> Now we can debate why the black population commits more crime, but it’s not a racist policing discussion.
Criminal statistics are a record of who is arrested and prosecuted, not a record of who commits the most crime. If a black criminal is more likely to be arrested than a white criminal, then the statistics will reflect that.
Yes, it's more reliable to consider number of crimes reported and number of victims. I think you'll see why there are more police in black communities if you consider those statistics.
What confuses me is that this is now painted as racist and somehow Republican. I clearly remember that back in the 90s it was the Democrats, at the urging of black leaders, who supported harsher sentences and funding for more police (most prominently the Clinton crime bill [1] and three strikes laws in Washington and California [2]).
And we can see that black people still want the police to focus on their communities, as they elect leaders like Eric Adams (over the objections of white progressives), and a Gallup poll in 2020 found that 81% of black people want police to spend same amount of or more time in their area.[3]
That naturally leads to more interactions with police and more incidents when terrible things happen. Policing is always a trade off between the harms that police cause (through mistakes, misconduct, and misunderstandings) and the harms they prevent.
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1: "the largest crime bill in the history of the United States... provided for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons". "Then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware drafted the Senate version of the legislation".
2: "The first true "three-strikes" law was passed in 1993, when Washington voters approved Initiative 593. California passed its own in 1994, when their voters passed Proposition 184[16] by an overwhelming majority, with 72% in favor and 28% against."
Which is why I tend to look at homicides as it will be less biased. Every homicide will be accounted for (materially). And if anything you would expect less efforts to be made by the police to identify the author in poorer black areas, which would lead to an under representation. But from memory I think close to 50% of the homicide in the US have black authors (and predominantly black victims too which is consistent with your point). Which is broadly in line with their representation in police shootings.
Criminal statistics are a record of who is arrested and prosecuted, not a record of who commits the most crime. If a black criminal is more likely to be arrested than a white criminal, then the statistics will reflect that.