
Study: Half of black males, 40% of white males arrested by age 23 - EGreg
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-01/uosc-sho010314.php
======
EpicEng
I think that this trend, at least in part, has been influenced by a change in
the way that we treat adolescent crime. For example, even when I was a kid
(early 90's) you would not get arrested for getting into a fist fight at
school. Nowadays, bam; call the cops.

Get caught with some pot? Arrested. Get caught performing some petty
vandalization? Arrested. Get caught at a party drinking as a minor? Arrested.
We arrest kids for things that they used to just get a slap on the wrist/call
to mom & dad for. Now they get a court date.

We throw the cuffs on kids much more readily than we used to 20, 30, 40+ years
ago.

~~~
agwa
This has been dubbed the "school-to-prison pipeline." It's exacerbated by the
fact that many schools now have police officers permanently stationed at the
school, which leads to a "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a
nail" problem. It also contributes to the racial disparity because
predominantly black schools are more likely to have a police officer than
predominantly white schools.

~~~
cyorir
This was a sensitive topic while I was in high school in Colorado. I don't
think the school had a majority, but the largest groups were white and
hispanic groups. We always had at least 1 permanent police officer heading a
group of a couple of people who could be either police or security.

Nominally this was a response to incidents throughout the rest of the state
such as Columbine, but in reality the purpose was to try to combat youth
gangs. In this respect I think it partially worked for the circumstances.

However, this was also used to target usage of marijuana and cigarettes by
students. I'm not sure how effective this was, because data about that was not
commonly released by the school. Needless to say, a lot of students didn't
like this, but opinion of the student body was very divided. It would be
interesting to see how things have changed in Colorado high schools since
marijuana was legalized; I'll have to look into that, but in most schools
marijuana is still banned (like tobacco products) so things could only get
worse if school policy is unchanged.

~~~
josho
As an outsider that seems incredibly wrong. The answer to youth gangs is not
more security. Perform a root cause analysis and go back to the fact that kids
often fall into gangs because parents are not around (working double jobs),
they are stuck in poverty with an easy out (crime).

It saddens me to read about solving youth problems by attacking the symptoms
rather than the cause. Though I understand why, fixing the cause takes time,
is unpopular to those on the political right, while fixing the symptom seems
can achieve immediate results (though not long term).

~~~
alexeisadeski3
If poverty were relevant, Colorado would have zero gangs.

~~~
wmt
Colorado has zero poverty?

~~~
alexeisadeski3
More or less.

[http://b-i.forbesimg.com/richardgreen/files/2013/12/Income-d...](http://b-i.forbesimg.com/richardgreen/files/2013/12/Income-
distribution_US-vs-China-India-world.jpg)

~~~
pc86
Surely you are not comparing income in Colorado to income in Brazil or India.

------
ddlatham
_Most striking are the race differences revealed in the study, Brame says. In
particular, the research points to a higher prevalence of arrest among black
males and little race variation in arrest rates among females._...

 _By age 23, 49 percent of black males, 44 percent of Hispanic males and 38
percent of white males have been arrested._...

 _By age 23, arrest rates were 20 percent for white females and 18 percent and
16 percent for Hispanic and black females, respectively._

By age 23:

\- Black males have been arrested at a 29% higher rate than white males.

\- White females have been arrested at a 25% higher rate than black females.

While the absolute rate of especially black male arrests is troubling, I find
the racial differences in both genders striking and particularly surprising in
the female case.

~~~
tzs
Black males are disproportionately represented among those in poverty or with
low income compared to white males. If the police completely ignored race, we
would expect black males to be arrested at a higher rate than white males.

The most troubling possibility that the black male vs white male rate suggests
to me is that police might not be taking black _victims_ as seriously as white
victims.

Blacks die by homicide at a rate that is around 16 times the rate whites die
from homicide, for instance. I haven't analyzed this to make sure I'm not
running into something like Simpson's Paradox or something similar that makes
it easy to mess up when looking at cross group statistics, but my first
impression is that if police were working as diligently to solve crimes
against black people as they do to solve crimes against white people, they
would be arresting a lot more black criminals than they do.

The female data is interesting. I don't even have a guess as to why white
females might be arrested at a higher rate than black females.

~~~
nostrademons
Just a guess: more white females than black females go to college, where they
have plenty of opportunities for underage drinking, marijuana use,
trespassing, vandalism, or other minor crimes. More black women at that age
are mothers, where they have to provide for their kid and don't have time to
get into mischief.

The arrest rates at age 18 were nearly identical for white vs. black females,
the discrepancy only arose in ages 18-23. It would be interesting to see the
data broken out by crime and by educational achievement.

