Experts Spar Over Data Suggesting Blacks Commit More Crimes

13 January 2017
Leonardo Blair

NEW YORK  Four law and order experts sparred in New York City Wednesday night over evidencebased data suggesting policing isn’t racially biased in America and blacks do in fact commit more crimes than other racial groups.

Opposing the motion that “policing is racially biased,” Harry Stern, managing principal for the law firm Rains Lucia Stern, stated “an uncomfortable but inescapable truth.” “And here it is: black people commit more crime per capita than other groups.”

“It’s not something that I say cheerfully, but it’s true. And the real problem with that statement is not only that it makes me personally uncomfortable and it’s hard to say, but that people hear it as ‘He’s saying, black people are bad, or that black people are criminals.’ And the natural response to that is a reflexive reaction which puts it back on the police,” he explained.

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Though a majority of the audience, 60 percent, agreed with the motion that “policing is racially biased,” the team arguing against the motion was declared the winner of the debate at the end of the night because they were able to improve their support among the audience from 16 percent to 28 percent. The team arguing for the motion only moved up three points from 57 percent.