Talk:Race and crime in the United States/Archive 3

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Rebuilding article

ok, the AfD outcome was "keep and cleanup". We have a Wikipedia:Workpage here. The bibliography section contains a sufficient of dedicated monographs on the topic from reputable publishers, and it is just a matter of rebuilding the article based on these. There is no deadline. We can recreate it as a stub, and only solidly referenced material should be allowed. Other material can go to the workpage, where it can be polished until it satisfies inclusion criteria. --dab (𒁳) 11:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

alleged article bias

the main issue of WP:SYNTH that was criticized in the deletion debate, viz., the listing of incompatible notions of "race" cross-nationally, has been fully resolved by narrowing the scope of the article to the US. The phrase "race and crime" is used within a US context, and not internationally, let alone in discussions of "race". The term "race" here is shorthand for "racial groups in the contemporary US", not the philosophical or anthropological notion of races of mankind in general.

Once this is duly noted, it is important to understand that the US term of "race and crime" is really a polite way of saying "black crime". This is recognized by African American and white authors alike and in no way a violation of "NPOV". The controversy here does not concern the fact that black crime rate in the US is appallingly high, it concerns the interpretations given to this fact. Again, see the literature cited that is explicitly written by African American authors, from the African American perspective, especially Russell-Brown (2006) (observe the first person plural pronoun in the title). Note that this debate begins in the 1890s at the latest, at the time when racial segregation was still in full effect, and the classical black apologist position (W.E.B DuBois 1899[1]) is to justify black crime as a rebellion against racism. At the time (1899) a rather convincing argument, since, why would you play by the rules in a game that is rigged against you from the beginning. Only, such explanations sound more hollow in the 1990s, let alone the 2000s, decades after the abolition of the last vestiges of racial segregation, and under a black president. But of course the apologetic "conflict theory" persists into the 1990s. This is the "liberal" view of external causes referenced in the lead. We have Mann (1993)[2] saying that black crime is at least "understandable" as a consequence of the "pathology created by racism".

To summarize, there is no dispute that this is about black crime (there is no debate on why "Asian crime" consistently has the lowest rate. As long as Asians are much less criminal than anyone else, nobody is going to raise eyebrows at this, or ask why that might be -- even though it might be helpful to explain the exceptionally low crime rate in one racial minority in order to understand the exceptionally high crime rate in another racial minority).

The dispute is in the interpretation of the situation in terms of external (understandable reaction to racism, "liberal" view) vs internal (blacks are somehow inherently more criminal, "conservative" view). This is the discussion that needs to be presented in a balanced way. Just slapping NPOV tags on this article because it 'dares' to address a touchy racial topic isn't helpful. If you want to claim this article is biased towards one view, you will at least need to argue towards which view (internal vs. external causes) the article is supposed to be biased, and perhaps also try to contribute constructively by trying to restore the balance. --dab (𒁳) 09:54, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a disappointing argument. The inclusion of the table without any kind of contextualising information (such as is provided in the Race in the US article) and fringe theories certainly justify the tags. I want to see more input and more WP:RS. Raw statistics should not be presented in this form - clearly not NPOV - and if the article is not about race (whatever that is) then it should be renamed. I'm sorry for a short reply, there is more to say, but I'm very busy. Verbal chat 10:19, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with Verbal. This article was re-created against consensus to redirect and against a lack of consensus to re-create. There have been some cosmetic changes, but the main problems with the article (explained multiple times ad nauseam) remain. Article should be redirected to anthropological criminology. --Crusio (talk) 10:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

what do you mean "without contextualising information"? Did you even bother to read the article? Did you bother to read my comment? Then reply to it. I argue that the nature of the controversy is well outlined. But feel free to help.

the bibliography makes clear that "race and crime" is a well studied topic in US criminology. If you don't like the term, write to the authors of these books, don't complain to Wikipedia for discussing them. Sheesh, you aren't required to agree with everything referenced on Wikipedia, what is your problem? If you have a view on this, sit down and document your view already, don't disrupt a bona fide attempt to compile a neutral article.

if the article states that the US debate of "race and crime" is about the very high crime rate among African Americans, it is hardly "out of context" to provide a statistic showing said crime rate. If we didn't provide such a statistic, you would conceivably complain that the claim of an appallingly high black crime rate is "unreferenced". This is WP:POINT. Try to make constructive suggestions, but don't waste my time with cheap attempts to censor content you are personally uncomfortable with.

Crusio, the consensus was very plainly "keep and cleanup". I fail to see how a large bibliography of scholarly literature, a significant narrowing of scope, avoiding all original synthesis, can be described as "cosmetic changes". I do not see that your "objection" has any content, let alone any merit, beyond WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Have you even looked at the references given? I even included google books links to make it easier on you. Do you argue that the gist of the references cited is misrepresented? Are you arguing that the "liberal" view "excusing" black crime is given too much weight? Or what is the problem? Please reply only after you have reviewed the content of the references. --dab (𒁳) 10:41, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• A neutral article?? Sit back and read what you wrote. "Super-proportional crime rate" does not sound very neutral to me and that's only the second sentence I am talking about. Then there's the "Statistics" suggestion. Raw data, no interpretation, presented in a highly suggestive way. Just one other detail: "the genes currently known to contribute to criminal behavior". I have news for you: There are no "genes currently known to contribute to criminal behavior". Some genetic studies have been done, none have identified any genes (there are currently hardly any genes involved in behavior that have been identified in humans, un fortunately not even genes involved in psychiatric disorders (which should be easier to find than genes for a fuzzy phenotype like "criminal behavior"). --Crusio (talk) 10:54, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• You just removed the tags justified above for the 4th time in a row. I am not going to revert, as I don't want to violate 3RR. I suggest you self-revert. --Crusio (talk) 10:58, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I do not think you have an understanding of WP:NPOV. What is non-neutral with stating that there is super-proportional black crime in the US when we can cite a dozen books dedicated to that very topic? As I have already pointed out, the statistics isn't under dispute. It is accepted even by the most biased Afrocentric authors that black crime rate is high. They just have other explanations for that fact, as in, interpreting black crime as a valid mode of retaliating for white racism. I am not aware how the article is taking a position either for or against that position. Please don't talk about "neutrality" before you have grasped what the dispute under discussion is even about --dab (𒁳) 11:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

"I have news for you: There are no 'genes currently known to contribute to criminal behavior'."

This article describes three such genes. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:46, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

• You are right. I had seen that source, but given how WP is set up, that qualifies as a WP:RS and can go into the article until someone publishes an article failing to replicate these findings in another RS. Now, I realize this is WP:OR and not admissible for inclusion in the article, but let me give you my view on these findings anyway. After all, this is my field (I am editor in chief of one of the scientific journals in this field). To start with, this Reuters story is based on an article published in a sociological journal, not generally the type of journal that genetics breakthroughs come from (but this may be the exception, of course). Second, the MAO-A and dopamine system (DAT1 and DRD2) genes have been around as candidates involved in aggressive behavior (especially MAOA) or risk-taking or novelty-seeking behavior (actually more properly called thrill-seeking). These findings have been reported in much more reputable journals, by the way (Science (journal) and Nature (journal) - or another journal from that family), but nevertheless all have been followed up and results are inconclusive at best. It looks like there probably is an effect, but first, as the Reuters release correctly states, only in combination with certain environmental factors, and second, the effect is very, very weak (otherwise it would be easier to replicate). I understand Guo going to Reuters, it always helps a researcher if their results make a splash in the media, but I don't think the excitement is justified. This was just one in a large series of studies investigating these genes in relation to aggression and crime, none of which has been conclusive yet. This is regrettable, but unfortunately in this field things always turn out to be more complicated than people think (or wish...). --Crusio (talk) 10:37, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I think the particular phrase people are looking for is "disproportionately high". —Aryaman (talk) 17:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

the rules

Crusio, here you make a WP:POINT of adding three tags, one concerning WP:SYNTH, one concering WP:NPOV and one concerning "weasel wording".

You cannot just slap tags on a page on a whim. You have not made clear in any way which "pov" you assert this article is favouring. The article plainly documents a controversy, and identifies a "liberal" vs. a "conservative" view. You have not made clear which "pov" you assert the article is favouring. If you want to restore the "npov" tag, please explain if you think the current article is "too liberal" or "too conservative". I honestly do not know which you are suggesting. Also make a suggestion of how to restore neutrality.

The "synthesis" claim is especially cheap, since you do not substantiate it at all, and of course you can always claim "synthesis" as soon as more than one source is used. Of course, if only one source was used, you could claim {{onesource}} instead. This isn't bona fide editing. If you have a point to make, state it in good faith, and help suggest ways of fixing it. I honestly haven't seen you making any valid point so far. It is my impression that you do not in fact have any case, and are simply creating trouble because you don't like seeing the topic addressed, for reasons best known to yourself, or because you confuse WP:NPOV with censoring potentially disturbing content. In this case, you need to review WP:NOTCENSORED. --dab (𒁳) 11:00, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The liberal vs conservative view is a red herring. The (really, a) problem is the inclusion of raw statistics lacking valid interpretation and discussion of causative factors and other explanations, etc. Please remain civil and don't accuse others of censorship - it's petty. Verbal chat 11:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• All these arguments have been re-hashed over and over again on the talk page of the previous incarnation of this article and which very conveniently have disappeared into cyberspace. As for POV and weasel-wording "super-proportional" sounds to me like that (in contrast to a more factual over-proportional). In addition, when addressing hate crimes, the only example this article can come up with is a Black-on-White example. NPOV, right. Thanks for your advice but, frankly, I can do without policy lessons from an edit-warring sysop who just violated 3RR (or, as it was 4 times, should I say "super-violated?) I am going to take a break from this matter, I suggest you do same (there are most probably some policies I could have linked here, but I assume you are aware of those). --Crusio (talk) 11:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The talk page for the article's previous version hasn't disappeared. It's still available here.

This question of whether raw statistics can be presented when they're relevant to the article, and no conclusions or irrelevant details are presented, was addressed there by yukichigai and Zzmang. I agree with dab's perspective about this. As for the weasel word question, that may have previously been a problem, but I think RegentsPark has fixed it now. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:56, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

White-Collar Crime?

I'm not getting involved here. I just wanted to note that researchers on this subject mention that "crime" is often defined in a very selective manner, e.g. white-collar crime - the perpetrators of which are almost exclusively "white" - is rarely if ever included in the rubric of "race and crime". What is really being indicated by the word "crime" in "race and crime" is street crime and violent crime. If this kind of thing - which is completely on-topic - could be included, I think the article would benefit from it. —Aryaman (talk) 11:29, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Sources

Some of the sources used in this article need to be checked for reliability. [Race and Crime - Data Sources And Meaning, The Nature And Direction Of The Race And Crime Relationship, Bio-psychological Theory - Conclusion This], for example, is attributed to the "American Law Library" but appears to be an encyclopedia of some sort with no indication of what or who sponsors it (a google search for "American Law Library" turns up a whole host of unrelated things (including our own American Law Library article!). [State University of New York - Binghamton This] source appears to be a workshop information notice and is likely not to be considered reliable. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 12:13, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Does it bother anyone else that this source: Gary LaFree (in Hawkins 1995 176) is data from 1990 and we're comparing it to census data from 2000? Even worse, the data is almost 20 years old; the world has changed a lot in 20 years, at what point do we say this is no longer relevent. Voiceofreason01 (talk) 13:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, either we quote sources like LaFree and face claims of "outdated data" (which, by the way, is only off by one or two percent when compared with the 2001-2008 material, as far as I can see), or we include the newest data from the DOC and DOJ, and face claims of "undue synthesis". Which is it? It seems people are upset with having the raw data, and want it to be taken from a source dealing directly with the issue of race and crime. I can understand that. LaFree, a professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico, is a fully adequate response. If a more recent contextualized source can be found, then, by all means, please add it. —Aryaman (talk) 14:16, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say this is an instance where primary sources may be used legitimately. The relevance of the information is supported by the secondary source, and the updated information is taken from the primary source. If the difference is actually important, however, secondary sources for the information should become available rather quickly.  Cs32en  14:29, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to change out the current table of data in favor of a text presentation which gives more context for these findings. Also, I'm adding some counter-point by C. R. Mann, in the hopes of a more balanced presentation. I'm not quite sure what to do with the current data from the DOC and DOJ, i.e. whether to weave it into the paragraph on LaFree, or to leave it in it's own paragraph. I'd like if another editor could take a stab at it. In other words, let's not freak out if the section looks jumbled for a bit; please remember it's being worked on. —Aryaman (talk) 15:08, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

How about this as a source. If you are going to rely on the statistic that black nationalists always cite, then why not cite one the white nationalists always cite. (indeed the stats use don this page are the same stats used by the black panthers. (would this really be the most unbiased data?):

cities from FORBES and populations from US census data

First, the FIVE SAFEST CITIES:

1. Amherst, NY 89.3% white 3.9% black

2. Newton, MA 89.4% white 2.0% black

3. Mission Viejo, CA 86.3% white 1.2% black

4. Cary, NC 83.7% white 6.3% black

5. Brick Township, NJ 96.8% white 1.0% black

Second, the FIVE MOST DANGEROUS CITIES:

1. Detroit, MI 12.3% white 83.5% black

2. Atlanta, GA 33.7% white 62.2% black

3. St. Louis, MO 44.7% white 51.3% black

4. Baltimore, MD 31.6% white 64.3% black

5. Gary, IN 12.1% white 85.5% black

These stats are just about as unbiased as the stats used in this article which aims to show the opposite. --User:Anonymous 01:05, 26 October 16 (CST) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.222.210.4 (talk)

The article is relying upon official data. It has not been selected on the basis of its support by "black nationalist" or "white nationalist" groups. I don't think it's a good idea to include the racial demographics of the "most dangerous" or "safest" cities, as (1) it leaves open to question what "most dangerous" means, and (2) it gives the impression that a place must have a high rate of crime simply if it has a predominately black population, which is certainly not true. --Aryaman (talk) 15:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out the gross error of such statistics in that they are comparing relatively small towns with some of the largest cities in the US. That violent crime is higher in cities is not in dispute, and making such comparisons confuses causal factors. Please read through the Theories of causation section for more information. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 15:32, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I'd like to include your earlier comment, as since you removed it, my response may be less clear. You wrote[3]:

This article is clearly anti-white in bias. All other races are given excuses for why they commit crimes at higher rates, whites are given no such benefit of doubt. ALso the numbers directly conflict with the department of corrections and prisons numbers. THe numbers in this article completely conflict with every other statistic out there. This is an excusatory article that is made to conform to the notion that minorities do not actually commit more crime than whites in teh US. Every statistic you can find on this issue xontradicts the results in this article. Perhaps if instead of REMOVING ALL OTHER STATISICAL STUDIES ADDED TO THE ARTICLE IN FAVOR OF ONE STUDY THAT CONFORMS TO THE FAVORED BIAS you should allow other stats to be posted. oh here is a nice one that anti-black people cite alot, I mean if you are going to rely on the statistic that black nationalists always cite, then why not cite one the white nationalists always cite. (indeed the stats use don this page are the same stats used by the black panther. would this really be the most unbiased data?)

To reiterate, the data provided in this article has been taken from official US sources. The selection follows according to what the UCR lists as Part I Offenses, and includes hate crime and three forms of white-collar crime, as both of these figure into the current discussion in race and crime studies. The summaries after each table are entirely NPOV summaries of the numerical findings, and do not manipulate those results in any way. Such summaries can be found in credible literature devoted to the study of race and crime for nearly any year up to 2008. If you have any concerns about the accuracy of the article other than its supposed "anti-white bias", feel free to make mention of them. --Aryaman (talk) 15:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Guo study

I have removed the reference to this study. The reuters news report makes no mention of race and using it in the article is definitely synthesis (However, ......). --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 12:17, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Colin Ferguson

Isn't it over weighting one incident to give that example at length as support for the statement that white on black crimes are more likely to be classified as hate crimes than black on white. I'm sure the authors of the book are experts on the field but it would be nice if there was some sense of the validity of their conclusions. (How, for example, do they determine motives?) (Also, to be perfectly honest, I am unable to see why this needs to be a separate article from Anthropological criminology. All it seems to contain is a bunch of lay theories of uncertain value and pointers to other articles. Just saying.) --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 21:36, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The fact that Colin Ferguson’s shooting wasn't classified as a hate crime isn’t the only line of evidence that the authors use to support their conclusion about this. I don’t have a copy of the book on hand, but I’ll try to obtain one so I can explain the support for their conclusions in more detail.

As for the other question, dab has pointed out that the relationship between race and crime is a major topic in modern sociology. Anthropoligical criminology is a rather archaic way of studying this topic, while this article describes the modern debate about it. It’s the same as the distinction between Wikipedia’s article about alchemy and the one about chemistry.--Captain Occam (talk) 05:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you have an WP:RS for that claim? "Modern debate" is rather weasel worded too, as though this topic doesn't actually exist in sociology or anthropology. Do you have a sources for "Race and crime in the US" being a notable subject of academic study? Verbal chat 08:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. The current article's bibiography lists twelve modern books that have been written about this debate, and Dbachmann addressed this point specifically here.

