The FBI reported that the total number of
homicides in 2015 was 15,696. Blacks were about 52 percent of homicide victims.
That means about 8,100 black lives were ended violently, and over 90 percent of
the time, the perpetrator was another black. Listening to the news media and
the Black Lives Matter movement, one would think that black deaths at the hands
of police are the major problem. It turns out that in 2015, police across the
nation shot and killed 986 people. Of that number, 495 were white (50 percent),
258 were black (26 percent) and 172 Hispanic (17 percent). A study of 2,699
fatal police killings between 2013 and 2015, conducted by John R. Lott Jr. and
Carlisle E. Moody of the Crime Prevention Research Center, demonstrates that
the odds of a black suspect’s being killed by a black police officer were
consistently greater than a black suspect’s getting killed by a white officer.
Politicians, race hustlers and the news media keep such studies under wraps
because these studies don’t help their narrative about racist cops.
The homicide victim is not the only victim,
whether he is a criminal or not, for there are mourning loved ones. No one ever
fully recovers from having a son, daughter, husband, mother or father murdered.
Murder is not the only crime that takes a heavy toll on the black community.
Blacks are disproportionately represented as victims in every category of
violent crime — e.g., forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
Today’s level of lawlessness and insecurity
in many black communities is a relatively new phenomenon. In the 1930s, ’40s
and ’50s, people didn’t bar their windows. Doors were often left unlocked.
People didn’t go to bed with the sounds of gunshots. What changed everything
was the liberal vision that blamed crime on poverty and racial discrimination.
Academic liberals and hustling politicians told us that to deal with crime, we
had to deal with those “root causes.” Plus, courts began granting criminals new
rights that caused murder and other violent crime rates to skyrocket. The
liberals’ argument ignores the fact that there was far greater civility in
black neighborhoods at a time when there was far greater poverty and
discrimination.
The presence of criminals, having driven
many businesses out, forces residents to bear the costs of shopping outside
their neighborhoods. Fearing robberies, taxi drivers — including black drivers
— often refuse to do home pickups in black neighborhoods and frequently pass up
black customers hailing them. Plus, there’s the insult associated with not
being able to receive pizza or other deliveries on the same terms as people in
other neighborhoods.
In low-crime neighborhoods, FedEx, UPS and other delivery
companies routinely leave packages that contain valuable merchandise on a
doorstep if no one is at home. That saves the expense of redelivery or
recipients from having to go pick up the packages. In low-crime communities,
supermarket managers may leave plants, fertilizer and other home and garden
items outdoors, often unattended and overnight. They display merchandise at
entryways and exits. Where there is less honesty, supermarkets cannot use all
the space that they lease, and hence they are less profitable. In high-crime
neighborhoods, delivery companies leaving packages at the door and supermarkets
leaving goods outside unattended would be equivalent to economic suicide.
Politicians who call for law and order are
often viewed negatively, but poor people are the most dependent on law and
order. In the face of high crime or social disorder, wealthier people can
afford to purchase alarm systems, buy guard dogs, hire guards and, if things
get too bad, move to a gated community. These options are not available to poor
people. The only protection they have is an orderly society.
Ultimately, the solution to high
crime rests with black people. Given the current political environment, it
doesn’t pay a black or white politician to take those steps necessary to crack
down on lawlessness in black communities.
Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished
professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated
columnist. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other
Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate
web page.
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