Because (at least in part) they commit crime at far higher rates per capita. Black men commit about half of all murders in the USA, despite being about 13% of the population. The statistics are similar for many other crimes. 39% of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black from 2011-2013 per FBI statistics [1] [3].
In 2010, 62,593 blacks were victims of white violence, while 320,082 whites were victims of black violence. (Bureau of Justice Statistics). 2013 FBI homicide numbers show a similar ratio, with blacks being about 12 times more likely to kill a white person than whites were to kill a black person [2] (~10 blacks per 100k population kill a white, while ~1 white per 100k kill a black).
Some studies have shown that crime is correlated primarily with poverty, while other studies have found that being black correlates to criminality while controlling for other factors [4]:
"As a means to assess these possibilities, I estimate separate regression
equations for the black and white block groups in Atlanta. [...] Consistent with previous research, percent black retains a strong, significant effect on violent crime net of the effects of other controls. [...]" "[...] Although this finding appears to provide partial
support for the racial invariance assumption, the fact remains that for a large proportion of the black neighborhoods, the effect of disadvantage on violence is weaker than is the effect evident among all of the white neighborhoods in the analysis" (However this paper is largely inconclusive on the issue overall, and predominately suggests that previous research into the topic is inadequate to understand it)
Why this is the case is an interesting problem that I hope we can tackle, better understand, and attempt to solve as a society (by solve I mean bring violent crime down to zero generally, across all groups)
It's important to note the distinction between "blacks commit 50% of the murders in the US" and "50% of the murder convictions in the US are black people." It's well-documented that 40 years ago a white person could openly kill a black person and they would not be convicted. I've read a lot of studies, reviews of court cases, and court judgements about the subject, and it is clear that prosecutors are far less likely to charge a white person with a crime than a black person.
Prosecution figures are simply unreliable as a metric for judging how many crimes are committed by whites vs. blacks. There are many interesting cases that show this. The most interesting one is McCleskey v. Kemp. It's not my favorite in terms of the specifics of the case, but it is my favorite because in the intervening years it has become pretty clearly a bad ruling, to the point that the justice who wrote the majority opinion wishes he could reverse his own vote. The unfortunate thing being that he cannot, and his vote has made it effectively impossible to detect and address racial bias in prosecution.
Other data support these ratios. For example, in surveys of crime victims such as the National Crime Victimization Survey, the race reported by victims of their attacker reflects the proportion of conviction rates:
"The UCR and NVCS show similar trends regarding the races of offenders. Generally, the number of minorities identified as offenders is disproportionately high compared to their overall numbers in the population. As Ronald J Berger et al. advise the NCVS, 'Data are consistent with the UCR. The offenders in these types of crimes are disproportionately young, nonwhite, and male.'" (NVCS page 312, can be found by Google search-inside-the-book)
I would be interested to research the topic further. Could you provide more information about the studies you mentioned? I have not previously seen convincing evidence that bias in the justice system is responsible for the racial disparity in these crime statistics. From what I understand, a lot of the murders are black-on-black violence, as well. In 2013, 90% of blacks were murdered by blacks. A majority of people are killed by one of their own race in general (though black-on-white violence is much higher than white-on-black). People are typically murdered by someone who knew them intimately.
[Updated per correction]
Blacks killed by blacks: 90% [1]
Blacks killed by whites: 8%
Whites killed by whites: 82%
Whites killed by blacks: 15%
In what way are these murder statistics going wrong? White people are committing murder and getting away with it? Whites are committing murder, but it's falsely attributed to blacks? There are single examples of all sorts of crazy things happening in individual cases, but I haven't seen evidence or argument supporting that this happens systematically to a degree anywhere near enough to explain the discrepancy. Murder is a very serious thing, and it's hard for me to believe that prosecution bias is responsible for statistics saying that blacks commit ~4-5x as much crime as whites, and 10x as much murder as whites.
I find it plausible that there are effects along the lines of what you're saying, but I find it hard to believe that it would result in a murder per capita discrepancy of 10:1. It seems more plausible that that kind of bias would result in a discrepancy of much smaller proportions, especially for murder. I would be glad to review whatever evidence is available.
Those statistics are just false. More reliable numbers are:
Blacks killed by blacks: 90%
Blacks killed by whites: 8%
Whites killed by whites: 82%
Whites killed by blacks: 15%
Ratio of whites killed by police to blacks killed by police: 1.857
You're right, that table was inaccurate. I've corrected it to use your numbers. That's more consistent with the other data I was reviewing, which suggested that most homicide was intra-racial rather than inter-racial.