If you disagree with his conclusion about this, his explanation of it is what you need to address. I'm only re-stating the conclusion that he already reached about this, which you did not attempt to dispute when he first explained it. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

So you're not going to provide the requested RS, or answer RPs concerns? Verbal chat 09:06, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I've just ordered Jacobs' and Potter's book from Amazon.com. It'll take a few days to get here, so I can't fix that part of the article until it's arrived.

How is this collection of books and monographs not a reliable source? Is the problem that I haven't quoted one that explicitly says, "The relationship between race and crime is a major topic in modern sociology"? You're splitting hairs here, but in any case you should ask Dab for this rather than me, since he's the one who provided the source material and reached this conclusion for it. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

So you're just going on the titles? Verbal chat 09:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I would assume that when Dab provided these references as an overview of the literature on this topic, he looked into their content also. Why are you asking me to justify his research, rather than just asking him directly? I can't read his mind. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Weasel Words

Can the individual(s) who thinks this article makes use of weasel words please identify them in the article so specific improvements can be made? Thanks. —Aryaman (talk) 00:11, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, there were a few (super-proportional, debate, etc.) but I think I got rid of most, if not all. I'll take a look tomorrow at 'controversy' and see if that should stay. Other than that, while I have serious doubts about the quality of the stuff ('conflict theory'?, the over-reliance on 'according to X') in this article, I think it is mostly weasel free. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 01:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it is weasel free. Tag removed. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 12:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I suggest rewriting the article from scratch

"From scratch" would most likely include scrapping the current title.

This article came to my attention at the Fringe theories notice board. At present, it is a very random collection of anecdotes from various publications. I'd start by looking for publications that summarize what other scientists have written, and things that have received attention outside of the scientific community. The article should also contain a section on the evolution of the controversy inside and outside of the scientific community. The current structure of the article is unhelpful for further development.

I suggest removing content that is not supported by independent secondary sources as a first step. Because the article is (or should be) primarily about a (possibly fringe) debate within academia and within the society at large, the statements and writings of the proponents of the various positions must be considered primary sources in this context. A lot of aspects that could possibly be part of this article are probably already covered elsewhere, and we would have to make a determination whether this is a topic in its own right, or whether it is merely an aspect of other topics (e.g. the debate about racism leading to social exclusion, which in turn has an effect on crime). If the large majority of secondary sources present aspects of this topic solely in the context of other topics, then the article may of course still cover the position taken by the small minority, but WP:FRINGE rules would then apply to the article as a whole.

I'd recommend deleting the present article[09/09/26 13:36] blanking the current article, then reaching consensus on the scope and status of the article (with no article at all being an option in this determination), and then writing the article from scratch.  Cs32en  09:24, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this. Perhaps the first step is to remove all the content - except for the first sentence - and stub the article. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 12:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, scrapping the article is neither necessary nor desirable. If it becomes a matter of "reaching consensus", I fear it will simply devolve into an argument, and the article will never get anywhere. There is really nothing "wrong" with the article other than it needs editors who are willing to research and make solid contributions. Granted, it has many weak points, but I think I've been able to establish that it is not a "fringe topic", and with a few more helping hands, we can work out the outline so that the material is presented in a fair and balanced manner. —Aryaman (talk) 12:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Cs and RP. There are large problems with some of the article content, and they need discussing before being added. However, from first look I like the recently added History section by VA. Verbal chat 13:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the history section, which is really about the study of anthropological criminology, should not be in this article (a history of the race and crime controversy in the United States would be more appropriate). --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 13:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Good point. I therefore support the stubbing for now, and merging to other articles where appropriate. Verbal chat 13:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

If it's now been established that this is not a "fringe" topic, what remaining justification is there for stubbing it? I don't think there is any. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:25, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I see no justification for stubbing this article. I've written two new sections ("History" and "Disproportionality and statistical data"), and the remainder of the article needs to be reworked in a similar way. There is enough reputable literature on this topic to build a good article, provided people will put in the required work. Volunteers are welcome to jump in with solid contributions at any time. ;) —Aryaman (talk) 15:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The history, as I point out above, is about anthropological criminology. This article needs to focus on Race and crime in the United States. I'll take a look at the disproportionality section later but, at first glance, it follows the pattern of the rest of the article by quoting single individuals which is not a good sign. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 15:59, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to blank this article. It needs some significant rewriting and some more sources, and most importantly editors who are interrested in writing an article. There is some overlap between this article and a couple of others but the topic is a legitimate area of study and stands on its own. There is a lot of this article worth keeping the rest just needs some more work. Voiceofreason01 (talk) 16:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with VoiceofReason. As for RegentsPark's comments: The History section traces the beginning of the discussion back to the 19th century. What, exactly, is wrong with that? I think it's important to give the discussion a little historical context, and I don't see how mentioning anthropological criminology violates the scope of the article. Please clarify your objection.

I have quoted LaFree and Mann as representatives of the two main camps when it comes to interpreting the relevant statistical data. (Though, to be fair to LaFree, he is very even-handed in his presentation, which cannot be quoted in toto.) If we remove these, what do you suggest having instead? I'm open to suggestions. —Aryaman (talk) 16:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

When I recommend blanking the article, I do not imply that every item of information that is currently present in the article would be inadmissible in the future. The current structure of the article is unhelpful, there is no consensus on the intended scope of the article, and leaving the current stuff in the article gives misleading guidance to new editors.  Cs32en  16:17, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Researchers and Editors Needed

Instead of slapping up tags noting contentious content, debating about the credibility of claims, etc., let's spend some time researching and trying to improve this article. In the short time I've involved myself in this topic, I've found plenty of information on-line. For example, "Race, Crime, and the Disproportionality Debate" by Alfred Blumstein. This article, which is a summary of his previous journal article "On the Racial Disproportionality of United States' Prison Population" (Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 73 (1983) pp. 1259-81) contributed to the book "Race, Crime and Justice" (2005), is exactly the kind of thing this article needs more of. Blumstein's article had a significant impact on the debate, and it was subsequently discussed in at least a dozen reputable articles and books. Even the Preface to "Race, Crime and Justice" justifies the existence of this article:

"...While the focus of this edited book is on race and crime, over time this topic has become a proxy for studies of racial minorities and street crime; a topic which has a long and controversial history. As has been noted over the past decade or so, while much has changed in the administration of criminal justice, at varying levels, race continues to matter (Mann 1993; Tonry 1995; Russel 1998; Walker, Spohn, and De Lone 2004). ... While this brief review is not comprehensive, it does show that, over time, the subject matter has garnered increasing attention from criminologists."

At the end of that Preface, the editors give a short bibliography which simply needs to be mined. Most of the publications should be available at any major library. You might even be able to pull some of this stuff up on the internet, depending upon your researching skills.

I find it baffling that editors are still trying to make this out to be a "fringe" topic. It is not. —Aryaman (talk) 11:21, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

If it helps, I'll add a short list of partially available material:

Ethnicity, race, and crime: perspectives across time and place (1995)

Crime and inequality (1995)

Race and crime: an annotated bibliography (2000)

Race, crime, and justice (2005)

Race, Ethnicity, Crime, and Justice: An International Dilemma (2009)

Encyclopedia of Race and Crime (2009)

That last one is particularly interesting, and should be at the top of the references list. —Aryaman (talk) 11:41, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe "Ethnicity and crime" better captures the actual topic of the debate, and "Race" may be used primarily because it's a shorter word. The sources here are a much better starting point than the sources that are now being used in the article. (This is not an endorsement of any of the sources.) I'd recommend to look for overviews of the debate and its evolution. The last source, while probably quite valuable for specific questions, may lead to an approach than is too eclectic, possibly resulting in a collection of statements rather than a well-structured encyclopedia entry, if used as a starting point for determining the scope and initial structure of the article.

Given the sources, I tend to say that it is better to have a broader non-fringe article than a narrower fringe article. At the same time, the approach and structure of the current version of the article is so unhelpful for further development that deleting (or maybe just blanking and possibly moving the page)[09/09/26 13:38] blanking (and possibly moving the page) seems reasonable to me.  Cs32en  12:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

In my last edit to the article, I tried to provide some historical context to the issue, bringing it up very briefly to the late 20th century. Expansion is certainly possible. "Race and crime" is the most popular key phrase in the literature, and judging by the general consensus in the literature I've read so far, I'd have to ask for some kind of verifiable opinion that the study of race and crime is a "fringe" topic before I'd consider taking any action in that direction. —Aryaman (talk) 13:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd say that in this case, it is more important to have a title that precisely describes the intended scope of the article's subject, rather than the term that is actually (or appears to be) the most commonly used.  Cs32en  13:53, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the title is fine. I'd like to see the material expanded to include data on Hispanics and Asians as well. The literature is there, it just needs to be worked in. —Aryaman (talk) 15:53, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal

It seems to me that the contents of this article are really a subset of Anthropological criminology and, except for the statistics, the material has nothing to do with the United States. The history section illustrates that the subject matter of the article has no independent history (the same studies are quoted, more broadly, in Anthropological criminology). Looking at the other sections: we already have articles for incarceration in the United States, racial profiling, the Chicago school. Biological profiling fits and is included in Anthropological criminology. The article is a mash of 'according to', which implies that the subject matter does not stand on its own. The only thing that this article adds are the US based statistics and the statement that race and crime is controversial in the United States. A section in Anthropological criminology will adequately take care of that. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 16:18, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Add your thoughts below. Do note that this is not a vote so give reasons, please keep your comments civil, and please address the proposal rather than individual editors.

(Note: Based on the initial comments, I think my merge proposal was limited in the scope of options. I've refactored the headings below. Apologies and feel free to refactor your comments.--RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 17:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC))

Merge into Anthropological criminology and Crime in the United States

1. Support per my comments below. Verbal chat 17:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep as is

1. I oppose the suggestion to merge this article with anthropological criminology. First, as the article states, the term "anthropological criminology" applies to the work pioneered by the Italian school of criminology of the late 19th century. The work being done now in the field of race and crime is not a sub-set of anthropological criminology, as it involves factors treated by other branches of science, including anthropology, sociology and criminal justice. This is why the works referenced in the article do not refer to their branch of study as "anthropological criminology" - and neither should we. Further, this article should also cover the popular controversy surrounding the connection between race and crime in the US. As a sub-section of anthropological criminology, it will not. Second, there is an ample body of reputable literature dedicated to precisely this topic, i.e. "race and crime", the overwhelming majority of which comes from and applies to the situation in the US. Thus, "race and crime in the US" is a perfectly suitable title, and it deserves its own article. Third, if using quotes from respected experts on the subject somehow implies it does not "stand on its own", then I am at a total loss as to how anyone could establish the contrary. Several editors, myself included, have pointed to literature which treats exactly this subject exclusively and extensively. I've quoted sources which explain that "race and crime" is a subject of study in many criminology and criminal justice programs. I do not want to see this topic unduly squelched, and, in my opinion, merging does just that. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 16:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

   Typically, when a discipline is established, there is a body of core knowledge that is accepted by an overwhelming majority (if not all) of the researchers and experts. If an article contains only a set of "according to" statements, the implication is that this 'accepted knowledge' does not exist and that either the field itself is a small subset of a larger discipline or that the field is highly fragmented (or that one is reading an undergrad term-paper :-)). In the former case, one has to make the case for independence from the larger discipline while in the latter it becomes hard, if not impossible, to come up with an article that does not cherry pick quotes to push one point of view or another. Finally, the intent of this proposal is not to squelch the topic but rather to clarify whether it stands on its own or not. The topic will exist, if not in a separate article, then as a separate section of, say Anthropological criminology or Crime in the United States. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 17:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

2. I oppose merging this article with anthropological criminology. My reasons for having this opinion are mostly the same as those described by Dab and VA, so rather than just rehashing them, I'd like to make another point: Admittedly, this article still needs some work, but that should be an argument for working to improve the article, rather than getting rid of it. VA’s “scope and outline” comments provide a useful guideline on how it could be improved. As someone who’s followed this article’s history, I think VA’s request for more work on improving the article and less time spent debating what to do with it is more insightful than he may realize. Between this article’s two deletion attempts and the merge to anthropological criminology earlier this year, there have only rarely been times when people could simply work on improving the article without being interfered with by editors who wanted to get rid of it. Ironically, the editors who have been preventing the improvement of this article have generally been the same editors who use the difficulty improving it as justification for getting rid of it. It’s a rather cleverly self-sustaining cycle, but one which is counterproductive to the improvement of both this article, and Wikipedia as a whole. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Stub, freeze editing, and discuss scope and merge options

1. Initial thoughts: If merged, the article would probably later become a sub-article of the other article. I don't know whether such an approach would be helpful. What does past experience suggest? My view is that a lot of the article's content should be blanked (though it may be restored when the article is longer, provides adequate context and presents the opinions and the information appropriately). I suspect that debate on the structure and scope may be actually become more difficult in the context of another article.  Cs32en  16:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

   My problem is that I can't figure out what the article will contain. There are the raw statistics, of course, but these are already, to some extent, included in Crime in the United States. There may be social, economic, psychological, genetic (I see it's shown up in the article!) causes, but these are theories that are independent of location. Hopefully, whether the merge request succeeds or not, will get some clarity on this. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 16:48, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

   Frankly, I don't know what the exact scope of the article should be, either. I'm not a specialist in the field, and I haven't really reviewed the sources. Therefore, my suggestion is to blank the page, discuss the sources, and try to build consensus on the scope and structure. Editing the article at the same time will (a) distract from this task (b) mislead new editors.  Cs32en  17:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

   I agree that we should stub and discuss. Some of the material belongs in different articles (such as anthropological criminology and also Crime in US). Then we also need to determine scope (and name) of this article, if it is to exist at all (rather than a redirect or disambig), and on what high quality sources we should base any article. Verbal chat 17:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

General comments

• this is a pathetic attempt at WP:CENSORship. We have several scholarly monographs dedicated to nothing but "race and crime in the US". There are borderline cases of WP:NOTE, but when you have dedicated scholarly monographs, you know you aren't looking at one. I used to take concerns raised about this article very seriously as long as the article did have issues, but seeing that the attempts to get rid of the article simply continue after the concerns have been addressed, I must conclude that this isn't in fact about Wikipedia policy, or improving the article, but simply about censorship. As in, trying to get rid of an article simply because you aren't comfortable with the subject matter covered. As the people at Talk:Muhammad/images are very used to repeating: thanks, but no thanks. --dab (𒁳) 17:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

  That seems a little unfair and harsh. How is moving the material to other articles censorship? How is discussing the scope and what sources we should use censorship? No one has yet proposed deletion or even junking of material that is properly sourced. My main concerns are still the use of reliable sources, the scope and definitions used here, where this intersects with other articles that might be a better home for the material, and how to avoid the awful raw statistics and racist trolling we had with the previous article (this hasn't happened here yet). This article is a vast improvement over the previous incarnation, but it still has big problems. Verbal chat 17:46, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

  Depending on the sources, an article on "Ethnicity and crime", or whatever the title turns out to be, may even have a sub-article that covers a minority viewpoint. You cannot start with the sub-article, however. If you want to write on a minority viewpoint, WP needs to have sufficient coverage of the majority viewpoint first. If such coverage is not there, you may need to supply it. You cannot present the minority viewpoint only, even if properly sourced, if this would give undue weight to it. Some controversial academicians may also have their own articles on WP already, and relevant content may be included in these articles, too.  Cs32en  19:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

  The biggest problem with keeping the article, as I see it, is that the article is either going to be all statistics or rely heavily on primary sources. Voiceofreason01 (talk) 21:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

  Dbachmann, that is unfair. There clearly are concerns with the content of this article and addressing them is in all our interests. Whether they get addressed in this article or in other articles should not be the issue. I've seen your comments on the earlier (merge) discussion, your comments here, and your comments in other places and value your opinion and hope that you'll not just walk away from this in anger. To address your more substantive comments, scholarly monographs are fine but building an article that solely relies on them is problematic because they are, after all, singular pieces of writing that are usually not subject to peer review and don't necessarily give appropriate context nor can they be relied on to present facts neutrally. The Colin Ferguson comments is a good example of this because it presents, at least in the version in our article, as fact that his crime was a hate crime but is not recognized as one. A couple of people writing in a monograph can take any view they like without necessarily addressing contextual information, or even presenting other sides of the issue, because the monograph is not peer reviewed. And, as any New Yorker knows, whether it was a hate crime or not is a complicated issue that is not easily resolved either way. But I digress. The point is that a bunch of monographs does not make a neutrally presentable viewpoint. (Note also that the few peer reviewed articles included in the references are tangential to the topic.) --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 01:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

  The 'mono' in monograph refers to the subject, not the number of authors. :) —Aryaman (talk) 02:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

  Yes, that was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. ;) But seriously, most of the material being presented here is solid reporting on primary sources by respectable scholars holding notable positions in the academic world and which is contained in works edited, in turn, by equally respectable scholars. That's important. The entries in the Encyclopedia of Race and Crime, for example, are all contributed by scholars, are all reviews of the corresponding primary literature, and have all been checked for neutrality and factual veracity by the editing body, in this case, composed of two Ph.D.-holding scholars. So, can we stop with the claims that this literature is not up to snuff? Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 17:57, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Scope and Outline

Others have complained that there is no clear scope and/or outline in this article at present. I agree, to a point. I've contributed the bulk of the current content of the article, and things are coming to the point at which a clear outline is necessary to help future editors contribute additional information in the appropriate places. In my past contributions, I've had something like the following in mind:

Scope: The scope of this article, as I see it, is the issue of "race and crime in the United States" as both a field of academic research and - though more tangentially - a topic of public and political controversy.

