Why do judges seem to hand harsher sentences to minorities? Edited for clarity.
SoreShoulder
Member Posts: 3,148 ✭✭✭
I am not talking about why some say they commit more crime.
I am talking about the claim that when whites and some minorities commit the same type of crime, the minorities allegedly get a harsher sentence for it.
I am saying some of them may have a more professional, resource rich, federally funded education than many whites with respect to crime.
I suspect that some private school systems may not have Federal or state standards instructing them on how much education on crime their kids needed, or money for social workers or school resource officers.
Judges take all that into account. They may regard a private school graduate who is working hard at a career as an innocent who made a mistake.
They may regard someone from the ghetto who has been a crime victim several times and has had all kinds of federally funded education thrown their way as something of a grizzled old veteran.
I just changed my original post to my edit because it was unclear.
Why would any freedom loving American let themselves get pressured to send their kids? There are a host of reasons.
Some make it work for them. If they know their strong family values will make their son or daughter study diligently because that's the only way they'll get a wife or husband, they wind up looking smarter than the other kids. Maybe some even know they wouldn't do well in a fair, professional rating system? Who knows.
Some parents may require forgiveness or they want to get into a better community than they deserve. Maybe they want the big city, or palm trees, or a place where the hunting is especially good...but they aren't the best person for the local industry, so the rest of the community say "we'll suggest the employers not reject your application, but you have to send your kids to school where we say. Oh, and spend all your money on local businesses to the extent that you can."
Comments
Simple numbers called MATH. 13% of the population do 80% of the crimes. The longer they stay locked up, the less time they have to commit CRIMES. Throw a bad apple in a barrel they ALL go BAD. Judges try to keep the BAD apples out the barrel. They put them in Prison.
The question should have been. ''Why do minorities do so many CRIMES?'' l cant answer for minorities, but l can answer for ME. l had a Mama and Daddy to teach me to behave. lf l didn't Daddy went to my A S S🤢 The most fearful words l ever heard were, ''Wait til your Daddy gets home''🤥 Now the Corless twins were ALWAYS getting in trouble when l was a kid. They didn't have a Daddy at HOME😪 Mrs. Corless wasn't at home during the day. She was at WORK.😲 I was raised in a very simple time. lf you don't work you don't EAT. The Corless twins finally met their end when they stole a car and wrecked it. Robert Horn caught those boys and locked them up in the Old Charleston County Jail. When they got before Judge Stall he gave them a choice. Go in the Military or go to jail. Ronnie chose the Army. Donnie chose Jail. Last l heard Donnie got in MORE trouble. Ended up on a Florida Chain Gang around 1960. NOT a good place to be.
My opinion is ..They have No DADDY. Now that seems to be a REAL problem. My next door neighbor says most minority kids in our area DON'T KNOW who their DADDY IS😨 He's been a public school teacher and High School Principal most of his life
My son spent 4 years as the security guard at the most violent minority junior high school in Anchorage. He's almost as big as me at 6'4" and 260. And he's got The Look down pat. Lord knows how many times he's been punched and kicked, and still he gets in their face and breaks up fights and stares them down and "suggests" they accompany him to his office to cool off.
Along the way he gets to know the kids. They come in hard and tough as hell, and full of resentment and frustration and anger. Their culture tells them to be a man and that means mistreating girls and authority and weaker kids. Mostly it's blacks and Samoans. He REFUSES to back down and his life has been threatened more than a few times.
He figured out that Grannie is the one to fear in the neighborhood, if Mama isn't around. There are no fathers. He found out his best threat is "Do you want me to call your Grannie on you?" He did once, and Grannie found out during church the next Sunday, and she beat that boy in the pew and up and down the aisle with her purse and with hymnals, with the other Grannies watching, nodding and going "Mmmmm-hmmm". The boy came to school with black eyes and a reshaped attitude.
My boy shows them that he cares, and a big part of that is, he WILL NOT GIVE UP ON THEM. He gets in their damn face and shows them an advocate that won't take their BS. He takes them to his office and talks to them. Lets them break stuff and cool off, then walks them to class, all the while telling them he knows they'll do better. And after a year of that, they start to believe it too. Then they start to do better. After 4 years of this, there are a lot of manly tears and hugs as the boys leave the school and go on into life. He tells them DO NOT let me see your picture dead in the paper. You hear me? And they assure him he won't. Most of the time they're right.
It's the most amazing thing. These Samoan boys are gigantic mountains of young men with perpetual stink face. They like to walk down the mall 4 abreast with that look and it's a fearsome thing. Many times I've been in there with my wife and we'll encounter them, they're eyeing me up and down, I'm eyeing them figuring out which one is the threat, then they see my little bitty wife and there's an immediate transformation. They grin and look at the floor and step aside, "Hello Auntie" as she goes by, and she smiles at them and says "Hi boys" and they turn bright red. It's just amazing. Then I like to ask them "do you know Frog?" and every time they'll stop and say "YEAH!! We know him!" and it turns into a half hour talking about this young man that works at their school. You can see the love in their eyes. They have a male figure in their lives that cares about them, and it's made a difference.
My boy figured it out on his own... love these kids and hold them accountable. They will deliver whatever your expectations are. Set a high bar in their life, push them, love them, and they'll do it. Chances are that will save their lives some day.
You probably don't want to hear this but trying to "turn them around" once they're teenagers is a losing battle.
