Posted on 08/27/2012 10:13:23 AM PDT by blam
Why In A Town That's Only 16% Black, African-Americans Account For 91% Of Jaywalking Arrests
Rebecca J. Rosen
August 27, 2012, 12:46 PM
I once heard it said that every successful Freedom of Information Act request is a failure of open government.
In other words, every time activists, journalists, or other citizens are able to get data or other records through a FOIA request, that information should have already been available, somehow, somewhere on the Internet, without the hassle of a request process.
The thinking is that FOIA is an antiquated system, designed for a time when the government did not have a great way to make the information it holds public.
Now doing so is (relatively) easy, but the FOIA system persists, putting the government in an essentially passive role as a resource.
The results of such a request from VíveloHoy, a Spanish-language Chicago-based news site, show just how powerful government data can be. Recently, VíveloHoy submitted FOIA requests to the police departments of Champaign and Urbana, Illinois, looking for five years of arrest data broken down by race.
Champaign and Urbana are two different municipalities that, straddled by the University of Illinois, function as one metro area. The request has now been fulfilled, and, VíveloHoy says, "We found major disparities in the number of arrests of black people in both communities."
The two towns are 16 percent black, according to the 2010 census, but, in each of the years the data covered, more than 40 percent of the arrests were of black people. The disparities were not equal across crimes, and one in particular stood out: Jaywalking. Yes, jaywalking.
VíveloHoy breaks down the numbers:
"In Champaign from 2007 to 2011, 658, or 88 percent, of the 744 jaywalking arrests were of black people.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Maybe because they jay walk more?
Them er white mans laws..
Uhhh, maybe it's because 91% of the jaywalkers are African-Americans.
Someone needs to string some cameras up to quantify what really is going on. I certainly wouldn't jump to the conclusion that police are discriminating based on the two stats.
They arrest people for jaywalking? I’m not even sure what the term means.
In some neighborhoods a few towns over, the kids like to show that they “own” a block by walking, slowly, in front of traffic on side streets. Then they’ll walk back, slowly, and sometimes if you get four kids doing this, they can effectively tie up traffic. Naturally this is done in the middle of the block and not at an intersection with a crosswalk.
It is no doubt great fun and an easy way to show the folks in the cars who has the power.
Maybe these “jaywalking” arrests are related to that?
When is the last time someone in your town got arrested for jaywalking?? Is jaywalking really, really a crime?? Should it be a crime?
Culture.
Because when the police confront them about their jaywalking, on average they’re 9% as cooperative as other groups are?
‘Ima walk where I wanna walk’
In my town, pedestrians, who happen to be black, actually slow down when they see you coming. It’s a power trip, as if to say, ‘I can make you slow down and stop your car for me’.
reparations
Jaywalking is when you cross the street not using a crosswalk. Crosswalks represent ‘the white man’s laws’ so blacks cringe at the sight of them.
Maybe it's like moonwalking, which would account for the higher arrest rates among blacks.
Frankly, I don’t give a hoot about jaywalking arrests. I’m more interested in the black/white breakdown on violent crime—rape, forcible robbery, murder, carjackings, inter-racial incidence of physical attacks, etc.
Jaywalking detentions are often used a precursor to stopping drug dealers and searching them. As they run across the streets to do their bid’ness, the cops use the opportunity to stop and search them.
So I’ve been told.
It doesn't have a damn thing to do with sidewalks, or lack thereof.
Take a drive (if you dare) through any mostly black neighborhood and you will see cars stopped in the middle of the road and gangs of yutes standing in the road talking.
Likely are drug deals etc, but without probable cause the cops can't arrest/search them.
What they can do is charge them with jaywalking, for lack of anything else to charge them with.
Mystery solved.
Ask any food server what group they least like to serve because this group leaves the most miniscule tips.
Crap.
There’s a large grocery store in downtown Cleveland’s “Chinatown.” The area surrounding the store is actually about 25% Chinatown, and 75% ghetto and industrial. The store fronts on a busy main street, with it’s parking lot across that street. There’s a crosswalk, with it’s own traffic light, right in front of the store’s front doors. That traffic signal is completely ignored! People just mosey across the street, as slowly as possible, stopping traffic. The cops could write hundreds of tickets a day there, and the jaywalkers would ALL be Aframs!
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