Mass Incarceration of African Americans based on race

Thank you for the response! Sorry if the first argument rushed out the gates too quickly without much of a proper or welcoming intro. First time on Debate.Org. Here is my 2nd argument: If you Google "Mass Incarceration", the definition is as follows: "Mass incarceration is a term used by historians and sociologists to describe the substantial increase in the number of incarcerated people in the United States' prisons over the past forty years" One key word here is 'substantial'. Substantial meaning "of considerable importance, size or worth". This is a subjective argument. What is considered to be substantial to me, you or anyone else? Who gets to decide what the correct substantial amount is? And why is it, that the selected amount is correct? The point is, in order to come to a consensus about it being substantial or not, me providing those statistics would give us an idea of what this increase has been, over the last 40 years. The statistics were not there to be the end all be all argument. My logic didn't stop where you thought it did. I do agree with you that I did not provide enough statistics to compare the country as a whole, to other countries. And there's a reason I didn't. So let's look at that: World Prison Population: 9 million US - 25% China - 17% Russia - 10% Brazil - 5% Mexico - 5% ETC. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk... Yes, the United States has the highest prison population compared to any other country as well as the rate. Although Russia isn't so far behind the US. But there is more to it than just population. Why is it that other countries do not have a higher prison population or incarceration rate? There are many many factors to consider, including population size, economics of a given country, cultures, diversity, politics, policing, murder rate, drug rate etc. For example, South Africa has a very low incarceration rate compared to the US with 0.3% of the population in prison compared to the US's 0.7% . But on the other hand, South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world with average 40 per 100,000 and comparatively the US has 5 per 100,000. So how does that make sense? Higher murder rate but lower incarceration rate? But you could say the same thing about the US right? Lower murder rate but higher incarceration rate? And that's the point, they are 2 different countries behaving in totally different manners. And this can be said about many other countries compared to the US. Every country behaves differently. Different laws and different cultures all affecting its incarceration rate. That's why my binoculars stay within the US and don't widen so much to the point that I forget what I'm looking at. No, I would think something is going on, if in Germany, Jews were being incarcerated in WILDLY disproportionate numbers. A 1.5% difference between whites and blacks in the US, to me, says something is going on sure, but it doesn't necessarily say its based on race. And that leads to the next point: You asked if "black people commit that many more crimes?". Yes, they do. Blacks make up 52% of the murders in the US. And if you want to talk about disproportion, again, blacks make up 13% of the population, yet are responsible for 52% of the murders. And a lot of this has to do with black on black crime. Of those 52% murders, 93% of them were black on black. Also keep in mind in my first argument, that most blacks are in prison for violent crimes at 58% and 15% are in for non violent drug offenses. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org... It is true, black communities receive higher policing. The reason is because of such high murder rates within the black communities. It is to try and prevent these types of murders from happening. This is why you see high policing in certain areas of mostly white communities in rural areas. I can agree with you on certain policies and actions made in the 80's and 90's. But I'm talking about today. With regards to today, there will be instances of wrong doing by police officers. Humans are not perfect. There will always be error. But to say all are racist based on slight errors by a minority of them, would be a lazy way of analyzing the situation. Also, there's a huge misconception that the drug offenses committed by blacks are for abuse. When a majority are in for distribution. Another reason as to why blacks may receive harsher sentences, is that you are more likely to receive a harsher sentence, if you have a larger criminal history attached with that crime. So when the narrative is that a man who is black received a harsher sentence for the same crime as a white man, should actually be told as, a man who is black received a harsher sentence for the same crime as a white man, as well as having the same or similar criminal history. Whether you agree or disagree with the method of sentencing harsher for criminal history comparisons, it still isn't racism. Just bad practice. Your last sentence here, is a great point to be made: "But there's no war on meth that puts "predators" behind bars, like with the war on drugs in the 80s and 90s." When you say "...like with the war on drugs in the 80's and 90's". Again, we're not talking about the 80's or 90's. We are not IN the 80's or 90's. The war on drugs is over for the most part. Look at the statistics. 0.03% of blacks are in for drug offenses. Not even 0.1%. The idea that blacks are being rounded up based on race , and the system is using drug offenses as their excuse, is absurd when looking at this statistic. The idea that 450,000 of these violent crimes are without a doubt unjustified is absurd. That's why in my earlier argument I bring up the notion of going through on a case by case basis. 1 is too many, but how many are enough to say the system is racist and throwing blacks in jail based on race? We can agree on the ways police do their job, or the methods being used. All I am here arguing is that Blacks are not being put in jail based on race, for the most part. When it comes down to it, the simple answer is that Blacks commit more crimes than any other race in the United States. That is the reason they are incarcerated higher than any other race. Whether blacks are getting harsher sentences than whites or they aren't, they would still end up with higher incarceration, because at the end of the day, they are being arrested for a crime.