Outline: The outline I have in mind - which has not yet been fully realized, though progress is being made in the right direction - would be as follows:

• Lead (describing the scope of the article)
• History (describing the background of the issue as well as its place in modern academic research)
• Disproportionality (describing the point of contention)

• Statistical data (presenting the data on race and crime)
• Criticism (presenting critical views on that data)

• Analysis (describing the various positions taken on the issue in terms of its causes and potential solutions)

In my opinion, far too much emphasis is being put on the issue of "black crime". The literature, while discussing this at length, also makes a point to cover crime in relation to other minorities in the US, such as Asian-Americans and Native Americans, and I think the article would benefit from being expanded in this direction. I could imagine the section on statistical data being broken down further, either by race, or perhaps by type of crime, as more information is added.

Also, very little has been done to beef up the analysis section. There is a good deal of literature available on this. The Sampson and Wilson article, for example, looks promising as far as intelligent proposals go. Also, the research on Asian-American crime rates is particularly interesting in relation to suggestions which have been made.

I'd like to see more active contribution and less quizzing about what we should do next. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 02:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I just added some information specific to Hispanics, Asian Americans and Native Americans, and broke down the section accordingly. If and where more can be added, please do so. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 11:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

We need more independent secondary sources on the various theories, and any facts should then be presented in conjunction with these theories. A fact-oriented section runs the risk of being skewed towards one theory or the other (and potentially, towards minority viewpoints or fringe theories), by the choice of statistics or the wording of the explanation/interpretation of the statistics. I recommend again against using the current text for further expansion of the article (while much of the information that has been added is probably valid in an article that is well structured).  Cs32en  12:51, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

If you would like to take some time and research the theories which have been presented regarding the causes for this disproportionality, then by all means, please do so. But, as I noted below, the fact section is not under dispute, other than in regards to how this data is being collected and presented - a position I have tried to present fairly, though more work needs to be done. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 13:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Charts?

I'm not sure regarding the copyright on DOJ information, but I think graphs such as those given here could be a nice addition to the section on disproportionality. Comments? Aryaman (talk) 12:23, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Statistics should be in the article only in so far as they provide background for the discussion. Highlighting them with charts is therefore inappropriate.  Cs32en  12:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. Nobody has yet made a case against the inclusion of statistical data when it’s used in support of a discussion about causal theories, which in this case it would be.

I recommend that people take a look at how this issue is handled by other, similar Wikipedia articles, particularly Race and intelligence, which has been at least as hotly contested as this one. Although the focus of that article is on the various explanations that have been proposed for this IQ difference, the IQ difference itself is considered central enough to the article that it’s represented visually in this chart. This image used to be part of the article also—it was eventually removed because editors decided that it was original research, but nobody there had a problem with the idea of this data being depicted with an image.

The original research claim obviously doesn’t apply to an image from the DOJ website, and I think all of the same principles that apply to race and intelligence apply here also. The only question that needs to be considered is whether the data represented in the image is relevant to the article, which in this case it clearly is. --Captain Occam (talk) 13:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Charts may be included if they do not highlight a particular aspect in an undue way, i.e. at a point when we have a longer article and appropriate context.  Cs32en  15:07, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

In what way would these charts provide undue weight to a particular viewpoint? Be specific. All of the viewpoints expressed in the article agree about the validity of this data; they only differ in their interpretation of it. With that in mind, representing the data itself should not support one viewpoint over another. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The charts, as they draw the reader's attention, may give undue weight to one aspect, i.e. the quantitative distribution of crime. If the aspect is central, this fact must be sourced to an independent secondary source. Finding such a source should be relatively easy in this case; we are not dealing with a minor detail of the article's subject, obviously. It's not enough just to say at this talk page that multiple experts would see it as a central aspect, we need a specific source for it in the article itself.  Cs32en  20:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree that this is necessary, since Wikipedia's policies don't demand that there be a specific source for an image being relevant to an article; consensus that it's relevant is enough. But in any case, The Encyclopedia of Race and Crime should satisfy your requirements in this regard, particularly the part of it that describes the criminology courses offered on this topic. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality and Synthesis

I think it's time to address the issue of neutrality and synthesis. I would like to request that the individual(s) who thinks these tags still apply to this article please identify which parts he or she views as problematic so that concrete steps can be taken to remedy the situation. As far as I can see, there is no synthesis going on, as there is enough literature available to preclude even being tempted in that direction. Steps have also been taken to ensure that both sides of this controversy are presented, so claims of POV had better be backed up with something more substantial than WP:JDLI. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 12:22, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The article is still mainly a collection of various viewpoints, although the collection may be less problematic than some time ago. We need a review of secondary sources on the theories that we are describing. As the problem is the overall structure and concept of the article, the template is correctly placed at the top of the page.  Cs32en  12:47, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

If you read through the article, you'll see that this is not a "collection of various viewpoints". Rather, it is a presentation of data collected by various researchers which elaborates the single, central issue: there is - sometimes extreme - disproportionality in the relationship between race and crime in the US. Simply stating that fact, in my opinion, is not enough. The reader deserves to know exactly what kind of research has been conducted to reach this conclusion, as well as what kinds of crimes are being considered. Now, neither side of the actual controversy doubts this disproportionality, as it is a statistical fact confirmed many times over. The controversy revolves around the reasons and contributing factors for this disproportionality. Unfortunately, this part of the article has not been sufficiently developed yet, hence my constant request for more editor participation in the building process. I've tried to add some counter-point regarding the issue of statistical data-gathering and presentation, though more could certainly be done. And by the way, almost everything that has been added so far is from secondary sources; I have not pulled up any numbers from primary sources, and nearly every piece of literature I've referred to is a review of such primary research.

Thus, I return again to my initial query: Can the disagreeing parties please indicate in which respect this article displays synthesis or non-neutrality? Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 13:27, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

"The single, central issue", as you put it, is not based on an independent secondary source. I don't know how such independent secondary sources report on the relevance of this issue, and your description may be correct. It needs to be based on appropriate sources, just as many other assumptions that apparently have be used, whether consciously or not, in the development of the structure and content of the article.  Cs32en  13:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

(ec)A 'presentation of data collected by various researchers which elaborates' a 'central issue' is, by definition, synthesis. It is not for us to take this data and amalgamate it into a central topic but to report an amalgamation done by others - that is better done in a peer-reviewed jounal (Synthesis does not only apply to single statements or conclusions.)--RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 13:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia's definition, synthesis is combining material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. This is not the case here, as all the sources I've quoted clearly and explicitly state the same thing: there is a disproportionality in the relationship between race and crime in the US. All I've done is allowed several experts to provide their reasoning as to how they reached this conclusion. I have not pulled data from sources which only tangentially treat race and crime, but limited myself to sources which are focused explicitly and exclusively to discussing exactly this topic. Thus, these claims of undue synthesis are entirely unjustified. If this is all you have, there is no reason to keep these tags on this article. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 14:09, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I was about to post a comment saying this, but it looks like you got to it first.

In any case, I’ve removed the synthesis tag. We can add it back if someone can come up with a specific example of a conclusion in the article that’s original synthesis, but until then there’s no justification to keep it there.

We should address the neutrality issue next. Has anyone explained what viewpoint on this topic they think the article unduly supports? --Captain Occam (talk) 14:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Tht isn't the only thing this article says, and it is based on far to many primary sources. Until there is further discussion the tags should remain. An RfC may be required after further improvements are made to the article, but lets continue to work on the article before we remove the tags. Verbal chat 14:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I really don't understand the complaint about primary sources. Nearly everything I've referred to is a secondary source which reviews primary research within the framework of discussing the disproportionality of race and crime in the US. Below, I present a short list of the scholars I've quoted and their works referred to:

• Helen T. Green (Ph.D.) and Shaun L. Gabbidon (professor of criminal justice at Penn State University) in: Encyclopedia of Race and Crime
• John Paul Wright (associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati) in: Inconvenient Truths: Science, Race and Crime
• Robert J. Sampson and William Julius Wilson (professors of sociology at Harvard University) in: Toward a Theory of Race, Crime and Urban Inequality
• Gary LaFree (professor of criminology and criminal justice at the Universities of Maryland, College Park and New Mexico) in: Race and Crime Trends in the United States, 1946-1990
• Anthony Walsh (professor of criminal justice at Boise State University) in: Race and Crime: A Biosocial Analysis
• Ineke Haen Marshall (professor of sociology and Northeastern University) in: Ethnicity and Race in the Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment
• Katheryn Russell-Brown (professor of law at the University of Florida) in: Underground Codes: Race, Crime, and Related Fires

Maybe this has been overlooked. If so, no problem. But if editors are going to continue to claim that, by quoting these scholars and these works on the issue of race and crime as stating that there is disproportionality, I've violated WP:Synthesis, then there is a great deal of explaining to do.

Without specific criticism of the sources or the text, it will be very difficult if not impossible to ever get these tags removed. Thus, I kindly request that specific complaints be voiced so that corrective efforts can be undertaken. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 14:58, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Verbal (and other editors making the synthesis accusation) need to be given a time limit for providing specific support for this claim. Otherwise this back-and-forth can go on indefinitely, and the tags can remain on the article indefinitely, without anyone having to provide any justification for them being there. Anyone familiar with this article's history will be aware of how much of a danger there is of this kind of situation.

I'd suggest no more than 24 hours. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:16, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

What we need are secondary, independent reliable sources, not more sources originating from proponents of one viewpoint or the other.  Cs32en  15:09, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

There must be a failure of communication here. Let me repeat: There is only one "viewpoint" in regards to the disproportionality in the relationship between race and crime, i.e. that is exists. Right, left, conservative, liberal, white, black, it doesn't matter: everyone agrees on this point. The debate is in regards to the causes. The literature I've listed above satisfies the requirements of being secondary, independent and entirely reliable, and there is no synthesis going on here. Please remove the synthesis tag. —Aryaman (talk) 15:22, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I can point out quite a few respected scientists that say race doesn't exist.... at least, not how it is treated here. I'm not interested in the politics, although that should probably be in the article - but we should try and keep it scholarly and not with use pundits as sources. I suggest there is no time limit. Verbal chat

If you'd like to contribute something meaningful in that vein, I have no problem with it, provided that it's presented in a way which helps to explain the controversy surrounding the interpretation of the disproportionality. In fact, I'll volunteer that associate professor John Wright, mentioned in the History section, discusses exactly that issue at length, and you're welcome to flesh out a corresponding section or paragraph. But I dare say I defy anyone to find a credible source which denies that there is a disproportionate number of blacks in prison when compared with the total US population, for example. It's not a "viewpoint", it's a fact, plain and simple. That's why I feel the synthesis tag is completely unjustified. Aryaman (talk) 15:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:NOTIMELIMIT refers to giving articles time to be improved before merging or deleting them, not to leaving a tag on an article for unlimited time while waiting for an en editor to justify it.

The problem here is that if we wait for Verbal to actually agree with us that the tag is unjustified before we remove it, the tag will probably stay on this article permanently. You've demonstrated satisfactorily that the article contains no synthesis, and Verbal has not provided any substantial counter-arguments; he just doesn't appear to want the tag removed. For this reason, waiting for him to agree with us before we remove it is not a reasonable course of action. Other than giving him a limited amount of time to justify its inclusion, the only reasonable course of action here would be to just revert his edit whenever he adds it back, until he provides a reason for it to be there. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:36, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree fundamentally. However, as the section on Analysis expands - I've started working on it now - the tag is bound to get slapped back up there, simply because this whole topic does not conform to a point of view which is - in the opinion of the scholars on both sides of the fence - simply outdated. The disproportionality is a fact, and ignoring it does not help anyone, least of all those who may be disadvantaged by the current state of affairs. Several of the quoted scholars make this very point, and I plan on writing up a section on it in the near future, granted someone else doesn't beat me to it. Wait, what am I saying? Of course I'll be the one to write it. :P Joking aside, let's just agree to leave the tags until the article nears a more satisfactory and stable state, and then we can get down to business on ferreting out exactly where people think the problems reside. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 18:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

All right, that sounds reasonable.

Incidentally, I think you can go ahead and add the graphs from the Department of Justice, and anywhere else that you were thinking of obtaining them from. Nobody seems to be disputing the point I made in response to your suggestion about that. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Is 'race and crime' a real debate/controversy?

(outdent) I'm a tad busy and it is not possible for me to give line by line examples of synthesis in the article but the lead itself is possibly synthesis. The lead starts with a statement that there is a controversy - specifically including the terms, political, social, and criminological - and then uses statistics and a statement from "Orlando Patterson" to sum up the dispute. The synthesis is the leap from the initial statement (which should have a precise reference of its own) from the statistics and the remarks of Mr. Patterson. It is not clear if the 'controversy' is in the minds of the article writers, or whether it actually exists and is documented in peer reviewed journals. I'll try to give more examples later this week. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 03:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for the specific criticism. Your concern has been addressed, and though it hasn't changed very much, I think the lead benefited from the attention. —Aryaman (talk) 08:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the reference. However, I was surprised to discover that the text in question, doubtless a seminal one, was not included in the libraries of the ivy league university where I work. Perhaps the book is published under a different title in the United States. It would be helpful if you could provide the US title, or, failing that, a mainstream reference for the controversy. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 19:21, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. :) I'm sorry to hear your library does not carry any of these works. Here's what I could find:

• The article from Sampson and Wilson of Harvard appears in several different volumes. I have been able to locate: (1) Race, Crime and Justice (2005; pp. 177-189); and (2) Crime and Inequality (1995; pp. 37-54). The last one, as far as I can tell from Sampson's bio on the Harvard site, was where it was originally published - but I could be wrong. It might well have appeared in a journal somewhere first. (Which would seem likely, as Crime and Inequality was published by Stanford University. Maybe you could check the AJS? Or does Harvard have a sociology journal?)
• The Lea and Young article appears in Criminology: A Reader (2002). I don't know where or when it was published first; 1993 was the earliest date I could find. There's also a review of it online from the British Journal of Criminology to be found with some searching.
• The Springer citation I found for the Myrdal article was "Springer, vol. 16(1), 1987, pp. 81-98, June". According to his Wikipedia page, he died in May of 1987, so either this is one of his very last pieces, it was salvaged from his Nachlass and published posthumously, or it was a reprint of some earlier article - which, I don't know.

The reason I referred to these three pieces is that all of them are respected scholars and all are explicit in their use of phrases such as "race-and-crime debate", "race and crime controversy", "the controversy surrounding race and crime", or something similar. Of course, they all have different views as to the causes, but they are unanimous and unambiguous as far as granting that a controversy exists. As far as I can tell, Sampson and Wilson are carrying on the work of the Chicago School. At least, they build upon it in the article referenced above. But, I have not yet found a reliable source explicitly stating that, so I have not mentioned it in the article. If you have anything on this, please do mention it.

I hope that helps. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 21:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Actually, I am referring to the Gabbidon and Green work that is used as a citation for the first sentence in the lead. The 'Encyclopedia of race and crime' reference. I notice that there are numerous other works by gabbidon at my institution, but not the one you include as a reference. Could you find some other reference? (Or, if the work has a different title in the United States, include that one.) Thanks. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 21:19, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Ah. Well, that citation is for their 2005 work, Race, Crime and Justice: A Reader (Routledge, 2005, ISBN 9-780-41594-707-7), not the Encyclopedia. The Encyclopedia was published in 2009, so your library probably has it on order, but it hasn't arrived yet. (Hasn't arrived at my university library yet, either. :) ) Maybe you can find the 2005 one? —Aryaman (talk) 21:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you cross check the reference? I don't see it in my library. I do see "Race and juvenile justice" and "African American classics in criminology and criminal justice" by these two authors, but not the book you mention. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 00:36, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's too bad. When he wrote his recommendation for the book, University of Wisconsin professor Marvin D. Free said: "Shaun Gabbidon and Helen Taylor Green have put together another important anthology for persons interested in the race/criminal justice nexus. Race, Crime, and Justice: A Reader builds on the expanding race and crime literature by including representative samples of older and more contemporary writings in this area. ... The editors are to be commended for their ability to bring together in one volume articles that help define the parameters for discussion regarding the role of race (and ethnicity) in criminal justice. I highly recommend this anthology to everyone interested in this area." If your criminology or sociology department doesn't ask your library to order this volume, perhaps you could suggest it.

