Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 44. Non-Institutional Aspects of the Negro Community - 2. Crime
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
968 An American Dilemma
ever, continue to misuse the statistics. In this situation it becomes more
important to criticize the statistics than it is to present them. To such a
criticism we shall now proceed.
Statistics on Negro crime have not only all the weaknesses of crime
statistics generally—such as incomplete and inaccurate reporting, variations
between states as to definitions and classification of crimes, changes in
policy—^but also special weaknesses due to the caste situation and to certain
characteristics of the Negro population. One of the basic weaknesses arises
out of the fact that those who come in contact with the law are generally
only a selected sample of those who commit crimes. Breaking the law is
more widespread in America than the crime statistics indicate and probably
everyone in the country has broken some law at some time. But only a
small proportion of the population is arrested, convicted and sent to
prison. Some major crimes (such as violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust
Act and avoidance of certain tax payments) are even respectable and are
committed in the ordinary course of conducting a business others (such
as fraud and racketeering) are not respectable but are committed frequently
and often go unpunished. It happens that Negroes are seldom in a position
to commit these white collar crimes j
they commit the crimes which much
more frequently result in apprehension and punishment. This is a chief
source of error when attempting to compare statistics on Negro and white
crimes.
In the South, inequality of justice seems to be the most important factor
in making the statistics on Negro crime and white crime not comparable.
As we saw in Part VI,“ in any crime which remotely affects a white man,
Negroes are more likely to be arrested than are whites, more likely to be
indicted after arrest, more likely to be convicted in court and punished.
Negroes will be arrested on the slightest suspicion, or on no suspicion at
all, merely to provide witnesses or to work during a labor shortage in
violation of anti-peonage laws. The popular belief that all Negroes are
inherently criminal operates to increase arrests, and the Negro’s lack of
political power prevents a white policeman from worrying about how
many Negro arrests he makes. Some white criminals have made use of
these prejudices to divert suspicion away from themselves onto Negroes:
for example, there are many documented cases of white robbers blackening
their faces when committing crimes.^® In the Southern court, a Negro will
seldom be treated seriously, and his testimony against a white man will be
ignored, if he is permitted to express it at all. When sentenced he is usually
given a heavier punishment and probation or suspended sentence is seldom
allowed him.^® In some Southern communities, there are no special insti-
tutions for Negro juvenile delinquents or for Negro criminals who are
* Quantitative evidence for this and the following paragraphs may be found not only in
Part VI of this book, but also in Johnson and Kiser, op, cit,^ pp. 65-192.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
