Talk:Race and crime

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 2007-03-23. The result of the discussion was keep and cleanup.

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[edit] NPOV

This article is skewed beyond belief. The fact that much of the data come from the racist and anti-immigrant website VDARE alone is enough to call the neutrality of any of these "facts" into question.

I'm shocked by how badly it understates the available data with regard to race and crime, such as pointing out that blacks are ten times as violent as whites (and whites are 2.5 times as violent as Asians), that blacks murder and commit violent crimes on whites at a vastly higher rate than the reverse, etc. I have watched articles like this, and the articles on race and IQ deteriorate horribly. It seems there is an unending assault of neo-Victorian leftist political correctness doing everything it can to obfuscate the consensus view of psychometry, twisting or watering down the crime data, etc. A shocking number of educated people seem to find no problem with simply defining "racist" or "biased" as "anything that makes my inner hippy cry" rather than looking at the actual science and conclusions by the people in the field.
Terminology: Psychometry
Definition: A form of psychic reading in which one individual is said to obtain details about another through physical contact with their possessions.

I believe that this article is NPOV because the majority of it is about "Blacks" in the United States. 220.237.30.150

Males commit the majority of rapes. It's like saying you want equal time on the "rape" page dealing with female offenders. Women rape (and child molest) too, but if it's mostly men, then it's fair enough to deal with mostly men in the topic.

It can't really be said that the article isn't neutral. What it says is based on fact. It probably would hurt to expand it a bit though. Maybe add some more statistics on crimes commited by whites, asians, latinos, etc.

The statistics are there and plain to see. Asians are at the bottom, which might be surprising, since most of the time when you see an asian male face on TV, he's a gang member or some kind of criminal (or works in a Chinese restaurant).
What it says is not based on fact. No facts prove many of the distinctions being made about different "Races". 169.233.32.236 18:14, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Further, the first sentence claims a global correlation, but only gives statistics for one small part of the globe (the US), a place where it's not clear non-whites systematically get treated fairly. Second, the piece talks about statistics for incarceration rates, not for crime per se. If there is any correlation between race and something in the US, it's between race and incarceration rates. The entire article stinks of bias.

I've improved the header to take into account your concerns more. Does anyone notable argue the entire measured disparity could be due to differential treatment of Whites and Non-Whites? Hispanics are reportedly 12 times more likely to be convicted of violent crime than Asians.[1] Are both of these Non-White groups being treated unfairly by the justice system?-Nectar T 21:02, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

This article needs more research (of the library kind, not of the original kind), not necessarily an NPOV tag. Anything this short is bound to be biased in the content sense, rather than the language sense. --Rikurzhen 22:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I think the discussion on this page shows who the real bigots are. The article as it stands now is NPOV in my eyes. The fact is, you self proclaimed "anti-racists" will denounce racial traits even if it was to be undeniably proved, due to your unwavering belief in the social contruct that all races are equal. Just because ethics say we should treat everyone as equals regardless of race, does not mean we are biologically the same, or that one race can't be more predisposed towards a life of crime than another. Please, seperate statistical facts, ethics and biology. Cold, hard facts has shown that races such as arabs and blacks will have a higher crime rate than white people in western countries, while eastern Asians will generally have a lower crime rate than whites in western countries. Asians aren't necessarily treated better than blacks or arabs in their new countries, and this is a good indicator that either race or culture is the basis for the higher crime rate, rather than racism or poverty.


Not only does the article focus on American blacks without even bothering to make that distinction on the page, the POV is evident in capitalization of race terms. There is no discussion of any correlations for other races beyond their race — for example, the line about Canada’s First Nations incarceration rates ignores that Canadian natives were not allowed to attend public schools until 1967 and the still-expanding understanding of the abuses at residential schools.

The correlations by race to crime are worth discussing, but with a full view of all the issues. Fleshing out the information and correcting errors is worthwhile here. Skyhawk0 22:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm just passing through, doing NPOV tag cleanup. This is a controversial subject, and seems to me quite unbiased - perhaps a bit incomplete. I'm not going to touch the tag myself, but I would suggest that you seem to have a pretty good consensus among yourselves. I would suggest that all read the NPOV guidelines, which state that an article must state all views, controversial or not. I believe this article does that in an incomplete way, and further writing in the same vein would likely improve it, and assuage those who feel it is biased. Again, I won't touch the tag, just trying to mediate a bit.. Jjdon (talk) 23:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] chery picking

why cherry pick countries that have minority backgrounds. what about all the homogeneous countries, who commits the crimes.Muntuwandi 01:12, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

  • The countries with reliable statistic are usually western countries with foreign minorities. I would guess the only homogeneous countries you could find would be in East Asia (Japan & South Korea) where crime rate are low to the point that suspect nationality is not recorded.(WannabeAmatureHistorian 04:51, 24 June 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Totally Disputed

I have added the Totally Disputed tag, because

  • statements are made with no serious factual evidence, and
  • these unsupported statements outline a POV that the author shares with a small minority of Americans.

I will go point-by-point to illistrate why this is so.

  • Statistics show that in the United States, Blacks are much more likely than Whites to commit violent crime. [2]

The statistics referenced are simply counts of current prisoners. Yes, there are a disproportinate number of blacks in US prisons. This dosn't, however, show that blacks are more likely to commit violent crime. Consider the following:

  1. If blacks are more likely to be arrested, they will be more likely to end up in prison.
  2. If blacks are more likely to be convicted in a court, the same applies.
  3. If blacks receive harsher sentences than whites, they will be in prison for longer, thus there will be more blacks in prison.
  • There is also some dispute as to whether "Black crime" is caused by poverty, culture, or is partly genetic.

There is no dispute. All three are factors. It is well known that poverty drives people to crime. There are many american sub-cultures devoted to illegal activities (e.g., drug use). Lastly, certain genes have been identified which are purported to predispose one to violence. The critical thing, though, is that these three factors apply to whites, Asians, and all other races. Poverty is a factor in both white and black crime. So is culture. And these "criminal genes" are not unique to any race.

  • Violent themes expressed in gangsta rap may encourage Black youths toward criminal behavior.

Ahh, the Columbine excuse -- only in that case it was white boys and gothic metal. Psychologists, try as they may, have yet to actually demonstrate a connection between violent music and violent behavior. Psychology aside, this is total bullshit. There was a huge "black crime" scare in the 1930s and 40s -- well before the era of gangsta rap.

  • The majority of people incarcerated in the United States are Black. In the United States, almost 1 in 3 Black men will spend time in prison. Blacks are as much more likely than Whites to commit crimes as men are than women.

See the first point.

  • Jared Taylor has argued that the fact that there is a racial gradient in crime commital, while unfortunate, justifies racial profiling.

For a very thorough covering of this issue, see racial profiling. BTW, Jared Taylor, from what I am reading, can be safely branded a bigot even in polite conversation.

The links are to ultra-right wing sites, so they don't even pretend to represent a neutral POV. The pages are basically propaganda, so they hardly qualify as being factual (i.e a reference). Though I havn't read the print reference, I suspect it to be of the same ilk. Personally, this article needs either serious attention, or to be deleted. I think most of the issues mentioned here are better covered in other articles.

