Failed Social Experiment?

[MrDig]

http://www.startribune.com/467/story/968247.html

Law enforcement and sociology experts cautioned that the rankings don't effectively address race and violence issues.

Although Minnesota has a small black population, a study released Monday by a nonprofit gun-control group ranks the state eighth in the nation in the rate of black homicide victims.

The 57 blacks killed in Minnesota in 2004 represent a rate of just more than 24 victims per 100,000 black residents, according to the Violence Policy Center in Washington. In comparison, top-ranking Pennsylvania had 398 black homicide victims for a rate of nearly 30 per 100,000 black residents.
Josh Sugarmann, the center's executive director, said the study is the first to rank states by black homicide rates.

The analysis also highlights the disproportionate number of black homicide victims in the United States, but several law enforcement and sociology experts cautioned that the rankings don't effectively address race and violence issues in Minnesota.

"The number of young black homicide victims is an American tragedy," said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum in Washington.

"But how do you compare California's 750 homicides in 2004 to Minnesota's total? If you drew the conclusion that the state is unsafe for blacks, that's incorrect."

Blacks continue to outpace whites and other races as homicide victims in Minnesota.

Fifty-seven of the 138 homicide victims in 2005 were black and 43 were white. Statewide data wasn't available for 2006, but 46 of the 86 homicide victims in Minneapolis and St. Paul were black. Those cities account for the majority of the state's homicides each year.

The police chiefs from both cities said they are concerned about the high numbers of black homicide victims and have reached out to community leaders to help curb the violence. Wexler, who also works as a consultant for the Minneapolis Police Department, said homicides typically aren't spread evenly throughout a city, but repeatedly happen in the same pockets of a city's hardest-hit neighborhoods.

"Most homicides happen between people who know each other, and the victim and offender are usually the same race," he said. "These issues are not unique to Minneapolis or any other city."

The study's findings didn't surprise Gary Cunningham, who oversees Hennepin County's African American Men Project. The issues of poverty and race are pervasive and overlapping, he said.

Community-based problem

"Clearly, historic housing patterns, school assignments and segregation by income and race play a significant role in the level of homicides and community violence that take place on a regular basis in north Minneapolis," Cunningham said. "It is also clear that we have to take a different approach. The current public policy is ... a police response to a community-based problem."

While it is important to put the predators behind bars, people also should be working on effective intervention and prevention strategies that address these problems on the front end, instead of paying on the back end, he said. The current policy for young black men is incarceration, "the new welfare program," he said.

Homicide victimization has three variables that interact -- age, race and gender, said Christopher Uggen, chairman of the University of Minnesota Sociology Department. It's been a "stubborn social fact" that the rates of black men becoming homicide victims have long been high, he said.

In 2004, the national black homicide rate was nearly 19 per 100,000 black residents, according to the study, which analyzed the FBI's 2004 Supplementary Homicide Report. For whites, it was nearly 3 per 100,000 white residents.

Uggen said the study's rankings have to be examined carefully because the small size of Minnesota's black population (4.3 percent in 2005, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates) could lead to fluctuations from year to year. In 2003, there were twice as many white homicide victims as black victims in Minnesota.

Uggen also noted that not all the homicide victims are state residents.

But Minnesota does have gaps between blacks and whites in the rate of high school dropouts and criminal punishment, he said.

"This suggests to me that there are some extremely disadvantaged communities of color, so a targeted and thoughtful response to the study is merited," Uggen said. "Sometimes we have the stereotype that our state is more progressive or has more equality. That doesn't always withstand scrutiny."There is not an easy answer," said Tim O'Malley, superintendent of Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. "It's disturbing when any life is lost, particularly when one segment of our society seems to be victimized more than others."

Now my thoughts........
A very Large percentage of Black Minnesotans live in the Minneapolis City Limits.
Minneapolis has a High Murder Rate of Black Minnesotans per capita.

For at least Ten Years Gunshops have been Zoned out of Business in the City of Minneapolis Proper. The former Mayor and the City Council ageed that stopping gun sales in the city of Minneapolis would significantly reduce gun
violence in Minneapolis.

Since that time Gun realted deaths in Minneapolis have in fact increased.

Do these Facts and the article quoted point to a Failed Social Experiment?

Is there any correlation between the High Level of gun deaths in Minneapolis and the fact that no resident of Minneapolis can legally purchase a firearm in the City of Minneapolis?
I don't have answers I just see a lot of information and It is Seemingly related, am I off base?

 

[svtruth]

Another thing

not mentioned is what percent of these homicides are criminal on criminal?
A NYC official publicly admitted that most of the gun violence in the city was between criminals and that if you weren't involved in criminal activity you were actually pretty safe.
Additionally, if it is mostly between criminals then the denominator should not be 100,000 blacks or whites, but criminals vs. the law abiding.