Anyway, seeing as you do have access to African American Classics in Criminology and Criminal Justice, why not read through the Forward and Introduction to that work? They give the same general overview of the issue, starting from the end of the 19th century and progressing through to the present. —Aryaman (talk) 01:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Trust me. If the sociology department at my university doesn't carry the book, then, whatever Marvin Free says, the book is not significant! However, I'll look up the other reference(s), though, if this controversy is well documented, it should be easy to find mainstream, peer-reviewed references that support the statement.--RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 01:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

D'oh! Silly me. Here I was thinking you were actually trying to find the work in question, when you were really trying to imply that, because you can't find the book in your unnamed Ivy League library, it's not worth quoting. Now I get the sarcasm in your choice of the word "seminal". Oh, I am naive sometimes, lol. Well, good luck with your hunt. :) —Aryaman (talk) 01:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Apologies for the sarcasm (struck out now). It was unwarranted and unfair since it is (now, belatedly!) obvious to me that you're only trying to improve this article. However, the point still is that we need a good, solid, peer-reviewed reference for the first statement in the article, that there exists a race and crime controversy in the US (something that is more than just the existence of a nebulous stereotype). Perhaps one of the other references you've listed will do? --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 01:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Apology accepted. :)

We could refer to the Sampson and Wilson article ("...the discussion of race and crime is mired in an unproductive mix of controversy and silence."), though their article is quoted as stating such later on. We could refer to a hitherto uncited work by Colin Webster, Understanding Race and Crime (2007:6) or Michael Rowe's Policing, Race and Racism (2004:164), or several other works which refer to this topic with the phrase "the race and crime debate". It is also commonly referred to as the disproportionality debate, as in Gabbidon and Greene's book, as well as in Questioning Crime and Criminology by Peelo and Soothill (2005:85), and in Hudson's Race, Crime and Justice (1996:441), where she specifically discusses "the debate around the contemporary racial disproportionality in prisons". We could also cite Ben Bowling's article Disproportionality in the Sage Dictionary of Criminology (2006:139-141), which discusses the term as it is used in reference to "the 'race and crime debate'". (In fact, now that I've reviewed it, I think this article from Bowling needs to be worked in anyways. For example: "The question on which the 'race and crime' debate has turned is whether this disproportionality - found in the 'outcomes' of the criminal justice process - is the result of discrimination (at one or more points in the process), disproportionate involvement of black people in offending, or a combination of both." The Dictionary was created under the supervision of an international body of scholars from the US, the UK, Canada, and Holland. I don't think you can get more peer-reviewed than that.) How would you like to proceed here? —Aryaman (talk) 11:59, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

NPOV and SYNTH Dispute

As per WP:NPOVD and WP:TAGGING, the objecting editors need to give specific examples of violations that are actionable within the content policies in order to justify the presence of the tags. If no such examples are given, the tags can be removed. Also, if examples are given and subsequently resolved, the tags can be removed. If no concrete examples of NPOV and/or SYNTH violations can be given within a reasonable period of time (typically considered a few days), the tags will be removed from this article, and will be kept off the page unless objecting editors can point out where the article violates policy. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 08:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I suggest not removing the tags while a discussion is ongoing. Many editors have day jobs that prevent them from spending all their time on wikipedia and, since there is no particular hurry, and I see you are working on the article anyway, it would be better to avoid moves that are not in the spirit of consensus. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 19:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

As long as there is constructive, actionable criticism being made in regards to neutrality and undue synthesis, the tags can certainly remain in place - that's the purpose for which they were designed. But if that stops and does not resume for a reasonable period of time, then, even in the absence of an explicit "consensus", the tags come down. Otherwise, they would never come down. I'm all for constructive criticism, collegiality and cooperation. I'm not for letting tags which place the credibility of an article in doubt remain indefinitely simply because some editors "don't quite know why, but just don't like it". Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 21:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I certainly won't look at the article every other day to assess the most recent changes that have been made. The structure of the article, with its emphasis on statistics, is still not well sourced to reliable sources. The article should not just document a controversy, but also, and maybe primarily, the aspects on which there is broad agreement within the scientific community. Could anyone provide an appropriate source (possibly with a quote) that supports the assumption that the characterization of the "disproportional representation of racial monorities" as "well-documented" is of prime importance to the topic? What is the rationale for including the word "well-documented"? (We generally shouldn't have any information in the lead sections of WP articles that is not well-documented.) As a single issue, this example may be of minor importance, but there are a number of similar problems in the article.  Cs32en  21:54, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You don't have to look at the article every other day. All concerned editors have to do is make specific suggestions for change and assume in good faith that the editors working on the article will handle those concerns before removing the tags. If you come back a week or two later and either see that the problem has not been taken care of, or perhaps notice another problem, then the tags can go back up provided you or anyone else gives constructive, specific and actionable criticism.

I, too would like to see the Criticism and Analysis sections expand. I've been working on that lately, but without much assistance. In fact, I was willing to make the suggestion that the NPOV tag at the header be replaced with an tag requesting those two sections be expanded. But, something tells me that suggestion would not go over too well. ;)

As for these sources not being reliable: I have to object. This claim has come up time and again, and I still see no substance to it. I've tried listing the sources, I've tried listing their credentials, I've tried showing that the sources are secondary as opposed to primary, that the bulk of it has been peer-reviewed, etc., etc. All to no avail. I guess you can call anything "unreliable" these days, depending upon the outcome of the research.

Is the disproportional representation of racial minorities central to this topic? It's the whole reason for the controversy. If the number of African American, Hispanic American and Native Americans which are arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated - or, conversely, the victim of violent crime - every year were proportional to the general population, there wouldn't be scores of criminologists and sociologists sitting around scratching their beards and writing encyclopedias on the subject, would there? —Aryaman (talk) 22:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

"It's the whole reason for the controversy." Maybe. But the title of the article is not "Disproportionality controversy related to race and crime", but "Race and crime". The general problem with the sources in the article is not that they would be unreliable, it is mainly that they are being used for statements for which they are not appropriate (e.g. statements about a debate are being sourced to participants of the debate, and are thus not independent, or a source rather illustrates than supports are given statement). As for the tags, I don't think it's helpful to remove and insert them every few days. The problem with the structure is not an imbalance of length between sections, but a sequence that tends to give the message "Here are the facts, although some people criticize them." (a slight exaggeration, maybe, to make the point clear). A "bad faith" approach would have probably been to remove all questionable material in the article immediately, and leaving it in the article has only been justified by an underlying good faith assumption that the problems will eventually be fixed. I also note that the article has improved in the last few days, although not enough to remove the tags, in my opinion.  Cs32en  23:39, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

That's exactly why we're here: to improve this article. In my opinion, it's headed in the right direction, and has, so far, made a fair presentation. I am ready to grant that the Criticism and Analysis sections leave much to be desired in the way of proper coverage. But, and this is not a rhetorical question, how do you suggest improvements be made to the current content? If you think there are problems with the outline, then please propose an alternative. If you think the Disproportionality section needs some kind of caveat, please propose one. I'm entirely willing to assume good faith here. But from what you've said, you're approaching this article with that attitude that everything it contains is questionable, despite my best efforts to show you that this is a notable topic, that there is a substantial body of literature regarding it, and that I'm trying to present conflicting views in a fair manner. At some point, you will have to admit that Disproportionality is accepted as a fact on both sides of the race and crime issue, and that it deserves to be covered as part of this article. If you can't accept that, then you really have nothing positive to contribute to the article at all, because you're doubting the foundation upon which not only this article, but upon which reams of scholarly literature is based. Dismissing it as fringe or non-independent is not an option - not on the point of Disproportionality. Let's please get over that already established issue and focus on building a fair presentation of the actual controversy. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 00:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Racism in the US

Should there be a section on the relationship between the law and race in the US? SEgregation laws are to do with race, and are now near universally condemned as racist, and the fact that racism is a crime (that involves race, obviously). Verbal chat 14:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

It could be useful to include a link to Race in the United States in the header. But as for the specific contributions you mention, I think Racism in the United States and several other articles already have very good coverage of segregation laws, etc. But, if you have something very specific and relevant in mind, please do mention it. Aryaman (talk) 15:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps a summary section with links? Better than just having them as "see also"s. Verbal chat 15:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

obviously the explanation of the "liberal" position, which posits that "black crime" is a direct consequence of racism, will significanlty involve the topic of racism in the United States. The trick will be, however, to prevent this from becoming a general discussion of racism. To this end, we should exclusively allow material directly pertaining to the race and crime debate. More general background is given at racism in the United States, which can be linked (it's a wiki). It should also be made clear that positive discrimination is also a form of racism, and the distinction of black delinquents as victims vs. white delinquents as having only themselves to blame which will follow from this line of argument is itself racial discrimination. --dab (𒁳) 16:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Cf. and Cf. also

Regardless what the article on cf. says currently, I and everyone I know uses "Cf." or "Cf. also" to mean "compare", i.e. "see these sources for similar or related information on this topic". Hence the recent revert of Cs32en. If there is a MOS on this, I'll gladly go through the article and change whatever needs changing. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 23:31, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The source it simply a contribution to the debate, it's not a secondary source about the debate. Thus, it's not appropriate as a source supporting or illustrating a general statement on the debate, and especially, it's not a suitable source for the lead section.  Cs32en  23:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I listed is precisely because it is an example of the debate. But, seeing as the MOS is apparently unaware of the usage of the abbreviation "cf.", I won't revert if you really want to remove the source. But please leave it in the References section for now, as I'm weighing whether or not to include some of their material on interracial crime. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 00:05, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The source is probably fine for a "Further reading" section, so it does no harm if left in the References section. As far as I see at the moment, the only reason for removal would emerge if a "Further reading" section becomes too long and thus would need to be shortened. My concerns here are not about the source itself, but its usage.  Cs32en  00:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I have asked for help with the sources-related issues here at the Reliable sources noticeboard.  Cs32en  00:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

It was with an ibid., Ibid.s are not good for a variety of reasons. So when removing the Ibid. you get free academic English. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. And thanks for pointing out the weaknesses in the old bibliography. Hopefully the problems have been corrected. —Aryaman (talk) 12:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

This is reliable sources notice board calling, we never did find out what sources are of questionable reliability, or what the context was, we got given a pointer to the article and a vague "sort it out". Fifelfoo (talk) 12:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem, as I see it, is not that the sources (or most of them) could not be used at all (or that they would be unreliable), but that some of the sources are being used to support information for which they are not appropriate. Some choices with regard to the structure of the article also do not seem to be based on appropriate sources.  Cs32en  12:34, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are referring to "statements about a debate are being sourced to participants of the debate, and are thus not independent" as you mentioned above, please allow me to clarify. The existence of the controversy regarding disproportionality is being sourced to independent sources (I just added a reference to Bowling (2006:140), who is entirely uninvolved in the debate as his comments were made in an entry to a peer-reviewed dictionary of criminology). If you view the use of Sampson and Wilson in this regard as unacceptable, I would contest, seeing as their comments are, in themselves, not the contentious part of their article, but I would not revert if it were to be removed. However, I would like to note that the statement in the lead is not being sourced to them directly, but that they are being cited as giving additional or corroborative information on the same issue. (Alas, I don't understand how we are to indicate this kind of thing without "See also", as is so very common in academic literature.)

However, if you mean to say that any of the sources used in the remaining sections are being misused, i.e. that they are being made to say things they do not explicitly state, or that they are not secondary, or that they are not reliable, or that they are being quoted out of context, or that they do not treat this topic specifically, then I have to object and request that you start giving specific examples to back up these claims. Simply saying "some" is not specific enough to be actionable for other editors. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 13:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think anyone doubts the existence of the controvery regarding the disproportionality. Bowling seems to talk about the British situation, and there is no definite statement that the disproportionality controversy would be the central issue. In Gabbidon and Green, the topic of disproportionality is one of several chapters. The authors do not only mention disproportionality, but also "Race, crime, and communities" as an important issue. We cannot source information selectively when dealing with the essential parts and aspects of the article (lead section, overall structure).  Cs32en  13:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's the passage from Bowling: "The question on which the 'race and crime' debate has turned is whether this disproportionality - found in the 'outcomes' of the criminal justice process - is the result of discrimination (at one or more points in the process), disproportionate involvement of black people in offending, or a combination of both."

I would paraphrase this as "Disproportionality is the central issue upon which the debate regarding race and crime is based", and I don't see anything wrong with that. If you do, please point it out. The Dictionary was an international publication, which is why Bowling refers to UK as well as US scholars (Russell and Tonry; check his bibliography). That we have dissected this issue to "Race and crime in the United States" is a result of editors displaying hostility towards discussing the issue under "Race and crime". Truth be told, there are studies conducted on this in the UK and elsewhere, as disproportionality is an international phenomenon. But I'm not about to suggest this article be expanded to simply "Race and crime".

Yes, communities are an important aspect in a good deal of the literature, especially in the work of the Chicago School and of Sampson and Wilson. If you'd like to write something on them, please do.

The quote from Bowling, which can be corroborated by specific cases of usage in numerous other sources (which are being rejected on entirely dubious grounds), is exactly what the lead requires. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 14:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Bowling is not talking about "Race and crime" in general, but about the "Race and crime" topic as an example of the "disproportionality" issue. Therefore, he is effectively stating that the "race and crime" debate, as far as it is concerned with disproportionality, is turning on the question whether "this disproportionality ... is the result of discriminiation ..., disproportionate involvement ...". It's not a good choice to use a source that exclusively deals with a specific topic to verify the importance of this topic in relation to others.  Cs32en  14:18, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Bowling's contribution, titled "Disproportionality", was made to a dictionary of criminology. Thus, we can establish that he's discussing disproportionality as it is used in criminology. And, if we read the entry, we learn that "disproportionality" in the context of criminology refers to racial disproportionality in (1) punishment, (2) the use of police powers, (3) imprisonment, (4) victimization and offending, and (5) employment in the criminal justice professions. Cs32en, I really don't see the problem here. Please, tell me what it is you're driving at. Do you want the statement "Since the 1980's, the debate has centered around the causes of and contributing factors to the well-documented disproportional representation of racial minorities (particularly African Americans, hence so-called "black crime") at all stages of the criminal justice system, including arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations" removed on the grounds that it is unsourced? Even if, by some weird miracle of Wikipedia policy which defeats common sense, we reject Bowling, what about Gabbidon and Greene? They write: "As noted in the first section [of this book], race and crime has been a topic of interest for more than a century. For much of that period, there has been discussion as to what theories best explain offending among ethnic/racial groups. ... During the 1980's and 1990's, scholars began to openly debate whether the over-representation (also referred to as disproportionality) of racial minorities (particularly African Americans), was the product of racial discrimination or other factors." The reference in the lead is referring to this passage and the remainder of that discussion. Bowling and Gabbidon and Greene are saying exactly the same thing. Thus, I consider the statement properly sourced. —Aryaman (talk) 14:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

None of these sources needs to be removed. But they are insufficient for one assumption that is underlying the current structure of the article and the wording of the lead section, i.e. that the "disproportionality debate" would be the central issue within the scope of the article's subject.  Cs32en  15:12, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

OK. Let me see if I understand what you're saying. Your main concern is that "race and crime in the US" could refer to more than the academic and popular debate regarding the disproportionality in the representation of racial minorities in the US criminal justice system. I can't say that I see exactly what else you would like to include under that heading which can be reliably sourced, but I also can't say I reject the suggestion off-hand without further information. Be that what it may, we cannot take the content which you would like to see included in this article into consideration until you actually suggest it. If you can find reliable sources discussing the topic of "race and crime in the US" which do not refer to the disproportionality debate, you are more than welcome to bring them up. Perhaps the article could benefit from it, I don't know. But until you do that, I find there to be no justification for your complaints and your insistence on the NPOV and SYNTH tags. If you're arguing the article is misrepresenting the issue by focusing on the disproportionality debate, then even in the face of overwhelming good faith, you need to give us some kind of substantiation for your position so that we can act upon it. If this is your position, then I apologize for not recognizing it earlier. But you need to back that up, because as far as the present sources are concerned, "race and crime in the US" refers directly to the debate regarding disproportionality and the theories which have been proposed in the attempt to explain it. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 15:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

← One possible aspect would be "Race, crime, and communities", per Gabbidon and Green, although more sources are certainly needed. Let me clarify that I'm not participating in the editing process here as a content-oriented, but as a policy-oriented editor. I wouldn't participate in the debate here if there were not, in my view, important policy issues with this article that need to be addressed. Therefore, I'm not going to do a survey of the sources, and I will probably not make any major suggestions for the content.  Cs32en  15:38, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

OK. That's something which could be worked on. As mentioned, discussion of communities as an important factor also figures into the debate. But - and I'm not disregarding or discrediting your suggestion here - the discussion of communities is - in my reading, at least - part of the analysis made by some scholars as to the contributing factors, particularly those of the Chicago School. Thus, if communities are to be addressed, and they should be, then they should be brought up under that heading. The article by Sampson and Wilson discusses this at length, and builds upon the Chicago School research of the 40s and 50s. Perhaps something valuable can be found there.

If you feel there are other important policy issues which need to be discussed, then please start those discussions with some actionable criticism so that content-oriented editors can get to work on improving the article.

