White Privilege and Racial Profiling

Racial Profiling and White Privilege

Does racial profiling create a higher crime rate for African Americans? No racial profiling does not create a higher crime rate for African Americans, the higher crime rate is caused by African Americans committing actual crimes. African Americans are twice as likely to commit crimes like murder, rape, or robbery as Caucasian Americans. Racial profiling isn’t going to get you arrested for a crime you never committed however, it will get you arrested for a crime that you did commit. Racial profiling or stop and frisk arrests will only affect low-level crimes like drug possession, racial profiling has no bearing on major crimes like murder where African Americans commit more than 50% of the offenses.

African American Murder Rate

Do African Americans Commit More Crime

African Americans are twice as likely to commit a crime than a Caucasian American…

According to the 2016 US Census, there are 37 million African Americans in the US, and they make up 13.3% of the population (source: Census.gov: 2016 US Census ResultsOPENS IN NEW WINDOW / archiveOPENS IN NEW WINDOW). According to the FBI African Americans commited 2.2 million crimes or 26.9% of all crimes (source: FBI.gov FBI Arrests by Ethnicity 2016OPENS IN NEW WINDOW | Archive: Archive.orgOPENS IN NEW WINDOW ). When 13%
of the population is committing 26% of the crime there is a problem. When you take a deeper look the statistics we can see that the 2.2 million African Americans who commit crimes make up 5.9% of the total 37 million African Americans. Compared to 5.8 million Caucasian Americans who commit crimes that that make up 2.9% of the total 198 million Caucasian Americans. African Americans are twice as likely to commit a crime than a Caucasian American.

African American Murder Rate

White Privilege Crime Statistics

Many people would like to blame higher crime statistics on white privilege, however white privilege can’t explain the disparity that exists between white and black arrest rates. You can’t be arrested if you aren’t commiting a crime.

  • African Americans committed 52% of the murders in 2016 (source: FBI.gov FBI Arrests by Ethnicity 2016 OPENS IN NEW WINDOW | Archive: Archive.org OPENS IN NEW WINDOW ).
  • African Americans commited 54% of the robberies in 2016 (source: FBI.gov FBI Arrests by Ethnicity 2016 OPENS IN NEW WINDOW | Archive: Archive.org OPENS IN NEW WINDOW ).
  • African Americans commit murder at a rate six times higher than Caucasian Americans per capita (Chart
  • African Americans commit robbery at a rate six times higher than Caucasian Americans (Chart).
  • African Americans commit rape at a rate twice as high as Caucasian Americans (Chart).
Racial Profiling Crime Data

How Does Racial Profiling Affect the Criminal Justice System

Racial profiling isn’t going to get you arrested for a crime you never committed…

Racial profiling is the practice of enforcement stopping a person based on race, this is a violation of the Fourth AmmendmentOPENS IN NEW WINDOW which protects against unreasonable search and seizures. Racial profiling is illegal, a view which was upheld by the US Supreme court. However, some claim that the US Supreme Court Ruling in Terry vs OhioOPENS IN NEW WINDOW (392 U.S. 1) allows racial profiling under the umbrella of Reasonable Suspicion. A second Supreme Court Ruling United States v. Brignoni-PonceOPENS IN NEW WINDOW (422 U.S. 873) unanimously ruled that law enforcement can take a person’s appearance into account when determining if reasonable suspicion exists. The myth of white privilege says that this unfairly targets African Americans. Where this argument falls apart is if law enforcement was stopping African Americans and no crime had taken place there would be no offense that that could be used to make an arrest. If the officer lied to make an arrest, the defendant would be set free at trial for lack of evidence. Police officers have experience in spotting criminal behavior, people who engage in criminal activity act in ways that the police are trained to spot. African Americans committing actual crimes are responsible for the higher crime rate. White privilege does not make African Americans commit more crime, African Americans making bad decisions do.

Sources:
(source: Census.gov: 2016 US Census Results / archive )
(source: FBI.gov FBI Arrests by Ethnicity 2016 | Archive: Archive.org )
(source: CORNELL.EDU Fourth Ammendment | Archive: archive.is/6Wafn )
(source: Cornell.edu Terry vs Ohio | Archive: archive.is/8p9bW )
(source: Justia.com United States v. Brignoni-Ponce