Title: Black Crime Rates: What Happens When Numbers Aren't Neutral | HuffPost
Headings: Black Crime Rates: What Happens When Numbers Aren’t Neutral
Black Crime Rates: What Happens When Numbers Aren’t Neutral
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Content: 50 white people and 48 black people might be convicted. If black people account for 35% of drug arrests and 46% of convictions, this indicates a conviction rate that is approximately 1.3 times higher than it should be based on the black arrest rate. So, if 50% of white arrestees were convicted we would expect to see 65% (.5 x 1.3) of black arrestees convicted: 50 is 50% of 100 and 48 is about 65% of 74. ( 50% was picked at random; the important factor here is the comparative proportion.) 19 white people and 24 black people might be sentenced to prison. Using the example felony incarceration rates cited above, we might expect to see 38% of the 50 convicted white defendants (19) and 51% of the 48 convicted black defendants (24) incarcerated for their crimes. In this scenario, 12% of black people who commit a crime and less than 2% of white people who commit the same crime might eventually go to prison. This example demonstrates that there are systemic differences in how blacks and whites are treated by the law.