Murder in Black Communities – the Statistics

News in the past few months has been dominated by stories from Ferguson and Baltimore highlighting the killing of young blacks by police.  

As a result of such attention, the impression has been created – aided and abetted by many on the Left – that such deaths are a major cause of black mortality.

Statistics tell a different story. 

According to FBI records for 2012, for instance, there were twenty six hundred black homicide victims that year.  Twenty-four hundred (over ninety percent) were killed by fellow blacks.  Approximately one hundred were shot by police officers (of whatever color).

Between 1999 and 2011 – twelve years – twice as many whites as blacks were killed by law enforcement personnel.

That last statistic, of course, can be deceiving since the white population is five times larger.  Critics of the police can cite that fact as proof of racism by cops.

  

Consider additional numbers, however.  Fifty-two percent of murders in the United States between the years of 1980 and 2008, were committed by blacks.  The black population was ten percent (it’s now about thirteen percent).

Crime is committed more broadly by blacks, in general, than whites.  As an example, arrest rates for robbery are eight hundred percent higher for blacks than whites, and incarceration levels are six times greater.

Think about that.  If blacks are more likely to commit crimes, from a statistical perspective, they are more likely to come into contact with police trying to stop illegal conduct… and more likely to be shot and killed. 

Yet, the far greater risk to blacks – the statistics make clear – comes from those of the same race. 

Alas, dealing with that much more serious threat lacks the political appeal on the left of stigmatizing law enforcement personnel with the racist label.