~~~
Anechoic
_Just a guess: more white females than black females go to college,_

In terms of raw numbers, yes, because there are more white females than black
females in the U.S. In terms of _rates_ , no, black women enroll in college at
a higher rate than white women [0] and are awarded degrees at a higher rate
than white women [1]. Now this is a relatively recent (last 10 years)
development so it could be that arrest rates haven't had time to adjust for
this if the hypothesis is correct.

[0]
[http://www.census.gov/hhes/school/data/cps/2011/tables.html](http://www.census.gov/hhes/school/data/cps/2011/tables.html)
look at the "White alone non-Hispanic" and "Black alone" table data and
assuming we're limiting the comparison to 18-24 yro per the post I'm
responding to, 4.6% of black women attend college vs 4.3% of white women.

[1]
[http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72](http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72)

------
byoung2
_Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the U.S.
are arrested by age 23, which can hurt their ability to find work, go to
school and participate fully in their communities._

An arrest by itself, without an accompanying conviction, cannot be used to
deny employment.

1\.
[http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm#I](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm#I)

~~~
coryl
Do arrest records show up in background checks by employers?

~~~
timmclean
In Canada, at least, background checks can reveal attempted suicides and
dropped charges, unfortunately: [http://www.therecord.com/news-
story/4538747-names-of-420-000...](http://www.therecord.com/news-
story/4538747-names-of-420-000-canadians-are-in-police-database-despite-no-
criminal-records/)

~~~
astrodust
The dropped charges is the worst of this.

How many people that were "kettled" during the G20 protests, despite not
actually participating in the protests, nor ever being charged with anything,
now have a police record?

------
giberson
Laws in the US are far too strict.

I am one of the people that are covered by this statistic, I was arrested
around age 16. For curfew.

Curfew, the _law_ that says you can't be outside after an arbitrarily dictated
time.

Absolutely ridiculous. For what it is worth--my record has been "expunged" and
this arrest has not affected my adult life at all.

~~~
barrkel
Curfews? That sounds like something out of a police state.

I did not know the US had curfew laws.

~~~
skittles
The U.S. is overly protective of children and young adults. We can't drink
alcohol until 21 and many cities have curfew laws for kids up to the age of 16
or so. My city has a curfew for those 16 and under. They can't be out after 11
pm during the week and after 12:30 am on weekends.

~~~
EpicEng
Well, I don't know; why are 15 year olds walking the streets at 1 a.m.?
Something is wrong there 99.99% of the time. I don't think they should be
arrested though, just returned home. I had cuffs thrown on me for curfew when
I was 16 or so. No arrest, but seriously, cuffed and thrown into a pen.

~~~
watwut
This kind of thinking, right here is a problem. The "something is wrong there"
assumption is wrong all too often. The assumption that the situation requires
cops is wrong too - the wrong thing is most likely a parenting issue and
should be dealt with by parents.

Do not take me wrong, I do plan to restrict my kids movements in age
appropriate ways and if they are out at 1 a.m. it better be for good reason
and with my prior approval.

However, even if it is without mu approval, the appropriate punishment is not
cuffing nor arresting them. That kind of thing should be reserved for
potential criminals that are flight risk or about to be violent. Teaching
teens that arrests are normal part of life and done for normal growing up
infractions teenagers occasionally commit in all parts of world is inherently
wrong.

~~~
EpicEng
"Should be dealt with by parents", I agree. Often, it is not, so the community
has to do something. I don't mind a curfew for kids, but I don't think it
should be a criminal offense either.

------
waqf
Clarification: over 40% of young _men_ in the US have been arrested. (It is
ambiguous whether "youths" refers to both sexes.)

(It is also possible to interpret the headline as saying that 40% of all
youths worldwide have been in the US at some point, during which they were
arrested, but I doubt many people were confused by that.)

~~~
sudont
From the article: "At age 18, arrest rates were 12 percent for white females
and 11.8 percent and 11.9 percent for Hispanic and black females,
respectively. By age 23, arrest rates were 20 percent for white females and 18
percent and 16 percent for Hispanic and black females, respectively."

~~~
x1798DE
The parent comment is clearly referring to the HN headline, not the article
itself. Since young men do not massively outnumber young women, it is not the
case that 40% of all US youths have been arrested.

