Reporter Jill Leovy: LAPD Should Arrest More Black Male Murderers

[roo_ster]

http://www.unz.com/isteve/reporter-jill-leovy-lapd-should-arrest-more-black-male-murderers/ (Extracts form and comments on the following interview)
http://www.npr.org/2015/01/26/381589023/ghettoside-explores-why-murders-are-invisible-in-los-angeles (includes audio)

A half-decade ago I wrote a long analysis in VDARE of the data in the Los Angeles Times‘ Homicide Report detailing each killing in Los Angeles County over a three year period. Now the reporter, Jill Leovy, behind that invaluable resource has written a true crime book. Here she is interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air

In her new book, journalist Jill Leovy studies the epidemic of unsolved murders in African-American neighborhoods and the relationships between police and victims’ relatives, witnesses and suspects.

Leovy is the journalist who set up the LAT Homicide Report.  To paraphrase her motive behind that, she wanted to see that EVERY murder got some space in the newspaper, no matter how commonplace.  And blacks murdering blacks is the commonplace-est of murders in LA.

There are a lot of very bright baseball statistics fans out there, but I’m struck by how few turn their analytical impulses to something besides sports statistics or finance. Granted, sabermetrics is a protected playpen for white males with strong pattern recognition skills to exercise their talents without winding up being demonized on Law & Order. But, still, moneyballers, there’s a world of data out there …

Ha-ha.  I suspect he is pulling our leg.  Many folk do not want to face the reality of crime and dysfunction statistics, most especially when the numbers are of secularly sainted groups.  And will do everything in their power to keep from facing the stark reality.

From Leovy’s Homicide Report for 2007 through 2009 for LA County, I calculated the following rates of homicide victimization (not offending) for 15-29 year-old males:

    Using the Census Bureau’s estimates of the numbers of 15-29-year-old males in L.A. County in 2006-2008, we can calculate—relative to non-Hispanic whites—the homicide victimization rates among young men:

    Whites: 1.0 times the white rate (by Census definition)
    Asians: 1.1x the white rate
    Latinos: 6.8x
    Pacific Islanders: 12.0x
    African-American: 20.7x
    Total L.A. County: 6.0x

The offending rates for minorities are probably marginally worse, but no doubt they are similar. So, the black rate in L.A. County in the late last decade wasn’t just five or seven times worse than the white rate, apples for apples in terms of age and sex, it was about twenty times worse.

Leovy addresses the effects of a such large number of unsolved homicides in a concentrated area on the culture and the culture that permits it.  The culture is (partly) one of cognitive dissonance.  "Why are the police harassing us so much?  They must hate us to do so." alloyed with, "The police doesn't do enough to catch murderers and that shows they hate us."  Toss in heavy intimidation by the murderers of witnesses and you get some really messed up culture.

Leovy also addresses how the police respond to the whole tar baby.  Police will take what is known throughout the neighborhood with regard to who are the murderers and focus police attention on them in other ways (since witnesses to the murders are not forthcoming).  "Oh, is there to be a multi-agency push on drug trafficking?  I can think of the perfect target(s)..."  Thus, many of those nailed for drug trafficking were already known throughout the neighborhood for murdering rivals & intimidating witnesses.  So, all those "nonviolent drug offenders filling our prisons to the point where we have to release violent felons..."  Many are known to be very violent by those who know them best.

Reading the transcript is a bit of a shot to the gut for those with a conscience, basic respect for human life, and an affinity for social order.  It does stir one's sympathies, but it also shows the basic incompatibility of black culture with decent middle class culture.  Sympathy is one thing, but tolerance of such dysfunction in one's own neighborhood is another thing altogether.

Do read the article(s) and listen to the interview if you have the time.

[RevDisk]

The small scale version of "nailing Al Capone on tax evasion" does apparently get known-but-unprosecuteable criminals off the street. For a while. But they get lumped in with a lot of small time fish and I'm willing to bet the parole board doesn't know what the police do. Or hell, maybe they do from the conviction history.

Ghettos of any variety have had the issue of high crime with little witness cooperation. It probably doesn't help that the environment is partially self-selective. Folks that can move, do. Anyone left either can't move or doesn't want to. That means they have to go along with the flow. You're not going to get the best politicians, best police officers or high amounts of resources. Folks might toss some financial or resource bandaids on bullet holes when things make the news. Otherwise, LAPD isn't going to assign its best, most polite and diligent officers to the ghetto. They're going to point their best resources around the folks that generate the money and jobs for LA, or areas with the most political pull.

[agricola]

Ghettos of any variety have had the issue of high crime with little witness cooperation. It probably doesn't help that the environment is partially self-selective. Folks that can move, do. Anyone left either can't move or doesn't want to. That means they have to go along with the flow. You're not going to get the best politicians, best police officers or high amounts of resources. Folks might toss some financial or resource bandaids on bullet holes when things make the news. Otherwise, LAPD isn't going to assign its best, most polite and diligent officers to the ghetto. They're going to point their best resources around the folks that generate the money and jobs for LA, or areas with the most political pull.

Not sure how true that is - over here (though admittedly we dont have things as bad as some parts of LA are) it is usually the rule of thumb that officers working on the busiest boroughs like Lambeth, Hackney, Croydon or Brent tend to find it easier to get promoted and/or transferred, because they get more and better evidence to demonstrate their competence and suitability for promotion or transfer (over here, promotion and applications for transfer to non-standard jobs have to be evidenced by a series of verifiable examples as well as exams in some cases) because their areas are busier and they deal with more incidents that are usually more serious than in a quieter area.  Indeed it seems to be the case that above a certain level one will have been expected to have served at least some time in a busy borough.