"For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." (Thomas Jefferson)
Read "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander. I'd suggest starting with chapter 2 since the introduction as well as the first chapter are more of a manifesto, the data which thoroughly demonstrate the point are in chapters 2-5.
One particularly damning statistic: black people pulled over and searched for drugs are significantly less likely to have drugs than white people.
The UCR aren't independent data that confirm conviction-based statistics, they are based on law-enforcement reporting, and share the same biases as prosecutions do.
Policing perpetuates poverty and thus crime by forcing poor, black men to deal with the criminal justice system from an early age. Court fees, court appearances, civil asset forfeiture, jail time, and property damage from police searches are all burdens that poor, black, law-abiding people bear, not to mention wrongful conviction.
Edit: missed this line in your comment before:
> Why this is the case is an interesting problem that I hope we can tackle, better understand, and attempt to solve as a society
This is what Black Lives Matter is about. They understand the problem (often by living through it) and are focused on tackling it. Because they don't focus too much on helping other people to understand the problem, this might not be clear to you.
Edit: I was about to respond to your reply, but it looks like you deleted it.
> too many topics seem taboo to reason about objectively
I think the disagreement is about where this reasoning can/should happen. From the perspective of the BLM movement, it is not their job to educate people about race. I think this reasoning has already happened at an academic level and has concluded that (to summarize very broadly) white people have a whole lot of privilege.
[2] Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
[3] Alice Goffman, On the Run (this is an ethnography, so you may need to have an understanding of ethnographic methods to accept the evidence here as "data")
Poor whites and poor blacks are both subject to mass incarceration; though poor blacks are incarcerated at even higher rates. This is clearly among the factors that, on average, favors poor whites over poor blacks. I certainly did not deny the existence of such factors (I even enumerated some of them.)
An aggregate advantage maybe, however the individual who decides to not put themselves in the position to be incarcerated is confused why you are calling them privileged.
Avoiding committing crime and avoiding being incarcerated for crime are not the same thing.
(The first may help in the second, but just as committing a crime is neither necessary nor sufficient to assure incarceration for it, avoiding committing a crime is neither necessary nor sufficient to avoid incarceration for it. It is frequently argued that it is both more necessary and less sufficient for blacks to avoid crime in order to avoid incarceration as compared to whites, for instance.)
Its hard to be incarcerated for murder without someone actualy being murdered. Therefore the most effective way to avoid incarceration for murder is to stop murdering. People are not being wrongly incarcerated (wholesale) for violent crimes that dont exist, not being violent is sufficient to avoid incarceration for such crimes.
> Its hard to be incarcerated for murder without someone actualy being murdered.
No, its hard (but not impossible) to be incarcerated for murder without someone being dead. In a system in which law enforcement, the judiciary, and/or the population from which juries are drawn are biased against people like you -- whether for race or other reasons -- it can be quite easy to be incarcerated (or worse!) for murder without having killed the person who is dead, much less having murdered them (which is legally more specific than merely having killed them.)
> People are not being wrongly incarcerated (wholesale) for violent crimes that dont exist, not being violent is sufficient to avoid incarceration for such crimes.
No, even if the premise was true (that people are not wrongly incarcerated for violent crimes that do not exist), it doesn't justify the conclusion: not being violent would not be sufficient to avoid incarceration based on that premise, you'd have to stop everyone else from being violent, too, since only the existence of the crime, not you actually being the one who committed it, is posited as necessary for the punishment to occur.
>People are not being wrongly incarcerated (wholesale) for violent crimes that dont exist, not being violent is sufficient to avoid incarceration for such crimes.
That's absurd. You're completely ignoring the face that the FBI invented completely bogus disciplines of forensic science (hair analysis, bite marks) and self-certified experts in those disciplines who then went forth and helped convict scores of people for two decades.
Of all murder cases in a period of time what % of cases are effected by these issues with these types of forensic science (you arent suggesting all forensic science is bunk are you?), I never said the justice system is infallible, however are you suggesting that the majority people who are convicted of murder are innocent?
So its a subjective claim then not something that can be looked quantitatively? There are around 13,000 murders per year in the US, how many of these murders per year result in the wrong person being convicted? I would be surprised if its greater than 4%
Edit: this is technically incorrect, see dragonwriter below.