-Casito⇝Talk 06:30, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Do you have evidence for the three numbered statements above? Dd2 10:19, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Evidence? How about basic logic.
  • If blacks are more likely to be arrested, they will be more likely to end up in prison.
Assume there are two hypothetical populations, A and B. Assume for the sake of arguement that people in both populations commit crime at the same rate. If 10% of pop A and 90% of pop B are caught (i.e. arrested), there will be a higher rate of members of pop B sent to prison (assuming equal conviction rates).
  • If blacks are more likely to be convicted in a court, the same applies.
Hence the importance of conviction rate. Consider two other hypothetical populations, C and D. They both commit crime at the same rate and get arrested at the same rate, but members of pop D are twice as likely to be convicted. There will be twice as many D's sent to prison as C's.
  • If blacks receive harsher sentences than whites, they will be in prison for longer, thus there will be more blacks in prison.
Looking at hypothetical populations E and F: equal percent of each get sent to prison each year, but F's get sentences twice as long. Thus there will be twice as many F's in prison.
Make no mistake, I am not claiming to have any evidence that blacks are more likely to get arrested, convicted, or recieve longer sentences for the same crimes than whites (I also make no claims to the contrairy). The problem with the article is, however, that it dosn't take these things into account. Prison population is not a measure of violent crime rate. There are many other variables in the picture that the article fails to consider. -Casito⇝Talk 8 July 2005 21:27 (UTC)
That all sounds reasonable to me, but has anyone published those claims? We have to abide by WP:NOR. --Rikurzhen July 8, 2005 22:02 (UTC)
Yes, articles must abide by NOR, but not talk pages. I never argued that this material should be added to the article, only that the article misrepresents facts to further a specific POV. Rikurzhen affirmed that my argument was reasonable, thus I conclude that he or she agrees the article shouldn't stand as-is. Secondly, Rikurzhen was a bit vague as to specifically which claims were original research. Some of my claims? or some of the article's claims? Lastly, I don't think that using simple deductive reasoning to tear apart an arguement really qualifies as research (original or otherwise). Identifying simple logical fallacies is closer to copy-editing than it is to research.-Casito⇝Talk 02:41, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Why not just present statistics for arrests,convictions, and sentencing, then present arguments from either side as to the reasons? And positioning it as a black-the rest issue is a bit disingenous: Why are Asians arrested (convicted?) at a lower rate than whites? Because I would wager that arrests do have to do with crime most of the time, and when arrests don't correlate with crime, it's because certain crimes are being committed, or it's a rich-vs-poor issue: Poor whites aren't out committing stock fraud, for instance. That blacks are arrested at a higher rate could be because some crimes see people get arrested way more, and those crimes are generally associated with poverty, and a higher % of blacks are poor than the average (and it could be argued that poor blacks tend to fall victim to nastier forms of poverty more often). Conviction is also a rich-vs-poor thing, because if you're rich you get a better lawyer: Robert Blake and OJ Simpson both had money and thus good lawyers. Poor whites and poor blacks? Don't bet on it. Sentencing could also be a rich-vs-poor thing, since the rich might tend to commit crimes that have lighter sentences: Somebody who gets away with millions due to stock fraud might easily get less time than somebody who makes away with a few hundred in a mugging. Still, Asians probably aren't richer than the average, it would be interesting to look into why they seem to be arrested/convicted so little. --Edward Wakelin 20:50, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
"Still, Asians probably aren't richer than the average, it would be interesting to look into why they seem to be arrested/convicted so little."
—It's because the East Asians counterbalance the other Asians. Skinnyweed

Arabs have been shown to have lower crime rates than whites in the USA and Canada (Globe and Mail piece from late 1990s). So their tendency for increased crime is not noted everywhere. Non-muslim arabs, in particular, are very noted for low crime rates and high social success...suggesting that culture has much to do with criminality, and not only race. In all probability, there probably is innate differences in crime rates based on race, but in the short term, particularly for new immigrants and their level of assimilation, a cultural aspect to it as well. Among muslims, ismailis, ahmedis, and alawites have virtually neglible crime rates...despite similar racial origins to other muslims.

Legal immigrants of recent decades tend to have lower crime rates. It's nothing to do with the race of the immigrants... but has all to do with the fact that the people that immigrate legally to the USA tend to be the most skilled, most educated, and most law abiding of the country that they leave behind. Mexicans, blacks (discounting recent immigrants from Africa), and whites in the USA consist of more broad, representative samples of their origin. And anyway, the crime rate issue with blacks isn't just about conviction statistics but it's also obvious in crime reporting. Even though poor black neighborhoods, which have an overwhelmingly high amount of crime, are also places where crimes are less often reported to the police. If anything, I'd suspect that the crime rate statistics downplay the amount of black and hispanic crime because of this (for instance in black culture, it's common for witnesses to refuse to give police any information about a crime, including murder. This is not disputed.) Peoplesunionpro 16:13, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blatant POV

"It is well known that poverty drives people to crime." How about a citation to authority for that statement? If it is so "well known," it should not be hard to find a scholarly citation. The statement implies that poverty necessarily leads to crime. Thus, it is an insult to the persons of lesser means who work honestly to improve themselves and do not steal from others.

[edit] Not all crimes are violent

Few date rapes are violent. Date Rape which is primarily a white crime is rarely reported. Only 39% of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law enforcement officials. For male rape, less than 10% are believed to be reported. If one were to study this further they may find that the numbers are far higher. Most underage children are unlikely to tell their parents that they have been raped especially after sneaking out or engaging in drinking.


Colleges only in the last 5 years have become aggresive about asking for women to step forward and tell their story.

Youth Drug use is almost 3 times as high for young whites than any minority group, however, prosecution is nonexistent.

Do you have a source?
Nonexistant? Peoplesunionpro 21:44, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Where are those stats from? 3x higher for young whites than any minority group? And if date rape is rarely reported, how is it known it's primarily a white crime? If only 39% of rapes were reported, how the heck could anybody know the number 39%?--Edward Wakelin 20:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[[3]] Someone has researched it. Not me. I'll find more sources later.

The sourcing on that doesn't seem too amazing... And it still doesn't explain how 10-39% of rapes are reported to the cops. And I'm still interested in where the 3x drug use comes from.--Edward Wakelin 04:35, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Jared Taylor

As far as people with strong racial views go, Jared Taylor is pretty watery. He's the model of the respectable-white-nationalist. White supremacists, neo-Nazis, etc tend to HATE him.

Still, he shouldn't be the only source in the article. Remember, though, that if a counterpart for him is gonna be searched out, it's not gonna be some way-out-there black activist... That would be the counterpart of, I dunno, Alex Linder or somebody. --Edward Wakelin 20:57, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Page Move

I have moved the page from "Race and Crime" to "Race and incarceration in the United States". Since the page is built around incarceration statistics, this seems more fitting. Secondly, these statistics are only really relevent in the US, so that was added to the title. Maybe once someone finds hard sources other than incarceration statistics (ideally a source for Jared Taylor's victim surveys, or similar), and information relevent to other countries (Brazil would be a really good example) the page can be returned to its origional name. Until then, the current name is probably the best place for it to avoid future disputes.⇝Casito⇝Talk 15:44, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

With the addition of the section on France, can we move it back to Race and incarceration?--Nectar T 21:44, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
I've added a header sentence addressing that some of the central measurements of crime rates may be affected by systemic biases. Does anyone oppose moving the page back to Race and crime?--Nectar T 08:07, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Muslim isn't a race, it's a religion, no?

It appears to sometimes be used as an ethnicity (similar to 'Jewish' referring to an ethnicity, even though Judaism is a religion), or at least serve as a proxy for an ethnicity. Regarding the context it's being used (French Muslims), census data would probably show the bulk of their Muslim population traces back to a short list of arabic countries.--Nectar T 20:41, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
In the case of France there are 5 million Moroccans, so they make up the majority of the muslim population. In the Netherlands Morrocans are a more problematic muslim immigrants compared to Turks, so religion isn't a good predictor. It's probably better to group this by nationality, and possibly make a mention that Chinese immigrants are generally less criminal than the white population.
Only mention the "fact" about Chinese immigrants if you have a source for it. In the past Chinese immigrants have participated in Tong wars. -Willmcw 19:28, 29 October 2005 (UTC)


Maybe an article about religion and crime would be warranted.

It is not "well known" that poverty causes crime. Rather, it is an oft repeated assumption. The truth is that crime causes poverty. The first step in building a strong family or a successful society is to imbue high morals. (lsm)


[If you guys didn't like what the article said, why didn't you edit it? I included two paragraphs about the ridiculousness of connecting race to crime.] TheDogon

  • Hey, I added some new stuff to the article, and removed other things that I saw as irrelevant.

