Systemic Racism and the Law Enforcement and Justice System

Pro(re)gressive politicians and their media allies spread the myth that there is systemic racism in law enforcement and the justice system.  There probably is, but not against the groups they believe are disfavored.  The Center for the American Experiment does its usual outstanding work in showing that in Minnesota the claim of systemic racism is completely bogus.  The backdrop to all of this discussions should be the concept of the rule of law supposedly embedded in our constitution.  That concept requires the neutral application of the law to all individuals based on their behavior, not intrinsic characteristics like skin color or sex.  So groups that may engage in more criminal behavior should be arrested more often, prosecuted more often and imprisoned more often.  And it has been and continues to be the case that African Americans have a higher rate of criminal behavior than other groups.  Hopefully that changes, but it is a critical fact.  And the disparity is large, on a per capita basis, nine times more crimes committed by African Americans than by white people in Minnesota and they are 50 times more likely to commit murder.

The Center report demonstrates that in fact, despite being more likely to commit crimes African Americans are favored in the system–they are arrested and prosecuted less frequently and sentenced more leniently than other racial groups.  I would anticipate that the disparity in treatment, particularly in metro areas, will only get worse.  We have a lot of prosecutors who are determined to ignore African American crime, and thereby only incent and increase that amount of such crime.  Excuse-making for criminal behavior is rampant and there obviously are underlying causes that lead to engagment in that criminal behavior.  Those underlying causes should be addressed but one of them is not systemic racism, unless you call making excuses for one race systemic racism.  And the reality is that other races, whites for example, are disproportionately arrested and prosecuted for crimes they commit.

It is apparent to me that African Americans need to create stronger family involvement in teaching children good behaviors and society needs to deliver a strong message that no one, regardless of race, is entitled to engage in criminal behavior.  We have to have a renewed committment to a behavior-based, color blind approach to law enforcement and justice and if one race commits more crimes than others, than yes, they will end up in jail more often and they should.  And right now, failure to address this issue actually hurts the African American community most because that is where much of the criminal behavior occurs, including murders, drug dealing and robberies.   (CAE Report)