With all that being said, would you object to replacing the SYNTH tag with a cleanup tag such as {{Expand}} under the Criticism and/or Analysis section? In my opinion, that is the message we need to send to other interested editors, not that this article is an example of original research, which is what the SNYTH tag implies (i.e. very few editors want to contribute to an article which might end up getting deleted). I have no objection to the neutrality tag remaining for the time being, as you've brought up what could be a valid point which requires further examination. If you would object, then please mention what other grounds you have for the SYNTH tag remaining in place. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

At this point, I would prefer to keep the synth tag on. I think you're doing a good job with the article, but there are synthesis issues which need to be resolved. As I've said before, most of the article still reads like a "he said, she said" piece, which is usually a strong symptom of synthesis. Additionally, though done with the right intentions, the addition of Asian Americans and Native Americans is a problem. The premise of the article is that the disproportional amount of crime ascribed to African Americans is the underlying cause of the controversy. The article then should, and does to some extent, discuss theories for why this is the case. These theories may be minority or fringe in nature but I'm willing to accept that they can be presented in a non-OR way. The inclusion of Asian Americans and Native Americans takes away from this core of what the article is supposed to be about and, in my opinion, veers into the territory of original research. Focus the article around the core and I'm willing to see the synth tag go. We can then address the other issues of neutrality, fringe, and undue. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 16:25, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

We could remove all the "according to professors X. and Y.", but then I think the big complaint will be that we're presenting findings as though they are incontrovertible fact, which should be avoided if and when possible. Also, I think it's good to provide this information in its context, and as it stands now, readers can click through to read more about the researchers and scholars themselves, as most of them are notable enough to have their own pages on Wikipedia.

The premise of the literature, as well as this article, is that disproportionality is seen in all minorites, not just the African American. The reason African Americans have been mentioned explicitly in the lead is because they are mentioned explicitly and in the same manner in the sources (see the quotes above from Bowling and Gabbidon and Greene). While most of the literature written by African American scholars (don't quote me on that, that's just my experience) tends to focus on the work concerning blacks, the other literature discusses exactly these four, oftentimes in the same article. For example, LaFree, Walsh and Marshall all discuss these minorities together, and do not focus solely upon African Americans. However, they all point out that blacks represent the group with the greatest degree of disproportionality, that they end up suffering the most, and that they stand to gain more than any other group from a fair and candid discussion of the issue.

If you think the lead as it is currently worded does not make this clear, or that perhaps something should be done to mention Latino Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans in the lead, please do say so. But I can assure you, the fact that the article discusses findings regarding Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans is not the product of any original research on my part, but taken directly from the same sources which discuss disproportionality in relation to the African American population. If that is your primary concern regarding synthesis, we can drop the tags. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 16:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess I wasn't clear above. I'm ok with the synth tag going even with the "he said, she said" statements. We can address them later. About the Native and Asian Americans. Are you saying that the (a) Native Americans and Asian Americans have a significantly higher crime rate than white Americans AND that the 'Race and crime' literature discusses this as a controversy AND that the discussion centers around the same root-causes as they do for African Americans. If yes, you need to restate the lead so that it says something like "Race and crime in the United States refers to race-based theories that explain the disproportionately higher rate of crime amongst the non-white populations of the United States" or something along those lines (along with appropriate references). --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 17:06, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

No, I'm reporting that the research states that Asian Americans have a crime rate which is disproportionately lower than should be expected (which still qualifies for inclusion in this article) and that Native Americans display a similar disproportionality in offenses as well as a disproportionality in regards to violent crime victimization. There is literature which compares and contrasts the situation regarding African and Asian Americans, theorizing, for example, that this inverse relationship may have to do with Asians having stronger and more intact social networks in their communities, even than whites, let alone blacks, and that this may account for the Asians disproportionality. But that is yet to be added to the article. And, unfortunately, I have not been able to find much research on Native Americans. Anyway, I'm saying that this is not original research, and it's not being drawn from tangentially related sources. It's all coming from the same group of experts and it's all on-topic.

As for your suggestion regarding the lead, it currently reads "Since the 1980's, the debate has centered around the causes of and contributing factors to the well-documented disproportional representation of racial minorities (particularly African Americans, hence so-called "black crime") at all stages of the criminal justice system, including arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations." We could change "racial minorities" to "non-white", but that's not to be found in the literature. Instead, the literature discusses the groups mentioned in the article separately, summing them up as "minorities", hence the labelling in the article. If this is your reason for wanting the synth tag on the article, you needn't worry. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 17:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll get back to the lead in a second but I'm still not convinced about Asian and Native Americans. From what you say above, there is no controversy about Asian Americans and crime (and there seems to be little research about native americans). Adding these to the article seems to me to be an attempt to provide 'balance' that neither fits with the topic nor is borne out by the literature. Back to the lead. The 'well-documented disproportional representation' seems to apply only to African Americans (Native Americans, it would appear, have a higher crime rate but are not the focus of Race and Crime studies). Then why throw in stuff about other minorities? --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 17:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The problems cannot be simply addressed by expanding the article. Some existing content of the article must actually be changed to fix them. The article has issues related to sources, and very likely issues related to neutrality (although we'd need a more thorough research on the sources to ascertain whether this is the case). And we very likely need a qualitative change in the structure of the article, not just a quantitative rebalancing of the sections.

If the tag could be seen as a warning that the article would be deleted soon (which it is not intended to be), then maybe splitting the template into two or three templates would alleviate these concerns. The article has been improved, but there are still significant problems, so the template (or a close substitute) should remain at the top of the page.  Cs32en  17:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm just curious if anyone realizes how offensive a statement such as "although we'd need a more thorough research on the sources to ascertain whether this is the case" is to a good-faith editor such as myself. Who, exactly, is the "we" in this expression? Is it not obvious that it's based upon the assumption that I do not belong to that "we"? As though I am some ideological enemy who needs to be second-guessed at every turn? I've read the literature I've sourced. The other editors here have not. I've reported upon my findings in what I consider to be a fair and honest manner. The other editors here have not. If they had, we could get down to brass tacks on improving this article instead of waffling about "some content" with the all-nefarious "some issues". And yet there is the incessant insinuation that I've pulled this topic out of thin air, and that it is my ardent desire to manipulate the literature. If I sound irritated, it's because I am. If anyone takes this as a personal attack, I apologize in advance. This is simply me not getting along with the culture of Wikipedia and the fact that anyone regardless of education, interest, or common sense can impede the efforts of anyone else. I'll stay off the talkpage, and focus my efforts on building the article. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 18:23, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Like it or not, you've become the lead author of this article and you're going to have to accept the flak when it comes to quality issues, whether they be real or perceived. Think of it as a peer review, though this is a lot politer than some of the peer reviews I've seen outside wikipedia. In a sense, the flak you're getting is a compliment to your work on the article (a couple of days ago, we (bad-faith editors!) were all arguing for merging/stubbing the article while now we're discussing the finer points of sources, what should be included, and how things should be said!) and that is mostly, if not all, your work. You shouldn't take comments personally but I'll try to phrase my comments differently. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 18:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

By "we", I was referring to the community of editors at Wikipedia, this includes you and myself. I recognize that you have improved the article with numerous substantial edits in the last fews days (although I would have preferred to discuss the structure of the article at the talk page as a first step). To say in the lead that a certain aspect of a given article's subject is the central issue is quite a strong statement, which means that we need high-quality sources for it (secondary, independent, peer-reviewed and as general in scope as possible), preferably multiple such sources.

When I was looking at the sources, I saw that the sources for the second sentence of the article were insufficient (one does contain other statements that effectively qualify the statement that was being used, the other is too specific to make the general statement). So, instead of looking at the other sources, I started a discussion on the first source that I considered insufficient. Now, if you put yourself in my place, and you see that out of the three sources that you look at, two have quality issues, then you are going to assume that there will be some problems with some of the other sources, too. (Especially if the article was both poorly sourced and obviously biased just a few days ago. Now there might be still significant bias - with regard to topics, no necessarily positions - but it's not so clear-cut and must be determined by looking at the sources.) If one aspect of a topic is really central, then it should be easy to find an appropriate source for this statement.

So it is much better to tackle the problems one by one, and to remove the tag eventually, after this work has been completed. Maybe I'm sounding a bit harsh sometimes, I'll try to reduce that. Well, I've seen editing environments on Wikipedia where the kind of debate that we are having here would be considered exceptionally polite and friendly.  Cs32en  19:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Taking a short break from editing this article has helped my mood. I apologize for the rather emotional outbreak. I would like to continue our efforts to improve this article. To this end, I am creating a new section below. Please respond. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 16:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Outdated rape statistics

The statistics for interracial rape in this article, which are from 1994, appear to be out of date. As was pointed out earlier on this page, data from over a decade ago can be used when it doesn’t contain any significant difference from the current statistics, but in this case it does. The statistics on interracial rape and sexual assault from 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, are here. Table 42 shows the statistics on rape and sexual assault committed against black victims—for rape and sexual assault committed against black victims in 2006, the attacker was white 0.0% of the time. According to the footnote for that section, this means that in 2006 there were fewer than 10 confirmed cases of rape committed by a white attacker against a black victim.

Citing the data from 1994, our article currently lists 5,400 cases of black women being raped by white men in a year. I think this part of the article needs to be changed, because a decrease from 5,400 reported offenses per year to less than 10 is significant enough that our preference for using secondary sources shouldn’t outweigh the difference in data.

Is this a situation where primary data should be used, as suggested by Cs32en in the earlier part of the discussion page that I linked to? I can find a few articles that discuss the current data, such as this and this (these discuss the data from 2005, but the numbers for that year are more or less the same.) But I’m guessing that these two articles probably wouldn’t be considered reliable sources. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

what do you mean, outdated? this isn't a newsflash on the latest statistics on race and crime, it is an encyclopedia article, its scope extending to the full history of the US, 1776 to present. If there was a notable development in the 1990s, we will cover it, explicitly as a discussion of the 1990s. If there are developments from 1994 to 2008, we can also cover these, under "2000s". --dab (𒁳) 10:09, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

What you're suggesting, involving information from the current decade and from the previous decade being listed separately, would be fine. The problem with the way this is currently presented is that the article has only one section on interracial crime, citing the data from 1994, and the more recent data isn't mentioned anywhere. This implies that the 1994 data is still current, although it isn't.

If the data from 1994 is being presented as part of a historical discussion, I think that should be made clear, and the current data should be included somewhere also. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

All right, I've edited the article to incorporate this more recent data. Feel free to use a different source for this information if you can find a better one, but I think the article needs to mention how these statistics have changed since 1994. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality and the Outline

One issue we've been able to identify as a source of concern for the participating editors is the current outline and/or order of presentation made in this article as possibly providing the pertinent information in a misleading way.

In order to help remedy this situation, I decided to make a brief and informal survey of universities currently offering courses on the issue of race and crime in one form or another. Using the information available on the internet I was able to identify the following universities and the courses they offer (course titles are in parenthesis):

• Stanford University (Race and Crime in America)
• Morehead State University (Race, Class, Gender, and Crime)
• Penn State University (Race, Crime and Justice)
• University of South Carolina (Race, Crime, and Criminal Justice)
• University of Massachusetts (Race, Class, Crime)
• Loyola University Department of Criminal Justice (Crime and Racial Ethnic Minorities)
• University of Wisconsin (Race, Crime and Law)
• University of Central Florida Criminal Justice Department (Race, Crime and Justice)
• Florida State University College of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Race, Crime and Inequality)
• Northeastern University College of Criminal Justice (Race, Crime and Justice)
• Rutgers School of Criminal Justice (Race and Crime)
• University of Sydney (Gender, Race and Crime)
• University of Greenwich (Gender, Race and Crime)

(Note: Reviewing this list, it may be justified to open a discussion as to whether or not this article should include the concept of "justice" explicitly in the title, e.g. "Race, crime and justice in the United States".)

Though not all university course descriptions offered a list of required reading for the above listed course, some do. Of those that do, two texts stand out as appearing most frequently as required reading in university courses on race and crime. These are (1) Race and Crime by Gabbidon and Greene (2005); and (2) The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America by Walker, Spohn and DeLone (2007).

By examining the structure and presentation of these texts, we may hope to arrive at what may be considered a neutral outline for our article.

The first text, Race and Crime (2005), has the following table of contents (a detailed list of contents from chapters 1-3 appears below; chapters 4-8 appear as chapter headings only; the SAGE online study guide to Race and Crime, which includes many relevant journal articles on the subject, can be found here.):

1. Overview of Race and Crime

• Historical Antecedent of Race and Crime in America

• Native Americans
• African Americans
• White Ethnics
• Latino Americans
• Asian Americans

• Conclusion

2. Extent of Crime

• History of Crime Statistics in the United States
• The Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR)
• Victimization Surveys
• Limitations of Arrest and Victimization Data
• Definitions of Racial Categories
• Variations in Reporting and Recording
• Utilization of Population, Crime, Arrests, and Victimization Estimates
• Arrest Trends
• Victimization Trends
• Hate Crime Trends
• Conclusion

3. Theoretical Perspectives on Race and Crime

• What is Theory?
• Biology, Race and Crime
• Intelligence, Race and Crime
• r/K Life History Theory
• Sociological Explanations
• Social Disorganization
• Culture Conflict Theory
• Strain/Anomie Theory
• Subcultual Theory
• The Subculture of Violence Theory
• The Code of the Streets
• Conflict Theory
• The Colonial Model
• Integrated and Nontraditional Theories on Race and Crime
• Conclusion

4. Policing

5. Courts

6. Sentencing

7. Corrections

8. Juvenile Justice

As may be seen from a comparison of this list and the table of contents for our current article, they provide much of the same information, and even present them in roughly the same order.

The second text, The Color of Justice (2007), which is decidedly more opinionated than the work of Gabbidon and Greene, is more a collection of essays which examine particular areas of interest related to race and crime than a textbook on the subject, as it advances original theories as to the causes of disproportionality. (A scholarly review of this text (published in Crime, Law and Social Change Volume 28, Number 2, September, 1997, pp. 183-184) can be read here.) Please note that the volume reviews disproportionality in relation to the following minorities: African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans. It has the following table of contents:

1. Race, Ethnicity, and Crime: The Present Crisis.
2. Victims and Offenders: Myths and Realities About Crime.
3. Race, Ethnicity, Social Structure, and Crime.
4. Justice on the Street? The Police and Minorities.
5. The Courts: A Quest for Justice During the Pre-Trial Process.
6. Justice on the Bench? Trial and Adjudication in Adult and Juvenile Court.
7. Race and Sentencing: In Search of Fairness and Justice.
8. The Color of Death: Race and the Death Penalty.
9. Corrections: A Picture in Black and White.
10. Minority Youth and the Criminal Justice System.
11. The Color of Justice.

As I noted above, I am presenting this information in the attempt to help overcome outstanding concerns regarding the neutrality of the current article. All other editors involved in the discussion are invited to comment and respond with suggestions for improvement if they are found to be necessary. Thanks --Aryaman (talk) 16:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Since nobody here has argued that the article still needs the NPOV and Synthesis tags, I think they can be removed. However, I would recommend still labeling the "Theories of causation" section as having a possible WP:UNDUE problem. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:08, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I just removed the tags and added one to the Theories section regarding WP:UNDUE. Thanks for all the help, Captain Occam! :) --Aryaman (talk) 22:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Colin Ferguson?

They cite Colin Ferguson’s 1993 rampage in a Long Island commuter train, which was not classified as a hate crime despite its clear racial motivation: “Police recovered from Ferguson’s pocket a handwritten note titled, ‘Reasons for This.’ It expressed hatred towards whites, Asians, and ‘Uncle Tom blacks,’ and stated that Nassau County, Long Island was chosen as ‘the venue’ because of its predominantly white population.”

Is this example really necessary? Seeing as we do not discuss the details of particular cases in relation to any other aspect of this article, I think letting this example remain is unjustified. I will therefore remove it. If you disagree, please give reasons for its inclusion below. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 23:54, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Totally gratuitous. I agree that we should get rid of it. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 02:13, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I have a copy of Jacobs and Potter’s book now, so I'm able to see how they structure their point about this. (This is also a response to RegentsPark’s concerns here.)

Basically, the authors of this book examine a large number of crimes where the “hate crime” label could have potentially applied, including ones where the racial motivation was obvious (Colin Ferguson’s rampage was one example) and ones where it was less so (such as church burnings). They then cite various sources explaining how it was determined for each of these whether it was or wasn’t a hate crime, in order to gather a general understanding of what criteria are used to determine this. Comparing the criteria used for black-on-white crimes to those for white-on-black crimes, they determine that these criteria are unequal.

