Saw on newspaper

Lolcb

Lolcb

Lolcb

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Joined
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Hi, I was reading Metro on the train and I read something interesting. Apparently some MP said that the ratio of black criminals compared to whites are 5:1. That is a bit worrying considering that majority of this nation's population are whites and the blacks actually have 5 times the amount of criminal offenders.

Why is this so?


P.S. The MP was actually accused of being racist, I can't see how that's racist when facts and figures shows it Lol.
 
Lolcb said:
Hi, I was reading Metro on the train and I read something interesting. Apparently some MP said that the ratio of black criminals compared to whites are 5:1. That is a bit worrying considering that majority of this nation's population are whites and the blacks actually have 5 times the amount of criminal offenders.

Why is this so?
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Because you're racist, and debate is harming society...
 
Haha brilliant, my girlfriend lives within that constituency.

Love how he is branded a racist regardless of anyone being able to prove/disprove his claim.
 
cleanbluesky said:
Because you're racist, and debate is harming society...
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I'm not racist, I'm just confused why the amount of criminals is so many times more considering they are a minority here. And debate is something any country will never be able to avoid. If we live in a society that doesn't require debate, everyone would be moving and acting like a programmed robot.
 
It's not racist to say this at all, so long as you recognise the social causes. Blacks are far more likely to live in poverty than whites; poverty is the number one cause of crime; therefore blacks are more likely, statistically, to commit crime.

Lolcb said:
I'm not racist, I'm just confused why the amount of criminals is so many times more considering they are a minority here. And debate is something any country will never be able to avoid. If we live in a society that doesn't require debate, everyone would be moving and acting like a programmed robot.
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He's being sarcastic. Don't worry, you soon get used to him :)
 
I heard these statistics, or similar ones, some time ago. I thought that the MP was very brave to bring this up as he was bound to end up being accused of all sorts of things. I feel that this is something that the black community have been trying to draw attention to for some time, but were getting the 'Oh no, here we go again' run around. Certainly the prison officers and police officers I have spoken to tell me that black suspects and prisoners feel that they are unfairly targetted in relation to being stopped on suspicion of having done something.

Yes, it would be easy for others to use the arguement that I have heard expressed, that 'these people' are all drug dealers and rapists. But if they are, what does this say about the sort of society that we live in? Yes, there are many black people who live in poverty, in third world environments and attend poorly performing, inner city schools. Maybe we owe them more?
 
As someone here pointed out a long time ago, that statistic is meaningless without knowing another one: what is the rate of poverty amongst blacks compared to whites? It's been known for hundreds of years that crime is much more common amongst the poor, so this is important. It might be that all that is being measured is how many poor blacks there are compared to poor whites. It also glosses over how the two colours enter the CJ system. For instance: of those stopped on the street, what proportion of blacks and white are then arrested ofr an offence? Because without knowing that we don't know if the higher number of blacks is simply related to the tendancy of the police in certain areas to target blacks for stops (not random ones obviously, because they are supposed to do that). I'm sure there's some old saying about statistics but I can't remember it...


M
 
robmiller said:
It's not racist to say this at all, so long as you recognise the social causes. Blacks are far more likely to live in poverty than whites; poverty is the number one cause of crime; therefore blacks are more likely, statistically, to commit crime.
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Yes, robmiller is right. If you suggest that blacks commit more crime because of genetic terms, the dictionary says you are racist. But you can also be a racist and be right.

But if you blame anything other than ethnicity, you're not racist.

He's being sarcastic. Don't worry, you soon get used to him :)
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Yes, the single thing that myself and scrofula have in common.
 
Does poverty gives right to human to commit crimes? People can argue that poverty is the pushing factor leading black people to commit crime but can we really say that the cause of the crime is caused by poverty? Surely I am sure we humans aren't stupid in one way or another, not that stupid I believe not to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong.

I read the newspaper today, there was another case where this 2 teenagers attacked a lawyer while he is on the way home. The knife robbery case only involved an oyster card and something else can't remember. Don't tell me poverty is the reason why they have to rob and kill someone off for an oyster card.

What I am saying is, yes poverty might be a factor in relating to crimes offended by these people. But at the end of the day, can we really blame poverty as the real reason?
 
He can't be acused of racism for just repeating statistics if that is the case. It is only certain interpretations of these statistics that would make his comments racist. As a couple of people have said above, prisoner statistics are meaningless and it is impossible link criminal behaviour to race alone. As well as poverty levels being higher amounst minority groups, discrimination and lack of opertunity compared to majority groups is still present. Black people are still 8 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites, so it natural for more arrests to be made. Reports still suggest our police force has a long way to go to stamp out institutional racism.
 
starscream said:
Black people are still 8 times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites, so it natural for more arrests to be made. Reports still suggest our police force has a long way to go to stamp out institutional racism.
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You had to go blaming the white man didn't you...
 
Rich_L said:
Agreed. I propose a glow-in-the-dark paint spot on the forehead to make them easier to spot.
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Oh my, my ribs hurt from rugby and you've just made it worse.

You swine :D

KaHn
 
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