 

[Erebus]

The problem is the high rate of single parenthood in those communities. It generally leads to high poverty, and poor discipline hence poor social skills for the children of single parents. Yes there are exceptions but the rule is that these kids don't do well and end up in trouble. There is a reason that biology demands 2 parents for a child. Because one parent generally can't handle it alone. However single parenthood is celebrated and not recognized for the disaster it is creating. I guess it's easier to blame the guns instead of ourselves.

It's been well known for a long time that the majority of the black murders are black on black while engaged in other criminal activity. Again this goes back to how they were raised. Black homes have a high percentage of single parenthood. And on a side note their most popular "role models" are guys like 50 Cent and Latrell Sprewell. For some reason people like Bill Cosby, Will Smith, or Chris Gardner are almost looked down on.

If you need another example of how single parenthood causes major social problems look to Russia. They lost so many fathers in WWII that it is still causing major social problems there. Russian women are looking to other countries for husbands because the men there are generally not desirable companions. You think that the type of women looking for foreign husbands are gold digging down and outers. It's not true, many are well educated, successful, professional women that are disillusioned with Russian men.

Until we recognize this problem and address it directly and aggressively we will continue to slide down this road. But it's easier to keep blaming inanimate objects like guns and drugs for all our ills.

 

[ArmedBear]

Minnesota IS a failed social experiment.

It should be walled off, and both employees of NPR who aren't already from Minnesota should be tossed in there, too.

Radio signals should not be allowed out, either.

 

[MrDig]

I do take some umbrage to that.... If you get out to the Rural areas it's as if you were in a completely different state from Minneapolis / St. Paul. Actually some good folks that think the Liberal Loonies in Da Cities are kinda goofy ya know.

 

[USAFNoDAk]

Hey Armed Bear, Minnesota may be a failed social experiment, but then what does that make California?

 

[RNB65]

All cities are the same: Poverty + lack of economic opportunity + lots of miserable people crammed into a small area = a perfect crime storm.

Rural areas also have lots of poverty and lack of economic opportunity. What is typically missing are large numbers of people living on top of each other like sardines in a can. Thus, the critical mass doesn't occur and crime rates stay low.

What's the solution to the urban crime problem? There isn't one other than to leave the city. Crime will always thrive in poor innercity neighborhoods.

 

[Art Eatman]

The same sort of article could be written about almost any mega-city.

The writers always dance around the realities, as do the Official People, whether elected or appointed.

Blacks as victims? As almost skipped over in the article, it's also blacks as the killers. That's the sad part: The facts are well known, but never openly talked about.

Before anybody jumps on this as racist, let it be known that per census data, some two-thirds of all blacks are in the economic middle class, and thus pretty much crime-free as to doer or do-ee. About like whites, asians and citizen-latins, SFAIK.

Another fact is that even in the black "ghettos", the criminals are a minority. They are able to have a certain amount of power via gangs and violence because we as a society won't pay the taxes to hire enough police to patrol densely enough to shut down the street-corner "drugstores".

Because of inner-city crime and high ad valorem taxes, those businesses which would hire large numbers of people and thus provide local-area jobs won't locate there. It's economic good sense.

Until civic power structures change their ways of thinking about problem solving, there's no hope. The present system has been in place, now, for going on a half a century. Like the WOD, it's just another lost war...

Art

 

[WayneConrad]

Another fact is that even in the black "ghettos", the criminals are a minority. They are able to have a certain amount of power via gangs and violence because we as a society won't pay the taxes to hire enough police to patrol densely enough to shut down the street-corner "drugstores".

Or, because the war-on-some-drugs creates a seller's market that provides ready cash to punks. Sure, we could patrol the streets in armored cars. Or we could remove the fuel from the fire.

 

[mbt2001]

The Mock News Tribune:

Texas is 1st in the nation in the deaths of albino, nazi, gay midgits with died purple hair....

We think that this is a travesty of justice and prejudice as the State has not passed the Gun Control Act of 2007 banning the murder of albino, nazi, gay midgits with died purple hair, and of course all weapons as well.

 

[utahminirevolver]

Failed Social Experiment

This thread's title immediately suggested 'multiculturalism', which is a form of 'political correctness' in which foreigners, be they legal immigrants or illegal immigrants, are encouraged to to come here in large numbers just as our culture has decided not to have any more babies, and we are told we must adapt to their ways.

France has big problems as a result of this multicultural folly. So it is a bit hopeful to see son-of-France, Quebec, produce a town which has displayed conspicuous sanity. Herouxville, Quebec has written a code of standards for newcomers, spelling out such expectations as there will be no stoning of women, no pouring acid on women, female police officers get to arrest you just the same as male officers, face-coverings and masks are only acceptable in public on Halloween, and both boys and girls swim together in the public swimming pool.

Diversity has its charms up to a point, but what we could do with some more of today is cultural unity, especially in the face of a global war not of our choosing by a bunch determined to destroy us.

 

[rhubarb]

Cunningham said. "It is also clear that we have to take a different approach. The current public policy is ... a police response to a community-based problem."

Amen.