------
kareemm
I'm Canadian, and went to university in Montreal with a bunch of Americans. It
always amazed me how pretty much every one of them had some sort of run-in
with the police (up to and including being arrested). Usually it was related
to underage drinking.

At that time I didn't personally know any Canadians who'd been arrested, and a
run-in with the police was unheard of (and this isn't because I ran with a
goodie two-shoes crowd).

I'm 37 now, and can't name a single Canadian I know personally who's been
arrested (that doesn't mean I don't know people who've never been arrested;
just that I don't know if they have).

So I had a feeling the percentage was high, but 40% of young men is... just
appalling.

------
voidlogic
I really want to see a heat map of this phenomena. I have a feeling there is
strong geographic and urban/rural differences here. I would also like to see
the percentage of the population that has been arrested by age.

This statistic is definitely not representative of where I live, that being
said I don't disbelieve it, I just want to understand the details.

P.S. I am also disgusted when children are charged as adults. Maybe (probably)
there needs to be a middle classification of age legally, but lacking that, it
is better to error by being to lenient for the youth. The other day I saw a 12
year old girl was being changed with murder, as an adult- ridiculous!

~~~
Tloewald
It's pretty hard to imagine you can get figures like this without it being
prevalent in urban areas.

~~~
MBCook
That's why you'd use per-capita rates and not absolute numbers.

~~~
Tloewald
Percentages are per capita.

------
dougmccune
If you'd like to download the raw data that this study is based on, I think
you can grab it here:
[https://www.nlsinfo.org/investigator/pages/search.jsp?s=NLSY...](https://www.nlsinfo.org/investigator/pages/search.jsp?s=NLSY97)

It's a fairly convoluted set of forms you have to work your way through, but
in the end you can download a CSV that includes the arrest counts (or a ton of
other variables) for all of the nearly 9k people in the study (although not
all of them continued to submit data to the survey through the years).

More about the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97):
[http://www.nlsinfo.org/content/cohorts/nlsy97](http://www.nlsinfo.org/content/cohorts/nlsy97)

------
smackfu
One key point with this study is that it only covers people who were born
between 1980 and 1984, and follows them through their lives. The summary
articles tend to ignore that, and imply the same stats apply to people born in
all years.

~~~
stonogo
Do you have reason to believe that people born during that window are
particularly jail-prone?

~~~
smackfu
Crime is definitely way down in the last 10 years. If you assume that most
people are getting arrested in their 20's, then that would imply the rates
would change for different birth years.

~~~
eric_h
> Crime is definitely way down in the last 10 years

violent crime is. I don't think arrests are, though...

------
jqm
If this is even close to correct (and I'm betting it is) we have a serious
problem in the country.

The solution seems obvious. Stop arresting for minor drug offenses and
victimless crimes like underage alcohol possession. Watch the number go back
down to reasonable levels.

~~~
stronglikedan
Even if we could just stop charging people with felonies for victimless
crimes, then that would be a good start.

------
john_other_john
If you are just arrested in the UK, without any charge or caution, you become
ineligible for the Visa Waiver program for entry into the United States.

Interesting statistic, therefore, from this side of the pond, having strong
links family, business and social in the US.

It has often been a double standard in many fields. The trademark laws are
highly favorable to US companies versus Madrid Treaty Protocol countries,
because the US did not ratify all that treaty. The UK does similar with EU/EC
things, also. The trademark side is interesting, as the first enforcement of a
trademark registered in a Treaty state against a US infringer, was Society des
Baines de Mer, who own the Monte Carlo Casino, against various internet
gambling sites, and I thought that may have had more allowance due to shifting
policy about online gaming, than treaty affordances.

My general view, totally non specific to any country, is there needs to be a
rebalancing of laws between genuine scrutiny and thoughtfulness of oversight,
versus draconian penalties.

~~~
josu
Are you a bot?

~~~
john_other_john
What's the fascination?

Edit: genuinely curious

~~~
josu
Your comment seems coherent until you start to read it and realize that it
doens't make any sense. If you didn't state that you weren't from the UK I
could think that English may not be your first language. What does that
paragraph about trademark laws have to do with this thread?

------
lotharbot
The abstract is at
[http://cad.sagepub.com/content/60/3/471.abstract](http://cad.sagepub.com/content/60/3/471.abstract)
(there's a paid link for the full study to the right.)

I'd like to see error bars, or at least a clear indication of the assumptions
that went into the model.

~~~
Scitr
[http://scitr.com/a1j](http://scitr.com/a1j)

------
TomGullen
Used to dream of living in the US, moving our business there.

Not just due to this, but the more I read and learn about the US, the more
that is exposed about the US, the less I now want to live there.

