Glenn Beaton assesses the US Supreme Court’s recent redistricting ruling.
Imagine a system where arrests, convictions and sentencing for the crime of murder had to be in proportion to the racial composition of the population.
Since Asians are about 7% of the population, the murder arrests, convictions and sentences for Asians in such a scheme would have to be 7% of the total. Likewise, since Blacks, Latinos and whites make up about 13%, 19% and 62% of the population, respectively, they’d have to account for 13%, 19% and 62% of the murder arrests, convictions and sentencing.
At first glance, that sounds reasonable. But of course, it is not.
The reason is because those four races commit murder at dramatically different rates. FBI data show that whites (if you include Latinos/Hispanics as whites) comprise 82% of the population but commit only 46% of murders. Asians comprise 7% but commit only 1% of murders. (Latinos/Hispanics apart from whites comprise 19% and commit 20% of murders.)
So, who is committing all the murders that whites, Asians and Latinos are not?
Blacks are. Blacks comprise 13% of the population, but commit 51% of murders in the country. …
… A scheme where people must be arrested, convicted and sentenced for murder in proportion to their racial representation in the population, even though murders are not committed in that same proportion, is undeniably unjust and probably criminal.
We would have to arrest many more whites and a lot of Asians for murders they didn’t commit. And we would have to leave un-arrested a lot of Blacks for murders they did commit, all to achieve our fantasy of racially proportionate representation in the law of murder.
This superficially appealing but fundamentally unfair concept of racially proportionate representation in the law brings us to another area of law – the way we elect Congress. …
… Allocating representation in Congress by skin color is almost as bad as allocating arrests, convictions and sentencing in murder cases by skin color.
