Crime, Color & Cops

We are reluctant to get into the thicket of crime, color, and cops because there are many scholars who have devoted their careers to the subject. But we are willing to comment on media coverage of the topic and to try to be more analytical.


(1) Crime statistics indicate that non-whites commit more crimes than whites. Why this is so would take you into a literature worth 10 dissertations. But basically, if cops spend more time in non-white, poor neighborhoods they will detect and report more criminal behavior by poor and non-white subjects. What is presented as evidence of police racism may be situational.


(2) The cop-offender relationship has to be understood as a relationship between isolated offenders and organized cops. That means that one side has no collectively-based rules of engagement and the other side has extensive rules of engagement. This means that offenders may not realize that they are provoking an unwanted response from a cop who has memorized the rules of engagement and for whom self-protection is essential.


(3) Why does a cop shoot an offender six times? (Ferguson question). If you have ever fired a handgun you know that it is very inaccurate. So once a decision is made to fire at an offender, a cop will fire until the clip is empty. Handguns are very ineffective tools, which is why automatic rifles and shotguns have become popular.


(4) What constitutes a crime should not be a matter of culture, but is often discussed as if it may be. Drinking at home or in a bar is not a crime. But public drunkenness is a crime, as is driving under the influence. Smoking pot at home is not a crime, but smoking pot in public is a crime. Carrying a closed bottle of spirits is not a crime, but an open bottle is. Whether or not the amount of drugs in ones possession is a crime may depend on the situation. The cops have very clear guidelines telling them what do, but offenders seem to have no collective guidance. This difference may be the basis for many drug-related arrests.


(5) To account for police racism we are often given the statistic that whites use pot more than non-whites, but non-whites are more likely to be arrested for doing so. Even if true, this difference may be irrelevant to crime statistics if whites use their drugs in private places  and non-whites do so in public places.


(6) Why police tend to kill mentally ill men seems too obvious to require comment. Cops respond to situations in ways that protect themselves first, and then the public. If police kill black men, mentally ill men, and poor men (what they data indicate), is it possible that these three categories of men may be exhibiting provocative and threatening behavior without realizing they are doing so and thereby provoking the defensive behavior of cops.