No "male figure in their lives"? That can't be changed for those teens but looking forward, that can be "fixed" when all those "baby momma's" show up for their monthly allowance.
My observations are quite the opposite regarding crime.
Reward the the Perps??
I am not talking about why some say they commit more crime.
I am talking about the claim that when whites and some minorities commit the same type of crime, the minorities allegedly get a harsher sentence for it.
I am saying some of them may have a more professional, resource rich, federally funded education than many whites with respect to crime.
I suspect that some private school systems may not have Federal or state standards instructing them on how much education on crime their kids needed, or money for social workers or school resource officers.
Judges take all that into account. They may regard a private school graduate who is working hard at a career as an innocent who made a mistake.
They may regard someone from the ghetto who has been a crime victim several times and has had all kinds of federally funded education thrown their way as something of a grizzled old veteran.
BS. I had a high school boy Vincent join my Boy Scouts troop that was all kinds of messed up. He came from alcoholic parents and he was so broken and angry and pure evil he would never make eye contact. They just burned holes in the floor everywhere he went. His parents asked if he could join and I said yes. Nobody liked him and I spent 3 years trying to break through that wall of anger. In the first 2 years he never said one word to me or anyone else. He was downright scary. I kept involving him in activities, picking him up, driving him home, and recognizing ANYTHING he did that was even remotely positive or successful. After two years he looked me in the eyes one time and said "yes" when I asked if he was coming to summer camp.
So out at summer camp he didn't sign up for merit badges or activities, he just wanted to walk around and be there. At first he didn't want to eat with us when we prepared our meals at the campsite, but after a couple days he sat with us and we ate together. Some of the boys were taking the Cooking merit badge so we put them to work getting the supplies, building fires, cooking and presenting for the dinner meal. Vincent watched, closely. He never said a word. There was an interest there.
So next day I had him go with me and get the evening meal supplies and came back to campsite, and asked if he'd cook for his patrol (we had four). He looked shocked, looked me in the eye and said "Me?" and I said yes. So dinner came and I saw him over there working hard, wandered by a few times keeping an eye, and saw him following the instructions to the letter. We all sat and ate by patrol, and his food was done correctly. I leaned forward so I could look him in the eye beside me, and said "That was really good. Well done." That was the first time I ever saw him give just a bit of a smile.
So Friday came, end of the week, last dinner meal at the campsite. I told the patrols we were having a cooking contest, to see what they'd learned during the week. Me and my Assistant Scoutmasters would be judges. The boys all got their supplies and went to work, and Vincent's patrol pretty much disappeared and left him on his own. The boys all cooked and struggled and worked at it, then when they were ready we went to each campsite to sample and judge.
First one was cold chicken, barely warm, unsafe to eat. It was the youngest patrol and they were pretty inexperienced. Next was older boys, it was pretty good. The next one was the oldest patrol and they should have won it going away, but they'd been screwing around and forgot to make me my dessert. BIG fail for that. They knew better. The last patrol was Vincent's. We adults walked into his campsite and found there were huge Devils Club leaves on the table as placemats, he had plates and silverware laid out instead of paper plates, and he had swept around the picnic table with a fir bough before we arrived. We sat and he served us a hot chicken meal with enough seasoning, his vegetables were maybe a little burned, and he made my Death By Chocolate for dessert. And he had a pot of coffee for us. We ate, and it was pretty doggone good food. I was making comments as I ate, the other adults started to do it too, and I could see him standing by his fire watching us closely, intent on our eating.
At the end of the meal I motioned the other adults to stay seated and called the other patrols over for the Final Judging. We discussed food handling, safety, attention to temperatures, and mentioned the boys we saw who had worked together and others that were screwing around. Then a long pause, and I got to the judging part. I told them who was #4, #3 and #2 (big groans from the boys) then I said "Look at these place settings. Look at the swept campsite! Vincent served us a delicious hot chicken dinner, and he made coffee without being asked, and my Death By Chocolate." "Vincent did more than we asked, he thought about how to do it with excellence, and he succeeded." I looked over at Vince standing by his fire, staring hard at his boots, smiling from ear to ear. I told them "We have a new Chef in the troop, and a winner for the cooking competition!" and the other adults whooped and hollered and threw their hats in the air. Some of the boys went up to shake his hand, others asked if there was more Death By Chocolate, and I watched him standing there by his fire, and I swear he grew four inches.
That was what it took to break his shell. Turns out he LOVES cooking and never had much chance to, so we let him be Quartermaster and Master Chef as long as he wanted the role. Each time he cooked he opened up a little more and made more eye contact. He started to make a couple of friends and he started showing the Cooks in the other patrols how he did it. We'd all go shopping together before a campout and he'd have a menu made up, and we'd buy the ingredients and keep the receipt so the Treasurer could do his job, and on campouts I let him choose his assistants, and we ate like kings in the arctic wilderness.
Vincent never made it past First Class Scout, but he loved being there. He eventually reached 18 and aged out, but not before asking me to write a recommendation so he could apply to a Culinary academy. He was accepted and off he went to earn his way in life. What a change Scouting made in that boy's life. Scouting saved him. I'm sure of it.
It's not necessarily that the ghetto is always better educated with respect to crime. It may simply be that they would be had they paid attention and if there's no point in spending more money then you send them to jail.
A lot of this can be summed up with one word. C-U-L-T-U-R-E.