Peace out.

If this matter would be studied in places where the only people effecting in a community would be representatives of only one of a so called "race" and fixed laws, as what a crime is, applied independently to these communities, then and only then might the study reveal something about the subject, which is 'race and crime', not 'current studies of criminality in historically generated "mixed race" populations', which would be more appropriate a subject to this.

[edit] Jared Taylor

Yes you can look at his views in different ways but facts are facts and without defending him lets look at some problems With your own eyes, take a running total and keep track every time a negitive is seen through your eyes such as tv news actual experence etc Note the race . Have you worked in a prison have you seen or understand the inmates. Have you been to harlem have you been to a trailor trash developement. Can you see the different way the people act and choose to act.If you can't your in denile.Bottom line you react and and respond to your environment which you can take a perfect white young man an put him in a prison for no reason and he will relize he will need to fight to survive to keep is morals alive and change his ways to blend in with the crowd so he will be excepted. But take this to the bank Bureau of Justice Statistics Homicide trends in the U.S.: (Trends by race www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm )These are facts and only done in black vs white putting mexican asian indian etc all together to represent white race and blacks are all their own. Still the numbers are unreal to depute. People that defend the numbers as being racial then where are their facts, what have you found out ,anyone can argue a fact lets see what you find out.30 whites caught for a crime 30 blacks caught on the same crime does that make it equal if your answer is yes then you are in denile since the percentage of whites in the US over doubles the black race in the US.

M.Champ

Again, I edited the page. If racist freaks want to come back and put back in racist garbage. We can play this little game for as long as it takes. Not many know about this particular entry. I can alert as many folks as I need to. If you believe that "race" or genetics causes a person to commit crime, you are free to believe in the mythology all you want. But in the real world, we all know that skin color has little to do with it. African immigrants, Caribbeans, and other folks you would call "Black" have little to do with African-American Culture. Any attempt to claim these groups share negative behaviors because of some unknown genetic equation is nothing but fruitcake racism at it's best.

Again stats are stats. There are stats on African/Caribbean immigrants, in fact, African immigrants are one of the most successful immigrant groupings, by even your crazed racist standards.

Also, I might add, violent crime committed by "Blacks" accounts for less than 2% of crime overall. The issue at hand is the devastating War on Drugs. . .which has turned into War on "Blacks".

The Dogon

In fact, it is comparable to that of other immigrant groupings all of whom have lower rates of crime than "Blacks" or "Whites" born in America.

Sorry, totally false, and I am going to remove it. Please take your anti-White hate elsewhere.

bullet Criminality: just over one in every hundred adult male Hispanics (1.2%) was imprisoned in 2001 – almost a third of the non-Hispanic black rate (3.5%) and well over twice the non-Hispanic white rate (0.5%). [Source: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2001, pdf file]


Again, a war against insane crazed racism isn't a war against "Whites". Racism doesn't just do non-"Whites" an injustice. It does everyone an injustice. You guys from stormfront.org can keep lying at this website. It doesn't matter. There are far more non-racists than there are racists.

Nothing in your racist rhetoric address plain simple truth. Different groups of "Blacks" have different rates of crime. Just because insane "White" racists think there is some common thread based on people's skin color does not make it true. Science must be used to prove this commonality. Not crazed racist mythology.

I don't know where you people come from or why it's so important for you to prove that white-skinned people are better than black-skinned people. But I would advise you to at least try to speak common sense. It is you. . .not me who is trying to prove one group is better than another. And we all know what Webster's dictionary defines as being racist.

"a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race"

This article is a whole lot of white propaganda nonsence. Its very very unreliable and untrue. No proper evidence to back it up. The people who write these articles are just some silly american whites who consider themselves more highly because of their skin.

The article is unreliable and racist.

The same old boring articles about whites who try to express themselves as superior by making themselves intelligent,ethically developed, less curropt and richer.

Have you finished? Your insecurities have been put on show for everyone to see.

The following link might address the point raised about greater incarceration rates for Blacks.

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/RACIAL/Reports/meparticledraft3.pdf

It appears that higher black crime in the US is attributable to an amalgam of poverty, segregation and poorer schooling ( ingredients for a vicious cycle)combined with harsher treatment for black offenders.

For example, the article notes that drug use is about the same for blacks and whites and lower than whites for hispanics but a greater percentage of blacks and hispanics wind up in prison. Also the incarceration rates for blacks in Hawaii is much lower than other states in the US relative to whites.....Hmmm

[edit] Sign Your Comments

For some reason almost no one on this talk page signs their stuff. There are alot of good arguments here and then there are a lot of people just blowing off some of their steam. That's fine. The thing is, if you want folks to listen to you put these: ~ ~ ~ ~ (without the spaces) after your rants. You will be rewarded with one of these >>>> BDSIII 20:25, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Added a talk header. 24.126.199.129 05:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

The title of the article pushes a POV that criminal convictions by race equates to crimes by race. A more NPOV title would be Race and criminal convictions, which would acknowledge that not all guilty people are convicted of crimes and some people who have been convicted of crimes are innocent. --Wiley 16:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Whenver right-wingers bring the subject up on various message boards, I've always looked up the data at the Department of Justice or FBI websites to confirm or contrast their "facts." While their data is usually skewed, and often taken out of context, it was dishearting for me to find there was a basis in fact. While it dawned on me as well that blacks are unfairly treated by our criminal system, it's relevant to point out that the DOJ also measures the percieved race of people who are committing crimes themselves, and not necessarily just those who have been prosecuted.

It's been a while since I've done any looking, and the DOJ files are numerous and hard to sift through, but if I remember correctly, blacks commit a disproportionate number of homicides for their racial subset. They also commit a greater perentage of other violent crimes for their subset than whites, though not a greater number of violent crimes. The victims of these violent crimes are something like 8 out of 9 times also black.

Perhaps I can find the time to find those specific DOJ or FBI statistics. It's always difficult to search for them, because they are government web pages, which aren't designed nor are the reports compiled to make sense of social and political issues. DEL 66.57.225.77 23:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This article seems to be discussing the relationship between race and crime as a whole, not just criminal convictions. For example, this article could discuss racial profiling and other crime-related measures that don't necessary have anything to do with the way crimes are prosecuted (but have to do with crime in general). I think it's important to make the title of articles as broad as possible, so I think the current title is better than "Race and criminal convictions". Then if there's too much information having to do with criminal convictions, we can go ahead and create a subarticle titled Race and criminal convictions. Your thoughts on this? Sofeil 23:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Governments don't know who committed crimes; they only know who was prosecuted and, of those, who was convicted. Since all criminal justice systems are imperfect (some people who are innocent are convicted, and some who are guilty are not), no one truly knows what the rates of crime are. Therefore the title, as well as the very first sentence in the article (An observed correlation between race and crime has been noted...), pushes a POV. A more NPOV first sentence would be Differences in the rates of criminal prosecutions and convictions by race have been noted... and a more NPOV title would be Criminal prosecutions by race --Wiley 04:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced

I have removed the part about the Lebanese, Vietnamese, etc in the Australia section because this was not sourced and it seems completely unfair that this should be included because we do not know if it is true or not. 211.30.100.236 07:51, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] The Addition of Numerous Tags

I admit it, I added all of the tags - and I feel as if I should add more! There are more holes in this article than in a kilogram of swiss cheese. There is sooooooo much subjectivity, the raw data for the figures is something that should be made available to readers and wikipedians. There are parts of the article that mention what seem to be arbitrary pieces of information without sufficient context and backup.

I shall attempt to address *some* of the issues that I have seen in the wikipedia article in an order that reflects Wikipedia:Template_messages.

However, I do not feel that each and every one of the tags that I have added requires a sentence of information in order to justify its addition. In many cases, the addition of the tags and my motivations for adding them would be obvious to any objective observer.