I can edit the article to explain this in more detail if people like, but I think it might be acceptable for the article to just describe the authors’ conclusion without going into detail about the reasoning behind it, the way it currently does. I’d appreciate knowing other people’s opinions about this. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:13, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't find the explanation necessary. I have no reason to doubt Jacob and Potter's findings (I generally assume good faith when it comes to folks with Ph.D.s), and as long as it is attributed to them as their finding, I don't think we need to explain it any further to the reader. If anything is to be done, I would change "even when the motives for the crime are the same" to something possibly less contentious by providing some context. For example, how exactly were they determining motives? Do the crime reports list the same motive? If so, then change it to something like "even when the crimes in question are reported to have the same motive". I don't have their book, so you will be the best judge of how to qualify that. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 22:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Rushton and Jensen

I think this section of the article is conflating two things which aren’t the same. The r/K selection theory about race and crime was proposed by J. P. Rushton, and is described in further detail by the article about his book Race, Evolution, and Behavior. The Race and crime article also talks about Arthur Jensen’s views on race and crime in its r/K section, but I don’t think Jensen has specifically expressed support for Rushton’s r/K selection idea. This is why I had both Jensen and Rushton listed under “biological explanations”—Jensen’s ideas about this are biological, but they aren’t r/K.

Arthur Jensen talks about his own views on this in pages 569-572 of his book The g Factor. Regardless of race, people with IQs between 70 and 90 have higher crime rates than people with IQs either higher or lower than this range, with the peak range falling between 80 and 90. As is pointed out in the Race and intelligence article, the average IQ for blacks in the United States is around 85, and Jensen believes genetics to play a large part in causing the difference between this and the white average of 100. Jensen’s ideas would probably fall under the category of “Intelligence, Race and Crime” in the list of theoretical perspectives that VA summarized from Gabbidon and Greene’s book. Their book lists this perspective as a separate one from the r/K perspective, so I don’t think our article should equate the two.

What I would suggest doing is creating a new section under “analyses” about Jensen’s intelligence-based views. I can do that myself, if the other editors here don’t have a problem with it. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with that at all. As you can probably tell, my approach has been to present individual theories (I was using the list of theories presented in the Encyclopedia as a guide) in a descending order of importance - being based simply on the amount of literature I've seen on them. That could change with additional research, I suppose. But at this point it seems unlikely to change all that much. If you can fit in the information you'd like to add with those few guidelines in mind, you are more than welcome to do so. :) Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 02:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

If I understand this correctly, you intend connecting results from IQ studies with a study that shows the relationship between IQ and crime. If that is the case, then that would be original research. BTW, I could not find a reference to the average IQ of African Americans being 85 in the article you mention. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 03:16, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

No, this isn't original research. In the part of The g Factor that I cited, Jensen specifically states that the relationship between race and IQ, and between IQ and criminality, contributes to the racial disparity in crime rates:

The above observations apply to the population in general and to different racial and ethnic groups. Group differences in crime rates are attributed, at least in part, to the proportion of each group with IQs in the range of maximum risk for antisocial behavior. Groups with a mean above 100, therefore, show lower crime rates than groups with a mean below 100. (Page 571)

The Race and intelligence article states here that the IQ gap between blacks and whites in the United States is 17 points, and in the “worldwide” section below it says that the average IQ for people of European ancestry is 99. The most commonly given numbers are 100 and 85. This chart is probably the simplest demonstration of the IQ difference. The Race and intelligence article isn’t very well organized, although having tried to improve it, I can say that this isn’t something that can be done easily.

In any case, if you need a source for what the black average IQ is, I can provide one pretty easily. There isn’t much dispute about this; the only significant dispute among psychologists is whether the difference between this and the white average is due to genetic or environmental factors. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

All right, I've edited the article to distinguish between Jensen’s theory (IQ theory) and Rushton’s r/K theory.

VA, I think some of the interpretations listed in the “analyses” section might be being given undue weight. For example, the last two sentences of the section on conflict theory state, “Newer studies indicate that, while there may have been real sentencing differences related to non-legal characteristics in the 1960's, sentencing discrimination as described in conflict theory no longer exists. Further research has also shown there to be no significant correlation between race, income level and crime seriousness as predicted by conflict theory.” This implies that conflict theory is no longer believed by a majority of researchers on this topic, but conflict theory is still described in greater length than any of the other theories listed there.

I don’t own a copy of Gabbidon and Greene’s book (and you apparently do), so I can’t easily find out which of these theories are held by the greatest proportion of researchers. But whatever the proportions are, the way they’re weighted in the article here should reflect that, rather than just the quantity of literature that exists about them, much of which might be from times when certain theories were more popular than they currently are. I can provide more information about Jensen’s IQ theory, if it would be appropriate to discuss that one in greater depth. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this section has not fully matured and could still use work. Gabbidon and Greene's Encyclopedia (I don't own it, but it recently arrived in the reference section of my library, meaning I can look at it, make some photocopies, but not check it out) lists the following theories (in alphabetical order):

• Biological Theories
• Conflict Theory
• Critical Race Theory
• Culture Conflict Theory
• Focal Concerns Theory
• Inequality Theory
• Labeling Theory
• r/K Theory
• Social Control Theory
• Social Disorganization Theory
• Strain Theory
• Subculture of Violence Theory

As you can tell, most but not all of these are at least mentioned in our article. I'm still researching when I have time, so new sections might pop up soon (I just added Subculture of Violence Theory yesterday, for example).

The organization is still somewhat up in the air. At one point, I thought about organizing the theories in the article according to their historical development, i.e. to show how each theory developed through the critique of those theories which preceded them. But I haven't collected enough information to allow for such a presentation yet. The current order is based only on my impression of how much literature is found on each theory. (Of course, one would expect older theories to have more literature on them, so either way, the order is going to have a strong historical/chronological slant to it.)

As for the treatment of the more popular theories, I try to have one sentence/paragraph explaining the general theory, one sentence/paragraph explaining its specific position on race and crime, and one sentence/paragraph explaining criticism which it has met. I have not come across what could be considered "the" mainstream view on this, i.e. one view which could be said to be held by a majority of experts. Rather, it really does seem to be a matter of who you read and what your political/social/philosophical convictions are. Therefore I have attempted to present each view fairly, but without holding back on the criticism.

This section of the article could certainly use more attention. I would be grateful to anyone who would be willing to take the time and read up on these theories so we would have at least two sets of eyes and two brains trying to assimilate and present the pile of literature available on these theories. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 11:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I was actually referring to Gabbidon and Greene’s 2005 book Race and Crime, which you provided an outline of here. Since this is apparently the book used by most courses on this topic, it seems like it would be the best reference for how the sections of the article should be weighted.

I can purchase that book sometime soon if you want me to, but as with the Jacobs and Potter book, it’ll take a while to get here, and I won’t be able to help you with this particular aspect of the article until it does.

I see from your revision comments that you think we ought to include some criticism of Jensen’s IQ theory. However, the only reliable source I have on hand about this theory is Jensen’s own book, so criticism from a reliable source isn’t something I can find easily. Do you know if Race and Crime talks about criticism of this theory in its chapter “Intelligence, Race and Crime”? I’m assuming that chapter is discussing the same theory that Jensen talks about in The g Factor. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:12, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I’ve just found a copy of Gabbidon and Greene’s Race and Crime available online, and now that I’m looking at their explanation of the criticism of Jensen’s theory, I don’t think it’s a good source to use for this. Their explanation of this is on page 66. There are a few reasons why I don’t think this would be a good source to use:

1: Most of the criticism listed there isn’t criticism of the relationship between race and intelligence being used as an explanation for the crime disparity, but is just criticism of the relationship between race and intelligence in general. Race and intelligence already covers this topic, but I don’t think it’s what we’re looking for here.

2: Several of the criticisms listed there are simply about the reliability of IQ tests. This is something I’ve researched in depth, and the claim that IQ tests are unreliable or biased is rejected almost universally by psychologists who are trained in this area. For example, the American Psychological Agency published a report in 1995 rejecting this idea, and a similar report was published in the Journal Intelligence in 1997 with the signatures of 52 experts in this area. Similar to the creation/evolution controversy (approximately 50% of Americans are creationists), this is an area where the scientific consensus is far more unambiguous than popular opinion would suggest. It’s unfortunate that Gabbidon and Greene weren’t aware of this.

The one criticism listed there about which there is genuine debate among psychologists is what portion of the IQ difference between races is caused by genetics, and what portion is caused by environment. However, this isn’t really an argument against a relationship between the IQ disparity and the crime rate disparity, because the first could be causing the second even if the IQ difference were primarily environmental.

3: The only other criticism listed in Gabbidon and Greene’s book is that the IQ difference between races can’t account for the fact that people with high IQs tend to commit most white-collar and political crime. But as our article mentions, most white-collar criminals are white, so for most white-collar criminals to have high IQs is exactly what we would expect to be the case if Jensen’s hypothesis were correct. If our article claims that this last point is an argument against Jensen’s theory, it would be an implicit internal contradiction.

I would expect that somewhere, there’s a reliable source that provides a critique of Jensen’s theory which doesn’t contradict either another part of our article, or the views of the majority of researchers in the relevant fields. But evidently, this book isn’t it. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:02, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thinking about this some more, it seems like the most apparent weakness in Jensen’s IQ-based theory is that while the racial disparity in average IQ can explain the overall disparity in crime rates, it can’t explain the varying disparity for different offenses. So for example, according to our article the overall incarceration rate for blacks is around 4.5 times what it is for whites, but as of 2006 the rate of rapes committed by blacks against whites is over 3,000 times what it is for rapes committed by whites against blacks. If the IQ disparity were the only explanation for this, one would expect the proportions to be similar for all types of crimes.

However, for us to point this out ourselves would constitute original research. VA, are you aware of any reliable sources that talk about this particular shortcoming of Jensen’s theory? --Captain Occam (talk) 21:07, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment on recent changes

Aryaman has asked me to comment on the recent changes made to the article.

As I have stated before, I am not involved here as a content-oriented editor. The article has come to my attention at the fringe theories noticeboard.

In my opinion, the article has much improve since the beginning of the current discussion on its structure and content. The discussion on the talk page also has evolved, and the editing is much more oriented towards a survey-based approach to source (rather than eclectic addition of items based on a single source).

I am not yet fully happy with the lead section. It should be (mainly) a summary of the article (like an abstract in an academic paper), but it currently reads a bit like a commentary on the article.

As for the tag at the top of the page, there may still be issues in the article, and if content-oriented editors (who know more about the subject than I do) feel that the tag should remain, the tag should probably stay. If there is consensus among content-oriented editors to remove the template, I would not object. When problems are more localized, tagging individual sections that need to be improved may be a better way to alert readers and encourage other editors to do further work on these specific parts of the article.  Cs32en  21:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your input in the editing process. The tags have been removed from the top of the article (your concerns regarding the lead have been noted - I will give it more attention in the coming days) and one has been added to the "Theories of causation" section. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 22:37, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I am a "content-oriented editor" on Wikipedia, time permitting, but not on this article so far because, having been monitoring it for several months, I perceive it to have been taken under the OWNership of a few editors (not including all who edit here) of a shared perspective who, without evident malice but relentless determination, continue to skew it and are willing to put forth more time and effort than I could devote to trying to offer balance. Authorities, or quotes from authorities, are selected from the myriad available which substantiate their bias (no need to name the bias: it's obvious and more so, I suspect, to Europeans than to Americans). Nor do I claim to know more about the subject than you do (how would I know?). For what it's worth, however, I consider that the POV tag remains warranted. I base that request not on any isolated point made in the article, but upon its cumulative tenor and tendency which, to comply with NPOV's undue weight clause, "...requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views...Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view, and that it is in fact a minority view...Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject...Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements." I do not believe that the nature of the correlation between race and crime suggested in this article represents either the "more popular" or "prominent" view of that correlation as found in the preponderance of reputable literature, nor do I believe that thew article's viewpoints are presented in proportion to their prominence in that literature. For instance, coverage in African American media and scholarship of this subject is relatively more extensive than in majority sources and is usually analyzed in the stated context of racism's impacts, yet in this article black voices are mostly stripped of that context, uttering atypical views, or used largely to affirm the correlation while seldom being allowed to reflect upon the context or causation of race-related crime. Other bias is equally subtle, but discernible, "...it is possible to use crime rate statistics to make claims regarding the relative criminality and victimization of certain segments of the general population". Huh? Why are we told about the "criminality" of "certain segments of the population" rather than about their allegedly criminal acts? And it's "possible" to make claims about anything based on statistics (or based on nothing at all); what is insinuated here is that such claims are valid a priori. Nonetheless the article warns us that much more evidence might be marshaled in support of the editors' interpretation but "...researchers who produce findings which identify race as a determining factor in criminal behavior run the risk of 'public repudiation, professional exile, and even career death'...'race and crime is the holy grail of criminology. Touch it and you expose yourself to wrath and fury. For this reason, many criminologists are loath to examine the connection between race and crime outside of the modern sociological paradigm that holds that race is a mere social construct'." So we should go back to the pre-modern "sociological paradigm" on race? If we are to be made to feel sympathy for these repressed wannabe scholars, where is the article's sympathy for the impacts on blacks and Latinos of promotion of their theories that the race/crime correlation is not a "mere social construct"? I see from the to-and-fro among editors that we will soon be treated to Arthur Jensen's pet theories on blacks, William Shockley's cannot be far behind and then, no doubt, straight on to Charles Murray's The Bell Curve. My view concerning the article and the POV label will be vilified, dismissed and wikilawyered. I do not express it expecting it to addressed in earnest by prevalent editors here, but in response to your solicitation of the perspectives of those who do not predominate, so that the record will show you and those who read this article, recoil in disbelief and turn to this talk page in perplexity at such implications appearing under Wikipedia's imprimatur, will know that their objections have not been un-anticipated, ignored or omitted, but excluded, and that the exclusion does not occur without protest. PlayCuz (talk) 01:05, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, I think you are mostly right in your reading of the article except that I don't think it is a question of black voices being stripped out but rather it is a question of throwing together a bunch of fringe and marginal theories (including, I am sorry to say, dubious genetic ones) to explain the higher crime rate amongst African-Americans. To me, the entire article reads as original research with an unfortunate agenda (though, I suspect, that some of the authors are working on the article in good faith). However, I have neither the time nor the energy to read the sources provided (those dratted real world commitments) and, beyond making this comment, am unsure what to do with the article. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 02:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi PlayCuz. Welcome back to active editing and to this discussion. :)

The accusation that this is a case of WP:OWN is not exactly the best way to start off the discussion. But, so be it.

I admit that I am the primary contributor to this article in its current incarnation. Captain Occam has also contributed content, as has Dbachmann and a few others. However, at no point in time have I attempted to prevent other editors from making contributions, nor have I summarily dismissed the concerns they have expressed. On the contrary, many significant changes have been made to the article as a result of input from editors with concerns similar to your own. I have sought participation from others in the editing process from the beginning of my involvement with this article, and continue to do so. If I own this article, it is by default, not by design.

While I have expressed my intent in improving this article, I reject the accusation that I have displayed a "relentless determination ... to skew" any aspect of the issue this article treats. I also reject the claim that I have knowingly expressed bias through either the selection of content, the presentation of content, or the phrasing of the text itself. On the contrary, I have taken a great deal of care to ensure that claims based on statistics are regarded with caution, that views are expressed as views, that conflicting views are presented fairly, and that the issue is presented in its historical context. Where improvements can be made in this regard, I remain open to suggestions and/or contributions. Accusing an editor with whom one has had no prior contact of conscious bias is not the wisest course of action, especially when the issue under discussion is race and claims of bias are tantamount to accusations of racism, and particularly when one knows so little about the contributing editors, their respective ethnic backgrounds, or their respective nationalities.

Wikipedia is neither a forum nor a soapbox, and tagging articles should not be misused as a form of general protest. That you don’t like this article is fine, but criticism directed towards it should be actionable with a view towards improving it.

With that being said, you have provided neither support nor explanation as to why you think this article should display the undue synthesis template. In the absence of justification, I am free to remove the tag, and I will do so shortly. Editors who want the synthesis template replaced need to provide detailed information regarding those places in the article which they believe are cause for concern so that action can be taken to correct them.

In regards to your concerns regarding neutrality, you mention several points. One refers to the "cumulative tenor" which the article supposedly displays. What would that tenor be, exactly? That the issue of race and crime is a controversial one? That statistics show there to be a disproportionate number of African Americans who are arrested, tried, convicted and sent to prison for committing violent crimes? That respected scholars from various disciplines have proposed numerous theories in peer-reviewed articles published in scholarly journals to try and explain the causes of and contributing factors to this disproportionality? I hardly see how any of that could be considered as evidence of a non-neutral tenor, nor am I aware of any significant views on this subject which are not being treated at present. This article, to my knowledge, does not “suggest” any one reason for disproportionality, nor does it claim that one theory on causation is more correct than any other. Arguing that the article is inherently biased because it makes disproportionality an issue of discussion is entirely unjustified. Credible African American scholars have long since abandoned trying to deny that disproportionality exists. They instead focus – just as credible scholars of any other ethnicity or race – on proposing explanations for this disproportionality. If you don’t want to take my word for it, perhaps you will accept a statement to the same effect from Shaun L. Gabbidon, Ph.D. and professor of criminal justice at Penn State: "...most African American scholars emphasize several major themes in their research [on the issue of race and crime], including social disorganization, the impact of the administration of justice on crime, African American criminals as a special group of African Americans, the use of statistics, and economics and crime." (African American Criminological Thought by Gabiddon and Greene (2000), pg. 49.) I have not and I personally refuse to make specific mention of the race or ethnic background of any scholars the findings of whom are presented in this article. I instead present their views on their own merits, and I would like to see future editors do the same. Dissecting views into "African American scholars say this" and "White American scholars say that" is both entirely counterproductive as well as the inherently suspect of an artificial, unjustified and potentially racist dichotomy.

