From: fierro@uts.amdahl.com (Doug Fierro)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Blacks Are Not Cost Effective
Date: 8 Apr 92 23:59:43 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Apr7.232404.17407@petunia.csc.calpoly.edu> dgross@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Dave Gross) writes:
>
>  Excerpted from _Napa Writer Blames Blackness for Crime_
>  by Ron Sonenshine
>  San Francisco Chronicle (April 6, 1992)
>  --
>  A Napa author has filed another salvo in the burgeoning race war,
>  arguing in a new book that the nation's annual $300 billion crime tab
>  is essentially a black problem for which blacks alone should pay.
>
>  The thesis of [June Stephenson's "Blacks Are Not Cost Effective"], which
>  was published in October, is that blacks are bankrupting the country by
>  the cost of their incarceration. Nationwide, she said, blacks are much more 
>  likely than whites to be perpetrators of all violent crimes, and a young
>  black is more likely to be sentenced to prison than to graduate from
>  college.  

   A young black is more likely to be anything than graduate from college;
the number of blacks obtaining degrees had declined in the lattr-half of
the 1980s, and financial aid for students has been slashed as well...


>  According to the Criminal Justice Institute of New York, approx-
>  imately 800,000 prisoners occupy the nation's prisons.  The U.S. Department
>  of Justice estimates that it costs from $12,000 to $24,000 per year to
>  house an inmate.

  Sure would make more sense then for the government to provide these
families with money to educate their children so that they can be productive
when they become adults and we don't have to pay $24K a year to house
them in a jail.  It seems paying college tuition for a disadvantaged kid
for 4-6 years would be a lot cheaper than keeping them in jail for 20 years.

 This racist view seems to come up every year on the net in different
groups- that blacks are more violent because of their skin color.  No
intelligent effort is made to break down criminals into socio-economic
classes, and only violent crimes are anylyzed; two un-accounted variables
which make the results inconclusive.

>  Stephenson believes that problems having to do with being born black are
>  to blame for rising inmate populations--not poor housing, bad schools or
>  single-parent families, as others have suggested.

  Yeah right; put a kid in a slum with no parental guidance, in a school
where the main goal of the teachers is to move them through, and a
neighboorhood overrun with drugs and crime, and see if they don't end up
in jail.   This chick is full of shit.  A lot of human behavior is learned,
not inherited.

>
>  "I'm not saying all blacks are criminals.  But blacks are, after all, more,
>  likely to commit criminal acts."

   ...and whites are more likely to commit white-collar crimes; a crime is
a crime; you are breaking the law.

>
>  She proposed that blacks--not whites--should bear the cost of imprisonment,
>  perhaps through a special tax.

  And what is the cost of the S&L debacle?  That was a crime.  It will cost
ALL of us about $2,000 and counting.   It's just the same thing as someone
breaking into your house and stealing your possessions, but because it is
not a 'violent' crime, people seem to think it is not as bad.

>  According to Stephenson, whites are a larger proportion of criminals than
>  their numbers in the population would indicate in only two of 25 crime
>  categories listed by the U.S. Department of Justice--fraud and tax evasion.
>
>  "Blacks are just geared for action," she said.  "It's that jungle thing."

  Well, this last quote should point out the true racist this person is.
Her ignorance even stereotypes blacks; that they are all from the jungle.
It might surprise her that some of the blacks in this country speak
French of Spanish as their first language.


  Doug
-- 
                                                     Doug Fierro
                                      |\             UTS System Software
  O                         __________|_\______      CASE tools development
  \_.______________________| * * * * * * * * */      fierro@uts.amdahl.com
 __\____                   |=================/       (408)746-7102
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xref: sparky soc.culture.african.american:4478 soc.culture.asian.american:3360