MrASingh 00:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The deletion of numerous tags

If there are concerns with the content of an article, there are many appropriate ways to address those concerns, including editing the article, nominating it for deletion, approaching various Wikiprojects for help, and so forth. Making any article entirely unreadable by adding over 80 banners to it is entirely unacceptable. It is essentially vandalism. I have removed over 80 banners from the article and have left 6 of the most appropriate banners prominently at the top. This is entirely adequate to inform viewers of the dispute surrounding the content. Please use appropriate avenues to address content disputes. Please do not vandalize Wikipedia. Joie de Vivre 00:48, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Response to the deletion of numerous tags

Have a look at my user talk page to see my response to the upset induced by the use of the numerous banners. Essentially, it would be necessary to note that the actual use of 80 tags on the page should not automatically classify the edit as vandalism *if* there is some sound reason for editing subsections of the article when it is felt that merely informing the reader of an inadequacy within the whole of the article is not enough (ie: when particular sections of the article warrant criticism above the whole of the article, for example).

Nevertheless, for such a *short* and *amateur* article, perhaps 80 tags was slightly over the top (*slightly*).

MrASingh 20:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Further Response to the deletion of numerous tags

OK. Let's go through a *tag* by *tag* discussion. There are some tags that you deemed were not {{cleanup|March 2007}} {{cleanup-rewrite}} {{story}} {{cleanup-restructure}} {{Disputed}} {{Unencyclopedic}} {{fiction}} {{context}} {{Expand}} {{RRevised}} {{Expert}} {{Expert-verify|March 2007}} {{misleading}} {{POV}} {{totally-disputed}} {{totally-disputed-section}} {{tooshort}} {{introrewrite}} MrASingh 20:05, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I have added the <nowiki> markup to the list of tags, so that the long display of banners does not disrupt the readability of this page. At this time, I am not interested to participate in a tag-by-tag discussion. Adding more than 80 banners to any article is gross overkill; thus, most of them had to be removed. The removal of over 80 banners does not need to be discussed item by item, it is removal of vandalism. The concerns about article content are made very clear by the 6 remaining tags. I am not interested in addressing those concerns at this time. This does not warrant reinstating tags; those there are sufficient. Joie de Vivre 20:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

You have not made any attempt to justify your designation of the term vandalism, and, as such, it can only be assumed to be a totally subjective (and, may I state - as is in tune with this article - very PREJUDICED). > "At this time, I am not interested to participate in a tag-by-tag discussion. "

Well, your unwillingness to participate in a *reasonable* discussion of the tags is perhaps your general attitude towards truth and wikipedia in general (all the more reason for you to not participate in it!). The discussion obviously need not be tag by tag (though it should address several of the issues - on an issue by issue basis, say).

> gross overkill I did apologise for the number of tags. However, it would not be "gross overkill". 80 tags are 80 tages. They do not obsfuscate the content of the article in any fundamental way (unless you are someone with reading difficulties and disabilities).

> The concerns about article content are made very clear by the 6 remaining tags. I am not interested in addressing those concerns at this time.

It seems that most things do not concern you with this article - so why bother attempting to edit any of it? There are more than a mere 6 issues with these tags. Get used to that fact. If you don't want to discuss, fine, I shall continue to justify my position. And, being the only one justifying it, I shall then edit the article accordingly.

Have a nice day uber : ) MrASingh 13:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

If you continue to vandalize Wikipedia, you will be reported and you may be blocked. Please stop. Joie de Vivre 14:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comment moved from my talk page

The following comment, by MrASingh, was placed on my talk page. I am moving it here because it is about this article. Joie de Vivre 14:10, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

It is clear to me that you have your own interpretations of the term vandalism. I have quoted the term before. Clearly, I felt that discussing such a complex issue required a high degree of analysis - and what better way to do this than to bring up the issues of each tag individuall?
It appears that you have your own definitions of vandalism that are self-servnig in the extreme (probably a reflection of the extreme position of the race and crime article). The tags were placed on the article in a way that would bring the reader to the attention of the various issues of the article edits. There will be more discussion of this in future, I'm sure.
Nevertheless, you are wrong to state that I vandalised your user page. I did not. I merely presented the self-same articles on the page that page you have *specifically designated as being the page upon which messages of that nature are left*. Of course, they took up a considerable amount of space - but no more than would be done on the article itself!
MrASingh 14:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Race and Crime Vandalism Remarks - Slightly Modified Statement of Comments.

I basically re-state what was stated on Joie de Vivre. I believe that the accusation of having 'vandalised' Joie de Vivre is something that is not best placed here as this related to a issue that is not directly related to this article in a sense (vandalism of the article not being the same and vandalism of the user page). Nevertheless, due to Joie de Vivre's insistence, I am obliged to present the below as he wishes it to be presented :

"It is clear to me that you have your own interpretations of the term vandalism. I have quoted the term before. Clearly, I felt that discussing such a complex issue required a high degree of analysis - and what better way to do this than to bring up the issues of each tag individually?

Again, it does appears that you have your own definitions of vandalism that are *self-serving* in the extreme (probably a reflection of the extreme position of the race and crime article). The tags were placed on the article in a way that would bring the reader to the attention of the various issues of the article edits. There will be more discussion of this in future, I'm sure.

Nevertheless, you are wrong to state that I vandalised your user page. I did not. I merely presented the self-same articles on the page that page you have *specifically designated as being the page upon which messages of that nature are left*. Of course, they took up a considerable amount of space - but no more than would be done on the article itself! If you do not like the idea of lengthy arguments being directed or left on your message or talk page - perhaps you should specify a length for those arguments that might tax your intellect so greatly?

MrASingh 21:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)"

WP:CIVIL. You are not going to have a very nice Wikipedia experience if you reduce yourself to goading when disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point fails. Have a nice day. Joie de Vivre 14:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This page is about facts

I don't know why people are hating on this page... I am just posting facts. It's not my fault blacks commit 52% of the homicides in the USA, now is it? McDonaldsGuy 21:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No one is disputing the facts you are presenting. Most of the dispute is based on the lack of context surrounding those facts, and the manner in which those facts are presented. One key concept is this: Correlation does not imply causation. The meaning of this is that finding a correlation between black people and a higher crime rate does not necessarily mean that being black causes a person to be more likely to commit a crime. Joie de Vivre 22:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Blacks commit 52% of homicides in the USA, and most of the sex offenses and robberies. It's pretty obvious they're the reason for the huge crime sparks in many major cities.
DETROIT WHEN IT WAS 82% WHITE:
Year: 1950
Population - 1.9 million
Homicide crime rate: 6.1
Robbery crime rate: 239
DETROIT WHEN IT IS 82% BLACK:
Year: 2000
Population - 950,000
Homicide crime rate: 41.6
Robbery crime rates: 870
"Buh but Detroit has been dying due to its motor business dying!"
Okay, how does that explain Royal Oak's lower crime rate?
"Buh but it's down from the 90's!"
It's still over 6 times more than the 1950's.
"Buh but it's people are poor!"
Are you racist against blacks?
Crime Data from Federal Bureau of Investigation annually published "Uniform Crime Reports". Uniform Crime Reports from 1950 and 2000.
Population statistics from the US Census data from 1950 and 2000
Sometimes correlation DOES = causation.
McDonaldsGuy
Who is that Tazmaniacs, who changed this page into this Neomarxist garbage? Brainwashed simpletons shouldn't be allowed to edit anything on Wiukipedia. Erase rather the whole page! I can't read the nauseating propaganda. You don't need to have IQ 140 to understand that blacks are without compare more violent than whites or Asians. Only people living completely separated from the reality can spread such a demagogy. 82.100.61.114 10:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
WP:NPA. Careful. Tazmaniacs 14:16, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
.........I'm not even going to respond to that. Fusion7 21:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link between poverty and crime

The issue of poverty is not addressed in this article. Poverty cycle and Criminology articles contain information that could be worked into this article. 22:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