You further claim that bias is discernible in statements such as "...it is possible to use crime rate statistics to make claims regarding the relative criminality and victimization of certain segments of the general population" when you have consciously chosen to ignore the rest of the statement, which reads "though the validity of such claims remains the subject of ongoing debate". Would you prefer that I replace "criminality" with "propensity to commit and/or be arrested for and convicted of criminal acts"? It's a fair suggestion, I suppose, and I have no quarrel with making such a change. But claiming that this article pushes statistics as undisputed fact is entirely unjustified. Great effort has gone into doing just the opposite, as the large section on the criticism of statistical presentation shows – which, I might add, is presented even before the reader has had the chance to form a view on the statistics in question. That in itself could be seen as an example of bias, as it could be construed as pushing support in favor of the doubt that only some scholars have regarding statistical representation.

The majority of your concerns with this article seem to stem not from the article itself, but rather from the reactions and assumptions you, personally, are led to in regards to the general issue. Does the article even come close to suggesting "we should go back to the 'sociological paradigm' on race"? No. This is something you and – up to this point – only you have injected into your reading of the article. Is the article "subtly" requesting that the reader feel "sympathy" for "repressed wannabe scholars"? No. The article is making mention of the sensitivity of the issue which several scholars – including two so-called "wannabe scholars" in the guise of professors of sociology from Harvard University – have commented upon. You are reading your own reaction towards their comments into the article. Like I mentioned before, that you don’t like this issue is fine. But please don’t complain about the article because you have read your own dislike of the subject into it. On the other hand, if you feel specific changes can be made to improve and clarify the intended neutrality of the article, I heartily request that you make such suggestions, provided you can separate your own reaction to the issue from the reaction which could be expected from a person who does not feel personally attacked by the mention of the words "race" and "crime" in the same sentence.

Sadly, your closing comments betray a severe lack of good faith in Wikipedia as a whole and the contributing editors in particular. You expect your view to be "vilified, dismissed and wikilawyered". For the record, I have no intention to do so. You, like all editors, are welcome to make constructive criticism and actionable suggestions, and where the criticism is constructive and the suggestions are actionable, you have the right to expect a fair hearing.

In short, it boils down to this: You feel the article fails to present this issue in a neutral and fair manner, and so you have placed a template describing your concerns on the article. So far so good. Now you are required to justify your action with constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement which can be acted upon. Making broad claims about the non-neutrality of the subject matter and the supposedly "obvious" bias of the editors is not enough. You need to point out exactly where and how the article violates the policy of neutrality so that improvements, if necessary, can be made. Otherwise, your tagging the article amounts to little more than vandalism for the sake of public protest. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 08:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with most of this, but I should probably explain in more detail what the justification for including Jensen’s IQ-based theory. If you read the article, PlayCuz, you’ll see that this theory from Jensen is already mentioned in it. If you think you’re going to be “treated” to more theories from Jensen than the one already mentioned there, you’re wrong, since none of Jensen’s other theories are relevant to the topic of this article.

As for why this theory is included, VA has examined the book that’s used as required reading for the largest portion of university courses on this topic, and it contains a chapter devoted to this theory. Our goal is to make mention of every theory listed in this book; to do otherwise would be a NPOV violation. And mentioning every theory in that book means including Jensen’s. (This is the same reason why we describe Rushton’s r/K theory, which is also included in Gabbidon and Greene’s textbook.)

Incidentally, I haven’t read The Bell Curve, and I don’t have any particular interest in doing so. From what I’ve read about it, it seems to be mostly just a dumbed-down rehashing of research done by Jensen and others, plus a little 15-year-old political commentary whose main relevance was to the policies of Bill Clinton’s first term. For these theories about race and IQ, Jensen is the one who ought to be cited—not only because he is the main person behind these theories, and is considered by many (such as Haggblom et al.) to be one of the 20th century’s 50 most eminent psychologists, but also because anyone who’s familiar with him and his views will be aware that he is a liberal democrat, and that everything about his personal beliefs and politics indicates that none of his theories are motivated by anything other than a desire for scientific investigation.

VA, I have a question for you: what justification has anyone provided for attaching the NPOV tag to the entire article? The only specific thing PlayCuz mentioned that appears to be a possible NPOV violation is referring to the higher crime rates of certain groups as greater “criminality”, which should be easy to fix. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, there has been very little if any justification for the NPOV template other than the fact that some editors just don't like this topic being discussed on Wikipedia. If I look past the rhetoric, that's the most I can make of it. The criticisms are being directed towards the entire field of study, not necessarily to any particular passage in the article. This amounts to taking the long list of scholars who study in this field as well as the long list of universities which offer courses on exactly this subject to task - which is fine as a personal pursuit, but is not going to make any difference as to whether or not this topic gets coverage in the encyclopedia.

As a show of good faith, however, I think any concerned editor deserves at least the chance to justify putting up the tag. If they have a legitimate complaint which they can constructively communicate to others, then the tag can remain while discussion continues regarding how to address the problem. But, as the guidelines for tagging suggest, without such justification, tags such as NPOV should only be allowed to remain for a few days maximum, if not removed on sight. --Aryaman (talk) 10:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Since the tag has now been there for two days without any justification provided for it, I think it can be removed now. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with RegentsPark and PlayCuz, The existence of this article speaks to the fatal flaws of the Wikipedia enterprise. Someone comes along, decides that a topic of interest to them (perhaps a term paper they are writing, perhaps some random thoughts they had after watching the evening news), but which is really, "X, Y and Z in W," is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. In the early days of Wikipedia, there were enough new topics available that such shots in the dark eventually found their mark (correct title and content). Now, however, such articles serve as nothing but content forks for articles that are already there. The title itself speaks to the confusion. It is a "History of race and crime in the US," or "Theories of the nexus between race and crime in the US?" If it is both—a summary style précis—then where are those articles? I submit that this article should be nominated for deletion. Unfortunately, I, like others here, don't have the time to engage the primary authors in endless discussions. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no need for "endless discussion" on this point. Either it's notable or it's not. There is an abundance of secondary literature on the topic of "race and crime in the US". Dozens of prominent colleges and universities across the US either require or offer elective courses on the subject of "race and crime". While performing original research in the form of synthesis is against policy, reporting on such synthesis as presented in peer-reviewed literature is not. I'm still waiting for anything resembling a reasonable argument regarding claims of synthesis in this article. --Aryaman (talk) 12:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

There are 6,000 scholarly articles on "Agonistic Behavior in Rhesus Monkeys", but that fact doesn't make the topic notable for an encyclopedia in which the mother article Rhesus monkey is still fairly rudimentary. One has to consider whether an article is encyclopedic and whether other encyclopedias have such articles. A quick search in Britannica and Encarta reveals that there is nothing remotely like "Race and crime in the US" in the list of their pages, although there are many other pages to refer to race and/or crime in the US. What is most troubling is your section "Theories of Causation." Those theories don't just apply to the US or for that matter to race. Why are they being discussed here in a section that constitutes more than half the article? Encyclopedias have certain well-established traditions of naming articles. The discrimination sidebar lists some of those related to that topic. Those articles need to be attended to first. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:04, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I have left posts on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sociology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Discrimination, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups. I will now withdraw from the discussion and let the experts from those WikiProjects mull over the future of this article. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:20, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to archive

I would like to propose that the current talk page be archived. I am making this proposal for two reasons. First, more than half of this page contains critique and comments about an incarnation of this article which no longer exists. Questions regarding the title, notability, verifiability, and undue synthesis have been discussed at length, and it appears to have been established beyond any reasonable doubt that (a) this topic is best located under "Race and crime in the United states", (b) this topic is widely discussed in academia, with numerous publications by respectable authorities devoted to it, (c) that an extensive bibliography of said literature has been compiled, and all contentious claims can or have been verified by multiple sources, and (d) this is not an issue of bringing together two disparate fields of study, such as ethnology and criminology, to source the information in the article, but draws its information almost exclusively from reputable literature devoted to the issue of "race and crime", i.e. the "synthesis", if you like, of these two fields of study has been performed by numerous experts, and is not being conducted here.

Second, I have recently obtained several key volumes discussing this issue from multiple sides, and I plan on making significant changes to many aspects of the article, including the specific content, the structure, the order of presentation and the tone. These changes will be made based on a survey of what is considered some of the best summary-type academic literature available to date on the issue, taking particular care that the recent work of African American scholars is incorporated.

The proposal to archive this talk page is in no way the result of a desire to silence the voices of those who have expressed general concern regarding neutrality, and the ACTIVE and POV tags will remain in the header for the duration of my revisions. It is my sincere hope that, when this next stage in the revision process is "completed" (as far as anything on Wikipedia can be said to be "completed"), the overwhelming majority of all parties interested in the development of this article will be satisfied regarding the issue of neutrality, as well as any other outstanding content issues.

Please note your support or rejection of this proposal below. Those rejecting the proposal are invited to provide their reasoning.

Reject

1. I think we'll need to archive it fairly soon, but I don't think it's time to do so quite yet. There are still some issues we've been discussing on this page that have yet to be resolved, such as finding a reliable source that provides admissible criticism of Jensen's IQ theory. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:11, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
2. I oppose archiving because it will reduce access to two major criticisms of the article stated on this page, which have not IMHO been adequately addressed, to wit, violations of 1. OWNership and 2.UNDUE "'...Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject...Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements.' I do not believe that the nature of the correlation between race and crime (not the existence of such correlation) suggested in this article represents either the "more popular" or "prominent" view of that correlation as found in the preponderance of reputable literature, nor do I believe that the article's viewpoints are presented in proportion to their prominence in that literature." Whether it is the intent of the archiving proposal or not, the effect of archiving would be to efface on the currently visible talk page, and to tone down overall, the criticism that the causes and context of the correlation between race and crime are skewed in this article, with specific examples cited, as well as the Wikipedia rules which state the requirement that an article's "take" on the issues covered must proportionately reflect the "take" in the preponderance of literature on the subject. Both by selection of the authors and views on this subject, and by omission of prevalent views on the context and causes of the correlation between race and crime in the U.S., undue weight is given and the article thereby skewed. Also, the very act of pursuing archival when recent and fresh criticisms are offered is, I believe, evidence of the ownership of the article which I mentioned previously. PlayCuz (talk) 14:01, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

(Comment) If you would like to get involved in balancing the presentation of the theories of causation, you are certainly invited to do so. But I think works such as Gabbidon & Greene's Encylcopedia of Race and Crime as well as their Race and Crime and Gabbidon's Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime are the best thing we have for determining how much coverage each of these theories should get. If you'd like to participate here, I highly suggest that you procure copies of these works first. As for accusations of WP:OWN, I'd like to remind everyone that I'm openly requesting that people comment on the proposal; I'm not undertaking the action unilaterally. And as I've noted before, the fact that I have been by and large the only contributor here is insufficient grounds for accusing me of claiming "ownership". Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 14:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Background on Theories of causation

I added this sub-section about a week or so ago, as I felt the section on the theories of causation needed some kind of context to help the reader understand the various factors involved in the theoretical discussion. Looking at it now, I can see that it could be considered superfluous to the discussion (though, Wikipedia apparently has no article on the history of criminology or criminological theories, and, in my opinion, this is a considerable deficit considering the importance of the topic), and I would not object to its removal if other editors concur. Please comment below. Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 15:44, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Jensen again

I know it’s best to include some criticism of Arthur Jensen’s IQ-based theory, but can’t we come up with anything better than what’s currently in the article? A few of the criticisms listed there are so demonstrably false that as far as I know, they aren’t accepted as valid by any experts on race and IQ, not even those who reject the genetic hypothesis about this.

I’m especially thinking of these two: “Critics of IQ theory have pointed towards the weaknesses in both the purported connection between IQ and race” and “if environmental factors such as educational opportunities are taken into account, they believe the differences in IQ would disappear entirely”. As you’ve probably noticed from working on the Race and intelligence article, virtually nobody disputes that there’s a difference in average IQ between races; the debate is just about what’s causing it. And as for the second claim, one of the main reasons why the genetic hypothesis is still considered is because nobody has yet identified an environmental factor that could make the IQ difference disappear when it’s adjusted for. And several of them have been examined, such as socio-economic status.

Even thought the article ought to include some sort of criticism of this theory, I it’s probably WP:UNDUE for us to be listing only criticisms that are rejected by almost all specialists in this area. VA, have you had any luck finding a reliable source that mentions the weakness in Jensen’s theory that I pointed out above; about how it doesn’t explain the varying crime rate proportions for different offenses? --Captain Occam (talk) 01:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I am in full agreement here. But sadly, these (rather tired and fully insufficient) arguments are the ones left-leaning sociologists and criminologists specialized in the field of Race and Crime Studies are still (as recently as 2009) using to offer at least the show of criticism of the "hard science" claims. To get into any serious criticism of IQ Theory or r/K Theory, we'd have to leave the field of Race and Crime Studies, and I'm not sure if that's crossing the line into WP:SYNTH. I had to work surprisingly hard to make the critique in many areas not look ridiculous, frankly. Take Mann, for example, whose work is considered by certain parties in Race and Crime Studies to be "seminal". (And I can quote two who use that very word.) If you run through her list of arguments with even a minimum of critical evaluation, the logical fallacies and patently false claims (not to mention the clear bias) are shocking. Sadly, Gabbidon evidences many of the same weaknesses, though he puts much more effort in trying to at least appear objective, and I trust him more to give a balanced presentation. However, Gabbidon & Greene's 2-page treatment of "Intelligence, Race, and Crime" is loaded with enough bias to make it impossible to use in the article without heavy filtering. Take the following passage, for example:

By this time [1900's], however, the notion of intelligence and crime had become accepted. While the notion of intelligence and crime had existed prior to the aforementioned studies, the development of the IQ test gave proponents of the idea a tool to test their beliefs. Fortunately, though, the idea lost its appeal. Curran and Renzetti (2001) noted, however, that the damage had already been done.

It doesn't get any better than that, and often gets worse. Their critique boils down to exactly what I have in the section. It's a case of preaching to the choir, really. The leftists have long since rejected the notion of race on moral grounds, and with it their ability to counter hard science claims with anything other than shock and disbelief that anyone could be "racist" enough to investigate the issue with some objectivity. (Wright's 2009 piece on this subject is a gem, by the way.) But what can we do? I tried to present the critique as it is presented in the current literature. Can I help it if it's not convincing? --Aryaman (talk) 04:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

If what you’re saying is the case, then I think we ought to slightly reword these sentences to reflect the fact that these criticisms aren’t necessarily valid. For example, take the sentence “Critics of IQ theory have pointed towards the weaknesses in both the purported connection between IQ and race on the one hand, and that between IQ and crime on the other.” The phrase “pointed toward the weakness” implies that a weakness actually exists which can be pointed out. I would suggest changing this to something like, “Critics of IQ theory have alleged that the relationships between race and IQ, and between IQ and crime, are not well established”, which is an accurate description regardless of whether an actual weakness exists or not.

If you don’t have any objections to this idea, I’ll probably be changing this aspect of the article sometime soon. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I certainly don't object, as it's in the interest of neutrality. Now that you point it out, I should have noticed that one myself. --Aryaman (talk) 02:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to archive (2)

I'd like to propose (again) that this talk page be archived. The bulk of the criticism appears to have died down, which I believe is due to it having been dealt with through the substantial changes which have been made to the article. Perhaps others do not feel that way. Regardless, the proposal is motivated mainly by page size, and not by any attempt to suppress concerns which may require additional changes. The objections to the last proposal were (1) that the criticism of Jensen's work had not been sufficient, (2) that I might think I own this article, and (3) that there might be an unbalanced presentation of the various theories of causation. (Occam said he thought there might be more open issues, but did not specify what those might be. If he cares to, he is invited to mention them now.)

Regarding: (1) The objecting editor and I have since worked on the section in question and I think we're now making a fair presentation. (2) I have been clear that I do not consider this article to be "mine" at all, and I welcome contributions and constructive criticism. I don't see how else I can satisfy this concern other than by stating that I do not wish to give the impression that I object in any way to other editors participating in the process of improving the article. (3) Considerable changes have been made to the presentation of the theories of causation which, I believe, might satisfy the concerned editors. In particular, I was able to procure secondary literature which reviews all of these theories as a group, and the proportion of their coverage is fairly reflected in the article at present. The article now makes mention of which theories are most popular, and the lead has also been edited to reflect the majority views. The criticism, instead of being marginalized through its isolation in the article under one heading, has been integrated throughout the body. This was all done in light of the concerns of some editors that the article was not neutral enough. Of course additional material could always be added, but then it becomes an issue of overall article length.

