Race, Crime, and Policing

Bob McManus writes for the New York Post about recent comments on policing by President Obama and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. Rudy isn't terribly diplomatic, but he is correct: aggressive policing does save black lives. Rudy proved that in NYC. As McManus notes,

The most recent FBI numbers cover 2011, when 91 percent of black murder victims nationally were killed by other African-Americans — with fewer than 7 percent falling victim to whites.

Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation’s population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, blacks are murdered at a rate six times that of whites; in some cities, it’s 22 times the white rate.

Whatever police can do to reduce the overall number of murders in a city disproportionally helps that city's black citizens. If reducing murders is a major goal of policing, expect police to spend more time in black neighborhoods than white ones. Unfortunately, this can be experienced as harassment, even while it saves lives - an ironic dilemma.