More, this is total racist pseudo-science. Notwithstanding the problem of conflating a skin colour with a "race", it pretends to give objective facts while lamely presenting statistics, without giving neither dates, nor places, nor explanations about crimes, nor the fact that poverty might be involved, nor the fact that police statistics reflect the activity of the police much more than effective crime, etc. etc. Grow up! Tazmaniacs 23:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Poverty has nothing to do with blacks and crime. There are more Whites in poverty than blacks, and if say poverty is the fundemental reason - what difference does it make? So not only do blacks commit a whole lot of crime, but they're poor too. Brilliant rebuttal. McDonaldsGuy 07:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Please review WP:Talk page. This page is to discuss the article, not for political debates which are better off on a blog. Thank you. Tazmaniacs 14:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Blacks make up a disproportionate percentage of criminals everywhere in the world. You would hardly find any exception. The link between blacks and crime is much more reliable than between crime and poverty (Where is any picture from Jared Taylor's RACE AND CRIME?) To understand the link between blacks and crime, you don't need any stats, but only common sense, after all. And as I say, erase rather the whole page! Wikipedia is not a place for spreading simple-minded ideology of some angry blockheads, who can't accept the reality! Here are some useful links:
Crime by race in USA: http://amren.com/colorofcrime/color.pdf
Crime by race in UK: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/s95race05.pdf
Multicultural imprisonment rate in praxis: http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050213_mapping.htm
82.100.61.114 13:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Have a look at your first, racist source: "Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than Whites." Does this mean they are more violent? Does this mean that the colour of your skin makes you more violent? Any biologist would refute such non-sense. And more than one people may simply argue that this fact only shows the racism of the US police and judicial system. Why don't you read a bit on environmental criminology, and why in heaven do you want to classify population in various, distinct groups, called "races", on the simple amount of melanin that they have in the body? Stop using this page as propaganda and please review WP:Talk page. If you have any improvement for the article, please do use this page. Else, find a racist blog to spread your hate speech. Thank you very much (and stop using "common sense", it hurts your intelligence). Some sources to open up your mind (don't worry, I have no illusions):
Etc.Etc. You find what you're looking for. Tazmaniacs 14:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Dear commie, there are obviously many things in this world that you and your comrades will have problems to understand, but I'll tell you a secret: Whatever sophistry you will use to erase the world "race" from the vocabulary, there are still geographical differences in the distribution of phenotypes and genetic predispositions. Which is certainly beyond the horizon of your "nursery school anthropology" based on such a superficial trait like skin color. So, the existence or non-existence of race is irrelevant to the fact that people from Sub-Saharan Africa are much more violent than Europeans and Asians. Since they dominate stats of crime in in the whole world, it is highly important for political elites in every country not to allow these people to cross their borders. Even if their behaviour was not caused by genetics, it is not our duty to solve their problems in the Western Civilization; they must solve them in Africa. 82.100.61.114 02:11, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article

This article made lots of unfounded and very vague assertions. You can't just restaure content without giving more details. It means nothing to say "88% of criminals are Black" if you don't say how these statistics were made. See crime statistics, dark figure of crime, etc. Wikipedia is not a soapbox: if you want to have an article on "Race & crime", do it accordingly to encyclopedical standards. Tazmaniacs 17:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I've cleaned up a bit. I strongly suggest to the contributors of this article to review WP:RS and WP:NOR, as well as Criminology, crime statistics, etc. Tazmaniacs 18:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
The original version of this article was bad, and the new one is awful. PC lies, lies, lies! 82.100.61.114 21:16, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Reverted back to original as the new one has been horribly stripped down and irrelevant to the observed phenomena. The charts are necessary for an empirical analysis. Mogg flunkie 03:40, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you take this subject as too polarized, black vs. white. It would be more objective to simply present crime stats by race from various countries. Data from USA and Great Britain are easily available. I posted some links above. 82.100.61.114 14:58, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
The "original" version contains numerous instances of original research, links to sources that no longer work, and most importantly violates WP:NPOV to the extreme by limiting the scope of the article to "Black" crime vs. "White" crime. While I agree more statistics are needed for the article to be truly good, the statistics in the "original" version suffer from a serious sampling bias and cannot be used. Instead I would suggest you look for suitable statistics from more official sources, such as The US Department of Justice. I'm already looking, but as you can see there are a LOT of publications to go through for just the USDOJ, to say nothing of the corresponding agencies in other countries. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 23:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POST when you revert

Reverted page back to the previous versions with charts. Note to whoever is stripping down this page, Wikipedia is not your soapbox for you censor information which does not agree with you.

Statistics are a basis for empirical analysis. Attempts to censor them undermines the scientific process and negates the point in having a truthful encyclopedia.

Censorship should be a thing for totalitarian governments, not knowledge-seeking individuals interested in sociological phenomenon and it's statistical correlations.

Please edit reasonably. Thank you Mogg flunkie 23:55, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism was perpetrated by Tazmaniacs, I have reverted back to the original form. Please stop being a POV-warrior and edit by consensus!

Thank You Mogg flunkie 05:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Please do not delete contents without discussions. Thank you. What you say is a very good advice for yourself. Tazmaniacs 16:40, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Again Mogg flunkie, we've been over this. The version of the page you are restoring is unsuitable for Wikipedia due to WP:NPOV issues, as well as verifiability issues of some of the sources. (Specifically, the links are dead) If you want more statistics, add them to the current revision. Please do, actually, 'cause I really think there needs to be more information here. That UK government crime statistics document someone posted in an above section would be a good place to start, as it passes WP:RS with flying colors and is exactly the kind of source I had envisioned for being used in this article. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 22:44, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Then make changes to the original source article. It's unfair to delete many hours of research just so you few who disagree with the subject can arbitrarily censor it. I have reverted your vandalism and unilateral, uncompromising POV Tazmaniac.

Thank You Mogg flunkie 23:21, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The original source article is entirely unusable, (including the graph) save for one or two of the sources, because all of the content violates WP:NPOV by asserting a "Black vs. White" standpoint. The title of this article is "Race and crime", not "Blacks vs. Whites". In order to maintain a neutral point of view the article must consider every race/ethnicity cited in the source when discussing crime statistics, which the version you support does not do. It is that very issue which caused the article to be nominated for deletion in the first place. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 08:42, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree. The article deals too much with the "black vs. white". Make simply some graphs from the links I posted above. 82.100.61.114 00:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Yukichigai is on the right track. This article needs to be narrowly defined, specifically limited to reliable statistics related to race and crime in the United States and around the world. This means deleting everything except statistics. Let the postulated causes of the observed statistical facts be discussed in a separate article. Specific thoughts. Only use statistics which refer to specific racial groups. Do not use "non-white" or "other" or even "Hispanic". There are crime victimization statistics collected in the US. Use them, as they tend to refute the claim that arrest statistics are biased. If you can find good statistics for Asian or Oriental crime rates, use them. Also, the article would be improved by adding crime statistics for non-white countries, such as Japan, and predominantly black countries if there are any with reliable statistics. 74.136.217.215 00:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] They came from India

I have a source to the stats of Gypsy crime in former Czechoslovakia. The numbers are frightening, but I must check them. 82.100.61.114 00:45, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise Structure of Article

There seems to be some dispute in regard to this article especially its content. Perhaps both perspectives could be incorporated if the article was structured as followed.

1) Introduction

2) Statistics

3) Explanations

.Just a suggestion Romper 00:32, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] POV ruining

First of all, let us get this straight: this page is about RACE and CRIME. Empirically, there is a statistical correlation. Whether you like it or not does not matter- it is a statistical fact. Therefore, the purpose of this page is bring in different theories and explanations of why such an anomaly exists. What Tazmaniacs and Yukichigai are doing is censoring this statistical fact and totally going off-topic and deviating from the subject; which is race and crime.

