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Originally Posted by afc wimbledon
Of course if your police tend to arrest black guys for crimes that they give white guys a pass on, as research has consistently shown, its quite likely they will be over represented in the stats.
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It seems to be a bit of a viscous circle. Police go to the areas most crimes seem to be committed. If they are in areas where they think more crimes are being committed, they might be much less lenient when they catch someone and are more likely to look for particular crimes. As a result, the stats show these are the areas where more crimes are committed, which in turn causes more police to be there, and so on.
The war on drugs is a particularly egregious example of this affecting black neighborhoods. IIRC, Blacks are much more likely to be arrested on a drug offense despite it being far less likely that they use or have these drugs on them vs the white majority.