If these concerns have been addressed adequately, then I don't see any reasons to keep this rather large talkpage going. Of course, any outstanding issues may be addressed anew on the next talkpage. But at some point, archiving will become a technical necessity, and I think the present is a good time to undertake that move.--Aryaman (talk) 16:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Please comment below:

Support

1. I think it can be archived now. All of the concerns I've raised here have been addressed to my satisfaction, and the same appears to be true for the other users who've commented here also. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reject

1. I object to the archival of this page mostly for the same reasons I did so previously: 1. The complaints that this article significantly violates NPOV are visible and recognizable on this page, and will be less visible and therefore less likely to be recognized, corrected or challenged if archived. 2. The reduced visibility produced by archiving the complaints, challenges and pleas by several editors for balance on this page will lend an undeserved air of consensus and stability to the article's overall "take" on the issue it covers, helping to conceal the non-neutral POV of the article to which those editors have repeatedly objected. 3. Those POV violations are, I believe as previously stated, largely the result of OWNership which has yielded an article that violates the portion of Wikipedia's NPOV policy which states "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views...pages should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite content strictly from the perspective of the minority view. Specifically, it should always be clear which parts of the text describe the minority view, and that it is in fact a minority view. The majority view should be explained in sufficient detail that the reader may understand how the minority view differs from it, and controversies regarding parts of the minority view should be clearly identified and explained. How much detail is required depends on the subject...minority views may require much more extensive description of the majority view in order to avoid misleading the reader...Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserved as much attention overall as the majority view" (italics mine). By emphasizing the correlation of race and crime while minimizing (through selection, juxtaposition, length, context and qualifiers) the context and causes associated by most authors and jounalists with that correlation, the article leaves the impression that the correlation is better explained by factors interior to particular races of alleged perpetrators than by exterior circumstances or influences -- which is not the "take" of most of the literature and reportage on the topic. The crucialness of this issue in this article is documented repeatedly on this page by both sides, "The dispute is in the interpretation of the situation in terms of external (understandable reaction to racism, "liberal" view) vs internal (blacks are somehow inherently more criminal, "conservative" view). This is the discussion that needs to be presented in a balanced way." and "Depending on the sources, an article on 'Ethnicity and crime', or whatever the title turns out to be, may even have a sub-article that covers a minority viewpoint. You cannot start with the sub-article, however. If you want to write on a minority viewpoint, WP needs to have sufficient coverage of the majority viewpoint first. If such coverage is not there, you may need to supply it. You cannot present the minority viewpoint only, even if properly sourced, if this would give undue weight to it." And "The article should not just document a controversy, but also, and maybe primarily, the aspects on which there is broad agreement within the scientific community." And "The article has issues related to sources, and very likely issues related to neutrality (although we'd need a more thorough research on the sources to ascertain whether this is the case). And we very likely need a qualitative change in the structure of the article, not just a quantitative rebalancing of the sections." Nowhere does this article make clear that most reputable reportage and analysis of the racial correlation in crime does not state or suggest that the correlation is due to race-interior factors -- if anything, the contrary is more the case (a fact the article attempts to dismiss by implying that scholarly fear of being labeled racist inhibits researchers from taking their analyses to the "logical" conclusion -- and calling a spade a spade). The article's "owners" may be correct that the facts and/or scholarly refutations lead one to believe that the racial correlation is more due to interior than to exterior influences, but that is not yet the prevalent view of those who publish, report or comment on this topic in English, and until it is Wikipedia should not leave its readers with that impression. Instead, Wikipedia's article in its present incarnation is an argument improperly soapboxing a non-prevalent POV -- it acts more to influence public discussion toward a particular interpretation of the debate than to reflect the currently predominant "take" in that debate. It downplays the usual associations and attributions of the racial correlation in literature and published discourse by giving near equal weight to cause-interior analyses as to cause-exterior analyses, and by more extensively refuting (with citations) criticisms of cause-interior explanation than it does cause-exterior explanations, and by such word choices and "balancing" as can be seen in comparing data presented in these sentences: "Dutch criminologist Willem Adrian Bonger, one of the first scholars to apply the principles of economic determinism to the issue of crime, argued that such inequality as found in capitalism was ultimately responsible for the manifestation of crime at all levels of society, particularly among the poor. Though this line of thinking has been criticized for requiring the establishment of a utopian socialist society,[62] the notion that the disproportionality observed in minority representation in crime rate statistics could be understood as the result of systematic economic disadvantage found its way into many of the theories developed in subsequent generations." (note the interpolation of irrelevant red-baiting) and "Regarding IQ and race, critics have remarked that the IQ gap between White Americans and African Americans has narrowed significantly over the last 30 years and that, if environmental factors such as educational opportunities are taken into account, they believe the differences in IQ would disappear entirely.[86]" (notice the use of "they believe") vs. "Critics of strain theory point to its weaknesses when compared with actual criminal behavior patterns. Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi argue that strain theory 'misconstrue(s) the nature of the criminal act, supplying it with virtues it does not possess.' They further point out that, while strain theory suggests that criminals should tend to target people in a more advantageous economic situation than themselves, they more often victimize individuals who live in the same economic circumstances.[81]" (where is the "they believe" qualifier here?). And, "Walsh argues that, while the macrostructural opportunity model helps explain why Black murderers almost always choose Black victims, it does not explain why Black rapists choose White victims roughly 55% of the time.[97]" (note the implicit dismissal of rationale, and an omitted allusion: inculcation since colonialism of Western standards of beauty often incline men of other races to value the physical attractiveness of Western women over women of their own ethnicity -- a context that may go far to explain the rape statistic and is a widely known rather than an obscure notion, e.g. "Good Hair"). The "OWNers" will object that they haven't found scholarly cites which directly "balance off" cause-exterior observations to the extent they have with cause-interior ones, but that unmet challenge simply can't defend a Wikipedia article's overall atypical "take" on a subject. This page documents not only this recent problem, but the fact that in the two polls taken on recommendations to delete this article, it was saved once by a "Keep and clean up" consensus and later by the failure to achieve any consensus at all. Let the objections to NPOV in this articel remain here, where they can readily be seen. Failure to do so is censorship. PlayCuz (talk) 20:16, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(Comment) PlayCuz, we've been over this before. I'm willing to take your concerns seriously, but this is not the best way to go about things. Please break that insanely huge block of text into sections we can work on. And don't even think about dropping this off and then disappearing again, satisfied that you have, once again, managed to get an NPOV template up on the page. If you want to work on improving this article, you need to actually come and participate in the discussion. We can't make sure your concerns are addressed unless you actually participate. If you don't at least make some effort beyond what you've just done, as I've said before, this is little more than tagging to make a point. I've left a similar request on your userpage, and I hope to hear back from you in the very near future. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 21:06, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

While it must be wonderful to be able to edit Wikipedia all day everyday, some of us work during the week and lack online access and/or offline research time except when such time can be eked out from other responsibilities on weekends. There is no Wikipedia policy which forbids or discourages contributions and input from those of us in that situation. There is no Wikiipedia expectation that editing an article here shall or should become a primary or growing priority in my life -- howsoever much that may be the case for others (whose leisure I can only envy). There is no time limit or schedule on article development which demands or requires hourly, daily, weekly input as a prerequisite for the right to provide feedback or input -- as if the article were in a race to somewhere that it will lose, disappearing into a black hole unless the pace is kept up.

I will not be bullied or intimidated away (here or, as of late, on my talk page) so long as my articulated concerns about this article's content, tone and skew remain -- that is the sole criterion I and my edits are responsible for meeting here. What more I can do, if anything, I shall as my time permits -- not as dictated by those who dissent from and/or dismiss in its entirety what I offer by way of critique anyway. It is not to them or for them that I raise these issues.

"Unless you edit as often as I do -- you have no business here, unless you have the books I do -- you have no business here, unless you express your criticisms in the form I prefer -- you have no business here, unless your feedback persuades me that it should be reflected in the article -- you have no business being here, unless you justify tags expressing your reservations when, as, and how I insist -- you have no business here and can expect to be deleted over your protests, unless you reply to me NOW -- you have no business here... OWNership, pure and simple. Where are the admins? PlayCuz (talk) 07:21, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

That's nice and all, but what does any of that have to do with your persistence that this article violates NPOV? I made an honest attempt to comment on each of the points you raised (though I had to fish them out myself). Is this all you're going to say on this? I'm sorry that you apparently think my requesting that you return to the page to discuss changes is some otherworldly demand. That's how Wikipedia works. --Aryaman (talk) 07:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

PlayCuz

Since I somehow doubt that PlayCuz is going to return to actually work on this article, I'll take it upon myself to attempt to break down his block of text into individual arguments. My comments follow:

Those POV violations are, I believe as previously stated, largely the result of OWNership which has yielded an article that violates the portion of Wikipedia's NPOV policy, which states...

Huh?

By emphasizing the correlation of race and crime while minimizing (through selection, juxtaposition, length, context and qualifiers) the context and causes associated by most authors and jounalists with that correlation, the article leaves the impression that the correlation is better explained by factors interior to particular races of alleged perpetrators than by exterior circumstances or influences -- which is not the "take" of most of the literature and reportage on the topic.

In what way have external causes been "minimized"? The bulk of the Theories of causation section discusses such external causes at length and proportional to the coverage found in reliable secondary sources. The article does not "leave the impression" that any of the theories are inherently superior, and it makes clear which theories are supported by the majority of experts. Further, if you have not read the available literature on this subject, how do you propose to tell us what it says? I have the leading books on this subject sitting next to me right now, and more importantly, I've read them. This article summarizes their findings. If you want to take me to task on my reporting what is in these books, then I suggest you start citing page numbers so we can compare notes.

The dispute is in the interpretation of the situation in terms of external (understandable reaction to racism, "liberal" view) vs internal (blacks are somehow inherently more criminal, "conservative" view). This is the discussion that needs to be presented in a balanced way.

This is precisely the issue being discussed in the article, and it has been done in a way which accurately reflects the literature. I'd like to know how you think the article does not do this.

Depending on the sources, an article on 'Ethnicity and crime', or whatever the title turns out to be, may even have a sub-article that covers a minority viewpoint. You cannot start with the sub-article, however. If you want to write on a minority viewpoint, WP needs to have sufficient coverage of the majority viewpoint first. If such coverage is not there, you may need to supply it. You cannot present the minority viewpoint only, even if properly sourced, if this would give undue weight to it.

This article covers both the "majority viewpoint" and the "minority viewpoints", and does so in proportion to the discussion relating to the in the literature. If you feel it does not, please demonstrate where this is not the case.

The article should not just document a controversy, but also, and maybe primarily, the aspects on which there is broad agreement within the scientific community.

This is done to the extent it is currently possible. It is not the article's fault that there are multiple views regarding causation, nor is it the fault of the editors involved. This article is a summary of what a reader will find if s/he picks up a reliable, scholarly review of race and crime studies. If you feel it is not, please demonstrate that this is not the case.

The article has issues related to sources, and very likely issues related to neutrality (although we'd need a more thorough research on the sources to ascertain whether this is the case). And we very likely need a qualitative change in the structure of the article, not just a quantitative rebalancing of the sections.

This critique was made at a time long before the current structure was established. Also, there are no longer any outstanding issues regarding sources. This article uses the best literature available on the subject, and the relevance and pedigree of that literature has already been established. This is a non-issue.

Nowhere does this article make clear that most reputable reportage and analysis of the racial correlation in crime does not state or suggest that the correlation is due to race-interior factors -- if anything, the contrary is more the case (a fact the article attempts to dismiss by implying that scholarly fear of being labeled racist inhibits researchers from taking their analyses to the "logical" conclusion -- and calling a spade a spade).

That is simply not true. The lead clearly states that the "most prominent [theories of causation] assume predominantly social and/or environmental causes". Further on, the article identifies conflict theory as "one of the most popular theoretical frameworks among race and crime scholars." The coverage of the Theories of causation is overwhelmingly social/economic in nature, and only two sub-sections discuss theories related to biology. This is the ratio of coverage in the literature. Also, where justified, those theories which assume an "interior" causation have been weighted with criticism showing them to be considered potentially racist in nature (for whatever that's worth). More cannot be expected.

The article's "owners" may be correct that the facts and/or scholarly refutations lead one to believe that the racial correlation is more due to interior than to exterior influences, but that is not yet the prevalent view of those who publish, report or comment on this topic in English, and until it is Wikipedia should not leave its readers with that impression. Instead, Wikipedia's article in its present incarnation is an argument improperly soapboxing a non-prevalent POV -- it acts more to influence public discussion toward a particular interpretation of the debate than to reflect the currently predominant "take" in that debate.

As noted above, the views on causation have been presented in a balanced and proportionate manner. That it does not reflect your bias enough is not my concern. The article does not make any "argument" at all other than to state that the issue of race and crime is controversial, that there is a disproportionate representation of certain minorities in the criminal justice system, and that many theories of causation have been proposed. That is the extent of any "argument" the article is making. Please show where this is not the case.

It downplays the usual associations and attributions of the racial correlation in literature and published discourse by giving near equal weight to cause-interior analyses as to cause-exterior analyses, and by more extensively refuting (with citations) criticisms of cause-interior explanation than it does cause-exterior explanations, and by such word choices and "balancing" as can be seen in comparing data presented in these sentences: "Dutch criminologist Willem Adrian Bonger, one of the first scholars to apply the principles of economic determinism to the issue of crime, argued that such inequality as found in capitalism was ultimately responsible for the manifestation of crime at all levels of society, particularly among the poor. Though this line of thinking has been criticized for requiring the establishment of a utopian socialist society,[62] the notion that the disproportionality observed in minority representation in crime rate statistics could be understood as the result of systematic economic disadvantage found its way into many of the theories developed in subsequent generations." (note the interpolation of irrelevant red-baiting) and "Regarding IQ and race, critics have remarked that the IQ gap between White Americans and African Americans has narrowed significantly over the last 30 years and that, if environmental factors such as educational opportunities are taken into account, they believe the differences in IQ would disappear entirely.[86]" (notice the use of "they believe") vs. "Critics of strain theory point to its weaknesses when compared with actual criminal behavior patterns. Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi argue that strain theory 'misconstrue(s) the nature of the criminal act, supplying it with virtues it does not possess.' They further point out that, while strain theory suggests that criminals should tend to target people in a more advantageous economic situation than themselves, they more often victimize individuals who live in the same economic circumstances.[81]" (where is the "they believe" qualifier here?).

Claims of WP:UNDUE are baseless here. Great care has been taken to present the numerous "social" theories in an unbiased manner, and the same courtesy has been shown to the two "biological" theories.

As for your claim regarding "red baiting", that exact criticism appears in at least two sources related specifically to race and crime studies. Thus, I'm not pulling that out of thin air, and it is not irrelevant. Experts in this field are making that criticism, and reporting it is justified. The claim that IQ differences can be eliminated through statistical manipulation is disputed, hence the "they believe". That poor Blacks overwhelmingly victimize other poor Blacks is not under dispute, and experts on either side can point to data which confirms this, hence there is no need to qualify that statement beyond stating that this is the argument as presented by Gottfredson and Hirschi.

And, "Walsh argues that, while the macrostructural opportunity model helps explain why Black murderers almost always choose Black victims, it does not explain why Black rapists choose White victims roughly 55% of the time.[97]" (note the implicit dismissal of rationale, and an omitted allusion: inculcation since colonialism of Western standards of beauty often incline men of other races to value the physical attractiveness of Western women over women of their own ethnicity -- a context that may go far to explain the rape statistic and is a widely known rather than an obscure notion, e.g. "Good Hair").

Interesting. However, I have not come across that theory in any of the literature I've reviewed. It's possible that the experts consulted found that notion to be a little too far-fetched to hold up to critical scrutiny, and didn't want to embarrass themselves by suggesting it in earnest. Besides, since when aren't African American women "Western women"?

The "OWNers" will object that they haven't found scholarly cites which directly "balance off" cause-exterior observations to the extent they have with cause-interior ones, but that unmet challenge simply can't defend a Wikipedia article's overall atypical "take" on a subject.

No such objection here, if I'm who you are referring to as one of the "OWNers". In fact, I have found the literature which discusses all these theories as a group - for example Gabbidon's Criminological Perspectives on Race and Crime (2007). A large part of this article was inspired by that volume and supplemented by numerous other important works (including the Encyclopedia of Race and Crime and its many articles on the individual theories of causation). As mentioned above, if you disagree with the way these scholarly works are being used, then please procure copies of your own and then we can sit down to compare notes. Otherwise your criticism amounts to nothing more than unfounded assumption.

This page documents not only this recent problem, but the fact that in the two polls taken on recommendations to delete this article, it was saved once by a "Keep and clean up" consensus and later by the failure to achieve any consensus at all. Let the objections to NPOV in this article remain here, where they can readily be seen. Failure to do so is censorship.

No, archiving a page is a fully acceptable practice when it exceeds a manageable length. This one is already well over 200 KB. Eventually, these discussion will get archived, simply out of technical necessity. Thus, I'm sorry to inform you that archiving happens whether you like it or not. It's not censorship, it's being considerate to users with slow internet connections.

Anything else? --Aryaman (talk) 22:21, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

After more than two weeks, PlayCuz still has not made any further attempt to justify the tag, so I think it can be removed now. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)