The Daily Wire has obtained a prepublication copy of a research study accepted for publication in the scholarly journal Aggression and Violent Behavior. The findings are interesting because they contradict the current received wisdom concerning the treatment of minorities in the criminal justice system. They found:
In recent years it has become common belief within the scholarly community as well as the general public that the criminal justice system is biased due to race and class issues. We sought to examine this with meta-analysis. Our results suggest that for most crimes, criminal adjudication in the US is not substantially biased on race or class lines.
As a meta-analysis, the study did not create a new dataset on criminal sentencing and race, but rather examined 51 studies conducted by others looking at the question since 2005. The numbers suggesting no or marginal racial bias in punishment were therefore collected by the existing studies, but those authors often claimed to have found racial bias in their writings, even when their numbers did not back it up. (emphasis added)
A prior meta-study looking for racial bias in juvenile criminal sentences, for example, also found no statistically significant evidence of racism. Yet the Northeastern University professor who was its lead author, writing in the Journal of Criminal Justice, did not make that finding the paper’s takeaway. Instead, he disputed his own evidence.
It appears scholars have been desperate to disprove the evidence of their own eyes, namely, that Hispanic and particularly Black individuals commit more crimes per capita which is why they are overrepresented in the criminal justice system.
Note: The researchers' clarification that when sample sizes are huge, virtually any difference is statistically significant, even when observed differences are of no practical significance, is absolutely correct statistically.
Reacting to this study, Power Line's John Hinderaker writes;
Beginning in 2022, Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension began releasing data on perpetrators, organized by crime and by race. That allowed American Experiment Policy Fellow David Zimmer to prove, conclusively, that there is no anti-black bias in Minnesota’s law enforcement.
Blacks commit serious crimes ten times as often as whites, per capita, and that disproportion explains all of the “disparities” in what follows. In fact, a white criminal in Minnesota is somewhat more likely to be prosecuted than a black criminal.
