Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
There's a proportionately larger portion of minorities committing crimes, regardless of whether they're discriminated against by law enforcement. Criminal activity has a very strong correlation with poverty across all groups. There is a similarly disproportionate amount of poverty among minorities - even those whose families have been in the US for generations. Why are minorities so disproportionately poor?
I'm sure the answer is not one-dimensional, but this is definitely worth considering.
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Minority status and poverty are not well correlated. Neither is minority status and crime. Japanese Americans are a miniscule population in the US, yet their rates of poverty and crime are lower than other minority groups. This, despite the "racist" act of arresting (internment) all "Japs" as recently as 1946.
Speaking in terms of minority status isn't very useful because it doesn't describe the actual differences in values/behavior between the minority group and the majority group. Furthermore, everyone is a member of some minority group. I've never tried illicit drugs, perhaps that is a minority group. I'm 1/4 Japanese, so that has to be a minority group. I grew up on a sheep farm, for sure that is a minority group.
What is useful is to observe behavioral differences and make correlations.
- 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (US Dept. Of Health/Census) – 5 times the average.
- 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the average.
- 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes – 20 times the average. (Center for Disease Control)
- 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes –14 times the average. (Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26)
- 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes – 9 times the average. (National Principals Association Report)
This is just a short list of negative outcomes for children from single-parent homes. When you look at outcomes for adults from single-parent homes, you see a rise in crime, poverty, and becoming a single-parent themselves.
It appears crime and poverty are correlated with family structure. If crime is caused by poverty (which is a dubious assumption), then by extension crime is caused by sub-optimal family structure.
The minority groups that have higher rates of 2-parent households have a corresponding better rate of outcomes.
Perhaps the fatalist political propaganda that "poor" is the root of all problems and that it is inescapable without a band of involuntary saints (taxpayers) subsidizing their "progress" is terribly harmful.
I'm sure that those who believe poor is the root of all evil are well-intentioned, but most every example of trying to remedy the problem of poverty by throwing money at it has been a failure. This is because poverty is not the root problem, but merely another symptom of a complex problem.