The Myth of Systemic Police Racism

Heather MacDonald, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of “The War on Cops,” writes in the WSJ:

This charge of systemic police bias was wrong during the Obama years and remains so today.

However sickening the video of Floyd’s arrest, it isn’t representative of the 375 million annual contacts that police officers have with civilians. A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing. Crime and suspect behavior, not race, determine most police actions.

In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects.

In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.

The War on Cops (Encounter Books, 2016) by Heather MacDonald

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Debbie Young
Debbie, our chief political writer at Richardcyoung.com, is also our chief domestic affairs writer, a contributing writer on Eastern Europe and Paris and Burgundy, France. She has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over five decades. Debbie lives in Key West, Florida, and Newport, Rhode Island, and travels extensively in Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, and practicing yoga. Debbie has completed the 200-hour Krama Yoga teacher training program taught by Master Instructor Ruslan Kleytman. Debbie is a strong supporting member of the NRA.