This is basically an indirect way of asserting their POV's as their censoring the truth furthers their POV agendas. Mogg flunkie 00:28, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Sigh, here we go again. Good times, good times....
As I've said eleventy billion times before, the issue with your favored version of the article is that it asserts a "Black vs. White" standpoint, and specifically excludes statistics relating to other races. This article is about all races, not just two. It also states information in a blatantly biased manner, e.g. "Blacks committed 36% more crime than Whites in location X" instead of "Blacks committed 46% of crime while Whites committed 10% of crime in location X." Some of the information is also unverifiable, having no proper citations. "Prison statistics England and Wales 2000" is not a proper citation. Link to it or provide the ISBN/publication number; otherwise it isn't verifiable. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 07:06, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Mogg, please review WP:TALK. If you have a problem with this article or its content, please raise the issue on this talk page in a rational and logical manner (that means including concise sensefull arguments). If you have a problem with Yukichigai or me, go have a drink! Tazmaniacs 13:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropological criminology

As a bold experiment I've decided to redirect this article directly to the merge candidate, Anthropological criminology. This article seems to have severe problems that do not afflict that one, which has such close affinities to the subject of this one that they can be considered to cover the same subject (although that one is broader in scope). Please feel free to revert this if it seems unrealistic, but I would like to sugges that it might be better to work on improving that one than to persevere with this one. --Tony Sidaway 07:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It's tempting, but the article's scopes are different. One, in essence, is the art of examining the other. Right now I'm too tired to make a decision on this one way or the other, but after I've had the opportunity to look at the new article I'll make a decision. Just keep in mind, certain people come to Wikipedia expecting to be able to find statistics on their favorite "mudrace" so they can prove that the internet says it's true. That article will exist on Wikipedia no matter what we do, but we can at least make sure the statistics reported are accurate, unbiased, and that no conclusions are drawn from them by the editors. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 09:08, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I have to say I am against the merge as the Antropological Criminology article has almost nothing to do with the subject at hand.172.131.61.32 20:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

If you are going to merge this article, please discuss it before you do so. The merge in my opinion was an awful idea; I mean Anthropological Criminology?!!!! That has almost no relation to the original article. I favor reverting it back. That being said, this article is far from being good and is a work in progress. I will be researching and adding statistics from the US and other countries in regards to crime and race and I suggest to others that this be the primary goal for now and we can discuss further additions as the article comes along.Colemangracie 20:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Right. Work on the current version, as the precedent was racist unsourced POV that should look for some racist Wiki to vent its wild claims. If we're going to make articles on sensitive issues, such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or Mein Kampf, it certainly not is to spill out racist White supremacist propaganda based on an irrelevant study. Thank you for taking into consideration the recent edits made to this page. If you agree with this, feel free to add statistics, taking into mind that these should be very complete and precise. And also look for some statistics on the prevalence of condemnations versus arrestations among ethnic minorities, as Yukichigai pointed out above on this talk-page. Tazmaniacs 01:04, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I put back in the statistics, but I found a lot of selective referencing which made it seem POV. I have cleaned it up a lot to make it more evernly dispersed. I will be researching those selected references further to draw more relevant statistics that cover more racial groups and not just Whites and Blacks.Colemangracie 20:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I had to remove a few of the statistics you added because they were unsuitable for Wikipedia. One of them was mostly Original Research, and another couldn't be verified due to the source requiring a login to view the article. Also, I refactored the Home Office statistics to reflect offender statistics rather than victim statistics, as that is more relevant to the topic at hand. The rest were plenty fine though, and I hope you can dig up more.
One last thing though: please don't remove the first two sections of the article. While statistics are vital for the success of this article it cannot be entirely statistics, as that would run afoul of WP:NOT#INFO. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 22:23, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with merging the race and crime section here. Anthropological criminology is an obsolete scientific theory used to explain the facts mentioned in race and crime. Saying they should be merged is like saying that carbon dioxide should be merged with Phlogiston theory. Paladinwannabe2 15:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Crime of Gypsies in former Czechoslovakia

A source about the crime rate of Gypsies in former Czechoslovakia: http://www.epolis.cz/download/pdf/materials_31_1.pdf PAGE 8: Overall Romany criminality was five times higher in 1984 than the rest of the population (in the CR?, CSSR?). In the long term it rises and starts in the younger age groups (Nečas, 1991). In the beginning of the 1990´s, when the data on Romany criminality became available, the share of Romany people in the overall crime rate of the CR was about 16%, while in Slovakia it was up to 28%, meaning that at the time of the split between the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, approximately each fifth accused was Romany. An especially large share was burglaries (22% of the total) and in so-called plain thieveries (19%). In Slovakia these numbers were 40% and 36%. There was also a considerable share of immoral offences, especially in the crime of sexual abuse (20% in the CR, 40% in Slovakia). The share of Romany people in violent criminality was in the CR 13% (SR 23%). (Socioklub, 1999). “…we estimate that 20-30% of the economically active Romany population makes their living illegally – by prostitution, peddling or other crimes against property. The adult prisons are by more than 60% Romany. (Říčan, 1998).8 In the beginning of the 1990´s, according to police statistics, in the territory of the former CSFR, 2% of those prosecuted were foreign, 82% were Romany people, and 16% natives; Romany people averaged half of the prosecuted and accused habitual offenders (Matoušek 1998). NOTE: In the early 90's, Gypsies made up less than 2% Czech and ca. 5% Slovak population.82.100.61.114 14:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

This only shows the discrimination against Roma, the lower chances for a normal lifestyle, the prohibitions for the normal expression of the Romani culture. In all the East European coutries during the Communist regime, the Romani minority was not recognized as such and suffered a strong assimilationist pressure. The same as in the other examples from this article, the assimilationist pressure produces less chances for a normal life, while the racial discrimination induces higher penalties for Roma compared to non-Roma for the same guilt. Desiphral-देसीफ्राल 14:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
This only shows that Gypsies successfully continue in their criminal tradition established in the 15th century. When they entered Europe, they were welcome (because they lied about their origin and pretended that they are fleeing Christians), but after their criminal character was recognized, they started to be persecuted and "discriminated". So you confuse cause and consequence. The high crime rate judges about that they can express their culture very freely. They have a negative reputation everywhere in the world. But this is certainly a global conspiracy, isn't it? P.S.: Is sexual abuse a result of discrimination and racism? Just curious. 82.100.61.114 01:23, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Comment Dear anonymous, looks like you could benefit from reading the article on Roma people --Crusio 10:08, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
No, I could not benefit from it. I didn't see Gypsies on a picture, but I encountered them in a real life. Hence I can't believe any politically correct fairy-tales anymore. 82.100.61.114 (talk) 01:30, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Please keep discussion focused on the article. Comments approximating ethnic slurs are inappropriate for WP talk pages.-Phyesalis (talk) 19:08, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Duplicate references section

I found a duplicate references section at the bottom of the article. Dunno how it managed to stay there so long without anybody noticing. Anyway, I've removed the section but I thought I'd post the stuff that was in there, should it prove to be useful later:

-- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 07:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Okay, found some more:
-- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 07:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A heads up to everyone: Be VERY careful about potential Original Research

Since this is a fairly controversial topic (duh) the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia apply very strictly to this article. This includes Wikipedia's policy on Original Research. Allow me to explain further...

I've noticed that a number of people have accidentally included Original Research in the article while in the process of adding statistics. It's subtle and I doubt intentional, but nonetheless it's there. Specifically, I've noticed that editors will add statistical information concerning race-based crime from one source, (say, stats on rape) and then follow it up with overall stats from a different source for comparison. (say, stats on overall ethnic population, or stats on all crime in a country) This is explicitly defined by policy as Original Research. It's sort of counter-intuitive to think that there's a problem with providing reference points by which to allow readers to judge statistics, but it is policy and it's there for a reason. If the "general" statistic (e.g. ethnic population) and the "specific" statistic (e.g. ethnic crime) come from the same source it's not a problem since we aren't drawing or implying any conclusions that someone (the source) hasn't already, but if those two come from different sources it's theoretically possible that we might have picked, say, a "general" statistic that makes the "specific" statistic look really really bad. (I'm not saying that's why people have done this, I'm just saying that's what policy is trying to prevent)

In short, be very careful about adding statistics. Don't try to piece together a point using multiple sources; instead, try to find single sources that give you all the reference information you need for a given point. Government publications are usually excellent at that sort of thing, since bureaucrats have a fetish for excessive statistics. :P -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 10:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Norway Section

I question the reference for this section. Firstly, the study is not accessible for wikipedians. Secondly, even if the citation were valid in the sense that the study were of a kind that passes academic tests that would allow it to be deemed a quality citation (bearing in mind that, as the newspaper link for the study does not even mention the study title, this cannot be done), it does not provide an overall contextual overview for the subject matter in Norway.

