to entry-level criminal justice students for them to evaluate the trustworthiness of the faces
• Students rated pictures of light-skinned inmates as more trustworthy when they preceded pictures of dark-skinned inmates
• Most study participants (79.9%) were white, but the study predicted that this wasn't a major factor - “When controlling for race, no statistically significant result was found. This suggests that each race, White and non-White, were consistent in their rating outcomes. Prior research has found similar results, where Whites and light-skinned Blacks are likely to share similar attitudes towards darker-skinned Blacks”
https://www.apa.org/.../releases/2014/03/black-boys-older
• Black Boys Viewed as Older, Less Innocent Than Whites, Research Finds
• Students and police officers participated in tests to determine levels of racial bias and perception of innocence
• Black boys as young as 10 are more likely to be considered criminal or untrustworthy, and more likely to face police violence.
• Police officers were tested on dehumanization of black people by comparing people of different races to animal groups. Police who engaged in higher levels of dehumanization were more likely to use violence against black children.
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-11085-001
• Racial Bias in Judgements of Physical Size and Formidability
• Results from three separate studies on perception and racial bias show people have a tendency to perceive black men as larger and more threatening than similarly sized white men.
• Participants also believed the black men were more capable of causing harm in a hypothetical altercation and police would be more justified in using force to subdue them, even if the men were unarmed.
Statistics to Watch Out For
https://datacenter.kidscount.org/.../107-children-in...
• Study reflects fatherless homes - used as an argument to say that because the majority of children in black families commit crime due to being in a fatherless home
• Statistics about fatherless homes and propensity to commit crime are true - though the statistics are not totally reliable
• Study done by the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr071.pdf) found that 2.5 million black fathers were living with their children, and about 1.7 million were living apart from them
• Fatherlessness statistic is explained by "non-coresidential" fathers having more children - hence, more than half of black children are living in a home headed by one parent
• Fatherlessness statistics do not account for if men have passed away, couples live together but unmarried, couples being divorced, and also due to incarceration some men may not be allowed to live in the home if the housing is federally provided
• This argument, while the statistics are technically true, is not taking into consideration all sides of the argument