~~~
kghose
Don't come here. It's terrible, I tell you. Just terrible.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Can't tell if sarcasm or serious

~~~
kghose
Whatever you do, don't come here to find out.

------
EdwardDiego
I've little experience in apply statistical analysis to this data
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8018014](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8018014),
thank you to that user), so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but would
it be possible to remove poverty as a confounding factor?

I am guessing, based largely on American television I've consumed growing up,
that a higher proportion of black males grow up in poverty than white males?

------
coldtea
In a proper non police-state democracy, on the other hand, e.g some western
european country, less than 5% of males/females have been arrested by age 23.

------
ashwinaj
I think people need to take a good hard look at where the society in general
is heading. I've heard from older folks that they used to be "disciplined" by
parents and teachers alike in the 50's, 60's and 70's (and I'm sure the arrest
percentage wasn't 40% at the time). And now it's "I don't want a lawsuit so
let's just call the police". A book on Asian "Tiger mom" is lambasted by the
popular media and people in general. But Asian kids aren't being arrested in
such shocking numbers, are they? Isn't it obvious that there is some merit in
the "Tiger mom" philosophy? If kids are allowed to do whatever the hell they
want without any repercussions ("Mr./miss you're grounded" is not one of
those) then what do you expect they're going to do?

------
frandroid
So am I alone thinking that this is insane?

~~~
burkaman
I don't think there's a single person on this website who is ok with this.

------
bentaber
Any ideas how this compares to other nations?

~~~
kjjw
Slightly different, but surely related:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate)

Getting on for nearly 1 in 1,000 people in jail! wow!

~~~
jagger27
Worse, nearly 1 in 100.

~~~
kjjw
Oops. Clearly I needed more coffee.

------
vikas5678
I would love to see a breakdown of what they were most arrested for.

------
gershwinou
I agree, and you nailed it: State has slowly stolen authority to parentd.
Either you allow slap and spank nor you let other call the cops...

------
maxk42
Something is severely broken.

------
ajuc
Wow. That's order of magnitude more than where I live.

------
tn13
Wondering what is the histogram of these arrests look like.

------
heinrich5991
I get a 403, could someone post the contents?

------
ps4fanboy
Black isn't a race, neither is White, where do Hispanics fall on this spectrum
and Asians?

------
nick_whiu
*In the US

------
comrade1
There are far too many laws in the u.s. and you can never know when you're
breaking a law. And enforcement is often arbitrary and based on if the police
want to harass/check you, or if they want to pile charges on top of another
charge to get you to deal on a plea.

Some countries view laws as a failure of society. You don't pass a law until
your society has failed in that way, and instead you use social
norms/controls. For example, Switzerland has no minimum wage but has a moral
minimum wage of around $50K (except for a few worker types)

The u.s. seems to view laws as a way to mold society into a vision. But you
end up with way too many laws that you could never know.

~~~
donatj
> enforcement is often arbitrary and based on if the police want to
> harass/check you

This. Absolutely this. So many laws are __only __enforced if and when you 've
irritated a cop. There are so many laws in the US about so many stupid things
that they can ALWAYS bust you for something if they want to. Always.

There's probably a handful of things they could charge me with on my drive
home.

~~~
tesq
It doesn't take much to irritate a cop. Sometimes, the sight of or bare
minimum interaction with you is enough to trigger irritation in a cop for
reasons. So many laws are enforced solely because a cop thinks you don't look
the part and look suspicious for, erm, reasons.

Unfortunately, these reasons are pervasive throughout the justice system so
make sure you don't irritate a cop or it could cost you money, time and
freedom.

------
icantthinkofone
I find it interesting that I know no one in any of my immediate or extended
family who has ever been arrested and I'm 62 years old. The closest I ever had
that happening to me is when I was 20 and didn't know I was breaking a law* .

I'm no preacher's kid. I just live my life and try to enjoy myself. I don't
bother anyone even when others bother me. I just don't get it.

* I was working at a place that went on strike. Picketers took our picture when we walked into the building so they could show who was crossing their line. To be funny, one morning I took their picture. They called the police to say I was harassing them. One young, rookie cop came in ready to haul me off until his sergeant showed up and had a conference with my boss.

------
JSno
No Asian mentioned. Do we exist????????