In short the section on Norway cites a controversial citation and that probably requires that the Norway section should be removed.

Finally, referring to WP:Scientific citation guidelines (which, I think, is meant to provide guidelines for all citations within Wikipedia), there is the issue that , according ti WP:What is a reliable source, the following statement holds :

"Reliable sources are authors or publications regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight."

I do not believe that, for this subject matter, the Newspaper itself should be cited. The *study* probably should be cited (bearing in mind, of course, that the Newspaper does not *cite* the study by title or other details). Essentially, there is a problem of reliability that concerns citing a source indirectly when that the indirect reference does not make any explicity mention of the title of the source (as would be necessary for a wikipedian). So, I'm removing the citation.

ConcernedScientist 19:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Inter-racial crime / race wars vs. Race and Crime

Since it's somehow not clear, let me explain this, again: this article is about a supposed link between Race and Crime. It is not about inter-racial relations, inter-racial crime, or "race wars". Using limited subsets of crime statistics that only focus on "Black on White" crime (or, even worse, further limited statistics, e.g. "Black man on White woman rape") is a form of cherry picking.

This article is not about any one race, and is espeically not about any one race compared to any one other race. Comparing "Blacks and Whites" in this article violates WP:NPOV; just because you happen to find some Commons images that do so doesn't give you license to POV-push.

This article doesn't use any statistics unless you can link to the study directly. Just because you find an article that summarizes one or two points of some study released doesn't give you license to use those points; you need to also find a way to link to the study directly. This is a WP:V issue, which means editors (myself included) have carte blanche to remove offending material.

Hope that clears some stuff up. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 00:45, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't been on this page for a while, but it seem you're trying to impose your own POV onto this article, what with your constant editing. I see no problems with the graphs that shows the racial makeup of perpetrators. Those graphs are from the United States Department of Justice! It's a non-biased source if there is one.

No matter how much you try to censor the facts, there's something wrong with certain racial & ethnic groups in the U.S. Mogg flunkie 01:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

You are proving his point Mogg. You are stating you have a belief that there are "wrong ethnic groups. This suggest you have political motivation in your editing.Yuki gave information on both sides of the debate on race and crime. You have not done this. I suggest you not attack him when he is being non biased and you admit you have an intrest outside of npov.YVNP 15:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] How is Judicial Racism not a part of this topic?

It's about the interplay between race and crime. I don't see why this material was removed at all. futurebird 16:49, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I kind of agree with Viperes, that the topic of this article is about possible biological effects causing racial differences in crime rates. But the statistics that futurebird added might explain a lot about differing crime rates observed for different racial groups. I think this material has a place in this article, but should be edited to indicate that the data that we have relating to the race/crime question may be biased because of racist attitudes on the part of law enforcement and the judicial system. --Crusio 17:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I restored the section. The information is pertinent and well-sourced, but moreover, as Crusio said, it is crucial to providing context and explanation for the statistics we have, at least for the United States. The paragraph was originally deleted out of bad faith. JScott06 (talk) 00:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions

Judging from the history of the article, there has been a lot of improvement. Good work. Just a couple of issues:

Pseudoscience Cartwright's interesting but Francis Galton is a much better example. His work was used for years in mainstream academia and society before it was debunked.

Nature v. Nurture 1st, I think scientific racism is a better name, since everything suggesting nature has been discredited as SR. 2nd, it seems as if this and the Pseudoscience section can be merged. 3rd, the article states "However, some recent works of sociobiology, which aims at explaining behaviour by biological factors, have provided for renewed interest in some circles about the relations between an ethnic group and criminality rate." There are specifc debunkers but no mention of the work itself. Isn't this "recent works of sociobiologists" actually just Rushton (a la The Pioneer Fund and scholarly misconduct)? I'm not an expert on this but I haven't actually heard of much legitimate work positing a causal relationship. Regardless, examples of the work should be named. Even if it's only Rushton, it should be mentioned specifically.

Judicial Racism should be expanded to it's own section or have accompanying sections with each nation's statistics. The artcile should also have a sseparate section on racial profiling.

Statistics Only the data for the US & Britian is contextualized in any way. The rest of the statistics should either be accompanied by culture specific commentary relating to race and given statistics or removed. As they stand now, they seem kind of OR-y.

I'll try to rewrite the intro. Phyesalis (talk) 21:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not enought acurate article

This article is not enought acurate. This was remowed: " However, most of serial killers and school shooters are ethnicaly whites or at leaser extend orientals not the blacks, who usaly are portraied as being criminals. " But this clearly is right: In USA and Europa most of accoused in corruption are whites. Most economical crime is done by whites, or at least by non black. Most racism (which definetely are crime) is alsou done by whites;)

[edit] Judicial racism section, and conviction punishments

Just a few comments on maybe improving the article - This article tells the rates of arrest between whites/Hispanics/blacks, noting that whites were on average most likely to be arrested. But the section mentions nothing about *why* the white people were pulled over. Was it because they were speeding, driving badly, in vehicles that weren't street legal? Compared with pulling over minorities solely because of their complexion. Without any info about sample bias, the section tries to suggest that the crime rate for minorities is higher. This is biased IMO. Another thing, about the discrepancy in sentencing between whites/blacks in the USA for the same crime, the section mentions nothing about the fact that blacks tend to much more likely have (large) criminal records. The way the judicial system in the USA is set up is to give much harsher punishments (much more likely to be incarcerated, especially with three strikes laws and whatnot) to repeat offenders. So it's biased to use conviction discrepancy without accounting for inherent bias in the comparisons. Peoplesunionpro (talk) 22:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, your objections are certainly coming from the right place, however institutional racism (or more specifically, judicial racism) is a significant portion of this article. In some ways, it is the article. Instead of removing a whole section with reliable references, perhaps you might consider looking up new sources of info and adding them to the section. Because I agree, the section does have some issues of clarity and POV. I'm going to reinstate the section and try to work on it. I hope you will consider adding to it as well. Phyesalis 20:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is an aweful article.

I signed up for Wikipedia just to post this criticism of this article.

This article is awful and has no information.

Wikipedia is where I come for information. When I want to know the answer to something I come here, and I expect to find what I'm looking for.

Recently I came across a series of some quotes by Ron Paul which were very critical of blacks. You can flame a guy for being a racist, but you can't flame a guy for reciting facts. Hence my search began to find the facts needed to dispute Paul's comments. I wanted to check out the statistics related to crime and race.

After reading this page it became apparent to me that it used to have more information, but such information was removed. I was able to get the facts I was looking for of course. It is the internet after all. I just had to go somewhere else for it. This is a sensitive subject but there's no purpose served in vandalizing wikipedia because the facts are disagreeable.

The facts are that blacks are more likely to commit certain types of crime than other ethnicities. That's a fact. The reason for this fact is not known to me. Is it become of institutional racism? Is it because of poverty? Is it because of poverty caused by institutional racism? I don't know. That's what this article should have.

The incarceration rates by race and by crime.

The arrest rates by race and by crime.

The description of offenders according to the victims by race and by crime.

The incarceration rates by poverty level and by crime.

The arrest rates by poverty level and by crime.

The incarceration rates by education level and by crime.

The arrest rates by education level and by crime.


These are the facts that I was unable to find in this article.

