re: Protests blowing up in Downtown Birmingham

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Would crime statistics in suburban and wealthy areas increase if they were policed more heavily? POssibly, especially if we threw in white collar crime into that mix.

I guess I go back to the multiple studies done that show drug use across all races and socioeconomic classes is about the same, yet drug related arrests skew heavily towards poor and black areas. And those statistics are used to justify the heavier police presence.

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There would be a small increase but it wouldn't be huge. When you ride through the upscale neighborhood you don't see people standing on the corner at midnight smoking weed or getting into mischief. It's inside, out of sight because if the neighbors do see it they call the cops.

People aren't generally scared of crimes that don't harm their physical safety (white collar) and for that same reason practically no local resources are devoted to them. Having said that, when the residents see it happening in better neighborhoods they call the cops. When someone there figures out that Joe the accountant is skimming, they call the cops. When ANY crime happens and is detected by the residents of higher (and really even middle) class neighborhoods those people call the cops. Known crimes don't go unreported.

So what you're down to are undetected white collar crime and ancillary stuff like additional DUIs. Patrol cars can't detect white collar crime and even if they could there aren't enough undetected white collar crimes and extra DUI arrests to come close to the things like vehicle burglaries and other property crimes that go on daily in a city like Montgomery. Further, if you tripled the patrols in those neighborhoods you'd cancel out the extra DUIs because you'd cut down on the property crimes.

Lastly, you can't ignore that biggest stat that can't be hidden - murder. People don't complain to their mayor and the city council or pack up the kids and move away when Joe the accountant steals from his clients. They do that when there have been 6 murders and 15 shootings since May 25th (actual numbers for Montgomery). You devote your resources to those things that scare and physically harm your citizenry and the numbers don't lie about where those crimes are happening and who is committing them.

Objective facts aren't racist, they're simply facts. I've said earlier in this thread that the discussion that must be had is what we do to change those objective facts.