~~~
smackfu
Only 160 of the 8904 survey respondents are Asian or Pacific Islander. That's
probably too small a sample to get valid data.

~~~
Crito
4.8% of Americans are Asian Americans, but only 1.7% of their respondents are
Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders?

I wonder what went wrong with their surveying method.

~~~
PeterisP
Their surveying method is perfectly fine. The study is based on a cohort of
kids who were born between 1980 and 1984 (in USA); and in 1980 Asian Americans
were only 1.6% of USA population
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_de...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States)).

It does disregard (relatively) recent immigrants in that regard, though; but
if it's to be used as analysis of gov't policy/parenting/schooling/etc
circumstances, then you'd want to look at people who grew up in USA policies
and environment.

------
happyscrappy
Also over 50% of violent crimes go unsolved and over 80% of property crimes.
Looks like there could be more arrests if they solved more crimes.

~~~
gress
Or maybe they might be able to solve more crimes if they arrested fewer people
and used the resources for investigation.

------
onion2k
Sounds bad, but assuming an arrest under 23 can happen any time between the
ages of, say, 7 and 22, that's actually 2.7% in any given year, or roughly 1
in every 40 male children.

It almost certainly points to police officers arresting children en masse in
order to discover the real perpetrator rather than any child criminality
epidemic.

~~~
chippy
It's not the rate that makes it bad , but the effects. In other words, it's
not that there is a crime epidemic or a major problem with youth, or that
every year only 1 in every 40 male children get arrested but that over all
their youth-time taken as a whole 40% will have been arrested. But even that
is not the key point from the abstract. The key point - what makes it bad are:

1) "Criminal records that show up in searches can impede employment, reduce
access to housing, thwart admission to and financing for higher education and
affect civic and volunteer activities such as voting or adoption. They also
can damage personal and family relationships."

2) "A problem is that many males – especially black males – are navigating the
transition from youth to adulthood with the baggage and difficulties from
contact with the criminal justice system,"

------
drzaiusapelord
The high school graduation rate in the US's big cities floats around 50-60%.
The way I see it about half the kids growing up don't become white collar
over-educated cubicle jockeys. I imagine these two groups strongly overlap.
You can get a trade job with a endless arrests or even a conviction.

~~~
nmrm
Wow. Most trade jobs require at least a high school diploma; many require some
additional training (not necessarily an associates degree, but often a
certificate of some sort, and enrollment in those courses requires a diploma).

------
pertinhower
I find this frankly implausible. What percentage of people you know have been
arrested? I'm guessing very small (even assuming that many hide it and so
you're knowledge is substantially skewed). So maybe that's because of your
high/squeaky-clean socio-economic class? No: imagine yourself in any class you
care to. Unless that class is much, much larger than your "real" class, then
it would have to have an astronomical arrest rate (80%?) to compensate.

I wanna see the data.

~~~
Fezzik
The study appears to be using "arrested" to mean "convicted of a crime for
which the person could have been arrested (taken in to police custody)"?
Example: I have never been arrested/taken in to police custody but, I was
convicted of providing alcohol to minors at a college party and, had I not
willingly taken the citation from the officer or, had I been belligerent and
uncooperative, I could have been arrested. Technically, you could argue while
the officer was issuing me the citation I was under some sort of arrest, but
that does not comport with either the legal notion of being under arrest or
what most people think of as being under arrest.*

Given the journal, that seems like an odd error to make. I could have that
wrong, but it would make sense given that article specifically mentions
truancy and underage drinking, two charges which seldom result in arrest.

Maybe that makes the statistic a little less shocking to those surprised by
the number? Again, I certainly could be wrong, but it really would be
surprising if the 40% refers to people actually having been read Miranda
rights, hand cuffed, placed in a police car, etcetera. Even for other common
crimes for that age group, like possession (generally marijuana), usually a
citation is issued and the drugs are seized but no arrest is made. This is all
said from the perspective of a judicial clerk in Portland, Oregon, who works a
lot with the dockets related to citations related to minor misdemeanor
offenses. Perhaps it is different in other states.

Anecdotally: almost everyone I know well has been convicted of a misdemeanor
of some sort for which they could have been arrested but only one person I
know has ever been taken in to police custody.

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest#United_States_2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest#United_States_2)

~~~
kghose
I would say you're is the most insightful comment in this thread. I am biased
towards thinking you are correct in that when one publishes a paper, there are
incentives towards a more dramatic interpretation/presentation of the data.
So, a study that said 10% of all males have been arrested, would not have
gotten as much notice as the current presentation.