I suppose my main criticism(admitting that I did not get a chance to read the unabridged version) is that rather than deleting the facts, additional information should have been provided to put the facts in context.

It is my expectation that well-educated and prosperous black men are just as sensible and peaceful as their counterparts from any race. It's my expectation because it's been my experience in life. Statistically I can't confirm that assertion because THIS ARTICLE HAS NO INFORMATION! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nosynoisemaker (talk • contribs) 16:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

There exists an FBI crime report with detailed arrest/conviction statistics, it doesn't really separate criminals by social class, though. It's mostly race. 76.25.115.99 (talk) 10:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] refuted?

The article states, "This early research has been refuted by modern criminology and cultural anthropology on grounds of scientific racism (using science or pseudoscience in support of discrimination)"

My dictionary defines refuted as "Overthrow by argument, evidence, or proof". Therefore this sentence makes no sense. You can't refute a scientific claim by calling it racist. At best that would be an ad hominem attack on the motives of the person claiming it. I don't even need to know any of the facts to know that this sentence is wrong.80.229.27.11 (talk) 23:36, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Terms like "scientific racism" basically means someone is assuming that because, for example, a crime report shows blacks are much more likely to commit a crime than other races, it is because the researchers had some kind of inherent bias. This is, of course, bullshit. 76.25.115.99 (talk) 10:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] USA data missing Hispanics

Why is there no data for Hispanics in the USA? Also, for Canada onli Indians are mentioned. Someone should revise with the correct percentages. ~~eichwulf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.126.25.144 (talk) 21:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I’m also curious as to why Hispanic percentages are not separated from other.--DavidD4scnrt (talk) 20:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Crime in South Africa

The Crime in South Africa article links to the Race and crime article but the latter does not mention South Africa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ben Mines (talk • contribs) 09:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] removal of material

I have a problem with one user who keeps removing sourced material. The citation used comes from academic journals, whose content is readily accessible through jstor. First, the user promptly dismisses the source, then changed position and said that such statistics is misleading. This is not NPOV. The statistics cited comes from a research article from a research university, and was peer-reviewed in order to be published in an academic journal, to be placed in the jstor repository. This is very different from hearsay from racist websites or blogs. To remove this reputable, verifiable information and then to accuse it of being misleading is very very wrong, pov, and smells full of original research. If the user can find a legitimate study that disapproves or raises questions about the previous study, then by all means include it in the article. Otherwise, to remove information that is reputable and verifiable (it was published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, for god's sake) and to judge the said study as misleading without providing your own citation, is both pov and original research. Nyuba (talk) 03:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Relevance and Point of View are non-negotiable, particularly in articles such as this. My stance from the beginning has and continues to be that the information is highly misleading, as it focuses solely on a highly limited subset of crime statistics (443 crimes over four years) about one race versus another race. This is not appropriate information for the article, nor is the pseudo-scientific research about what reactions people have to faces of a specific race, which doesn't even contain any crime statistics.
More to the point, this same type of information was repeatedly reinserted in the past, and was eventually determined to run so far afoul of WP:NPOV that reverting any addition of the information did not count against WP:3RR. The same is true here, and thus I will not back down on this issue. The statistics are not going to stay in, period. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 12:27, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Look, I am not going to argue with you anymore, because apparently you will revert any legitimate change I make without any reasoning. You did not address any of my concerns regarding the use of legitimate citations, and instead you keep on insisting your definition of what is npov. It is also very ridiculous of you to accuse a peer-reviewed study by a university, published in a reputable academic journal and indexed in JSTOR as being pseudoscientific, when you have absolutely no outside, academic citation to back up your claim. You are not the authority and unless you are published in a peer-reviewed journal and can provide such citation to counterpoint my citation, repeating the same claim and throwing the same mud won't change the fact that you did not provide any citation to refute a published study in a peer-reviewed journal. I really see no point in arguing with you because first, I have the facts on my side when they are cited by a linkable journal article, and you, on the other hand, keeps on repeating the same thing over and over again, using pov and original research, without providing a legitimate citation of your own. I hope you understand the issue with NPOV, Original research, and citation, but I honestly don't expect you to get it. Nyuba (talk) 16:16, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm under no obligation to "provide sources" for anything, whereas you have yet to provide any sort of justification as to why this information belongs in the article besides "it's been published in a reputable academic journal." That does not address the issues of relevance or WP:NPOV with the use of the information. To put it in perspective, I could probably find dozens of sources in "reputable academic journals" to back up the claim that a growing percentage of firefighters are gay, but that wouldn't make the information relevant to include in the article on wildfires now would it? The same is true here; this information is at best only vaguely relevant to the article, and that essentially non-existent relevance doesn't justify the severe alteration in tone and focus it would bring to the article.
Regardless, I am done hashing out the issue; my stance is clear and previous situations have shown that I am in the right here. The information is not staying, and will not stay, period. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 22:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Bringing in another preposterous example into discussion to obscure your inability to comprehend and address any of my concerns hits a new low for you. You obviously have no idea how peer-review works and at the same time seems toe profess that you own the article and is the sole authority on what's to be added or removed from it. I'm not going to continue responding to your reverts, as it is getting rather pathetic arguing with an immature braggart who obviously dodges the issues and knows very little about the significance of peer-reviewed material. Nyuba (talk) 23:44, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Yukichigai, it is unfortunate that the information disagrees with your beliefs. However, this does not make it illegitimate. You don't appear to understand how peer-review works. In order to be published in a "reputable academic journal" (now, this is assuming the journal/magazine is actually reputable, however most of the time it's fairly clear which are and which are not) an author will submit his paper to his peers. This means that an engineer writing a paper on engineering will submit his paper to other engineers; they will fact-check it and make sure all of the reasoning/figures/etc is correct.
You are definitely NOT in the right here, and you need to stop removing sourced material immediately. You don't even understand how peer review works yet you try to argue against it. Please, "get out". 76.25.115.99 (talk) 10:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Sigh... okay, I'm going to go over this one more time, very slowly, with big bold letters so that people will get my points and stop trying to argue about WP:V issues:
1) WP:NPOV applies to the use of the information as well as the information itself. Just because the information is verifiable doesn't mean it can't be used to alter POV in the article. The same situation occurred with a US Department of Justice infographic which showed two statistics: black homicide and white homicide. While the statistics were extremely verifiable, the infographic itself ran afoul of NPOV because it set the tone that the entire article was about "Blacks vs. Whites" or something similar. If a USDOJ-sourced image can cause POV issues, what makes you think these statistics are somehow exempt?
2) The information still has to be relevant to the article. I don't care if the information has been verified by God (or Jimbo) Himself, if it's not relevant to the topic at hand it isn't going to stay. The first section of text is only relevant in the vaguest sense of the word, because it happens to have elements of race and crime in it, but it is not about the link between race and crime so much as the crime between races. The second section of text isn't relevant at all; so people are more afraid of black people according to some study, what the hell does the study say about the link between race and crime? Nothing, that's what, because the study doesn't even mention that concept. The study might fit nicely into the Racism article, but in this article at best you're looking at a gross violation of WP:NOR in order to make it justifiably relevant.
Now if those two points (the same ones I've been hammering over and over and over again) aren't enough, here's a third one that's pretty damn important too:
3) These are very limited (and thus poor quality) statistics. According to the link provided these statistics looked at 443 crimes over a four year span from nearly 30 years ago. 443 crimes over four years is a ludicrously small sample size when dealing with the scope of this article, to say nothing of the highly reduced relevance due to the age of the statistics and relevant study.
In short, you can wave the verifiability of the statistics around all you want, but it doesn't negate the other serious issues with their inclusion. -- Y|yukichigai (ramble argue check) 11:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I've looked into it and if Yukichigai is correct a better source is needed since 400 cases over 4 years isn't relevant. Jared Taylor provides some sources, but I've been unable to access any of them. [5] It would probably also be better to make a separate section for the interracial crime phenomenon. --Zero g (talk) 12:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)