From today's Evening Standard:
More than half of suspects charged in London over robbery and knife-point muggings last year were black, official figures revealed today.
The Met statistics show that 7,956 people were taken to court for robbery during the 12 months to the end of March of whom 55 per cent were black. Just under a third of suspects were white, while 11 per cent were Asian. Three out of five of the 1,613 suspects charged with knife-point muggings were also black, compared with 27 per cent white and 10 per cent Asian....
Critics claim that searches are used disproportionately, with government figures showing that black people are 4.5 times more likely to be searched in London than white people.
OK, racial make up of London is 71% white and 11% black (from Wiki), let's ignore 'other' for know (Asians appear to commit roughly the 'right number' of muggings and knife attacks). And let's guesstimate the prime criminal age population (age 15 to 30) of London to be one million, so there are 710,000 whites and 110,000 blacks in that age band.
So 110,000 young black people are charged with 5,344 offences (from above) and 710,000 young white people were charged with 2,822 offences. That's 48 offences per 1,000 young blacks and 4 offences per 1,000 young whites. So young blacks are in fact 12 times as likely to commit (or end up being charged with offences) than whites, so if they are 'only' 4.5 times as likely to be stopped, then, collectively, they aren't being stopped and searched often enough.
The whole racial profiling thing is bollocks anyway.
If you were a copper intent on catching bad uns (and not just making up numbers), would you stop and search a group of young youths wearing hoodies and half mast trousers who are hanging around street corners (whatever their 'ethnicity'), or a mother bringing the kids home from school, or a chap in a suit carrying a brief case on his way home from work etc (whatever their 'ethnicity')?
Surely, a sensible copper would ignore an Asian man hurrying home from work or a black mum with kids; and would stop the group of youths, whether black, white, whatever. From personal experience, it just so happens that young black people are most likely to be the ones hanging round in groups, end of.
Friday, 7 October 2011
Stop and search: Fun with numbers
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11 comments:
The numbers quoted are those charged and not actually convicted. Perhaps a better number to have would be a breakdown of charged/conviction rates by race. Other than than that, can't think of any other hand wringing points :)
SS, yes it is quite possible that black suspects are more likely to be charged because the system is totally racist.
It is equally possible, that because of political correctness, black suspects are less likely to be charged.
For the sake of this discussion, we'll have to assume that the two effects cancel out.
On the LVT front: nice evidence here on what happens to a property tax in reality:
"In California .....if a home is sold to the parents or children of the current owner, there is no tax re-assessment. This can save cubic dollars on property taxes if the home has been owned by the family member for many years and the assessed value is far below current market.
Big incentives to keep homes within the same family…"
D, yes, that's Proposition 13, which is where it all went horribly wrong for California (luckily, Jerry Brown is now back in charge), that is exactly the same concept as:
1. If you have a council house, your children can take over the tenancy for the same low rent, even if they are on a good income.
2. The way that English people are taught to revere the Norman kleptocrat descendants, to wit "The land has been in the same family for thirty generations".
3. The twattish protest that "We can't have LVT because of Poor Widows In Mansions" which the bankers have been wheeling out for over a century, FFS, today's Poor Widows weren't even born at the time.
None of this moves me in the slightest, don't see why non-land owners should pay tax to subsidise the life styles of land owners, end of.
The way that English people are taught to revere the Norman kleptocrat descendants, to wit "The land has been in the same family for thirty generations".
Well, since that's never true, I don't know why you introduce it.
D: His descendants were to live in the castle for a further twelve generations and are still there today.
For the sake of this discussion, we'll have to assume that the two effects cancel out.
A big assumption indeed but as you said, fun with numbers.
As it happens I'm off out now, mingling with people who "may be wearing half mast trousers" OMG
"If you were a copper intent on catching bad uns (and not just making up numbers), would you stop and search a group of young youths wearing hoodies and half mast trousers who are hanging around street corners (whatever their 'ethnicity'), or a mother bringing the kids home from school, or a chap in a suit carrying a brief case on his way home from work etc (whatever their 'ethnicity')?
"
Well, if you work for BTP in Bath, the answer is clearly 'search everyone'.
"The way that English people are taught to revere the Norman kleptocrat descendants, to wit "The land has been in the same family for thirty generations"."
What's being revered is the longevity of the tenure, not the Norman kleptocrat family. I am sure that the same people would be even more impressed by the claim "this land has been in my family since King Alfred". Also it says something about the economic acumen of a family if they can hang onto land that long and not lose it through drinking, whoring, gambling, political intriguing, etc etc. Finally such "reverence" has f-all to do with Californian tax exemptions on inherited property.
SS, I hope you get home safely.
JM, yes I was thinking about that Bath story as I wrote.
B: "Finally such "reverence" has f-all to do with Californian tax exemptions on inherited property." AFAICS they are both symptoms of the same thing.
"AFAICS they are both symptoms of the same thing"
Hardly, any family which has kept its land through many centuries, has done so despite having paid property tax (or feudal dues) through many of those centuries. Income tax is a relative newcomer. The "reverence" shown to long-established landed families is not because people think they have done well to avoid being heavily taxed over many centuries, or have been members of a class that has been politically powerful over the same time period. Such things are much more likely to inspire envy or spite. A similar "reverence" would be shown to someone who could say that their family have lived in the same cottage for six generations (or even the same village, like Cheddar Man, whose family had lived in Cheddar for 10,000 years). It's a sense of history and continuity that count, not some forelock-tugging obeisance.
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