By Dr. Ray Kessler, who is, incidentally, a retired Prof. of Criminal Justice, former defense attorney and prosecutor is your host. I am also a part-time instructor in Criminal Justice at Richland College, an outstanding, 2-year institution in Dallas, TX. https://richlandcollege.edu/ Note that I do NOT select which ads run on the blog.
Monday, January 26, 2015
New book on black-on-black homicide
The media and black leadership focus on police killings of black males is certainly legitimate. However, what is too infrequently address is the horrendous black-on-black homicide rate. According the the NYT:
"In her timely new book, [Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America] Jill Leovy examines one of the most disturbing facts about life in America: that African-American males are, as she puts it, “just 6 percent of the country’s population but nearly 40 percent of those murdered.” . . .
"As Leovy sees it, the problem in a place like Watts is not only the high homicide rate, but the fact that so many people who commit murder are never punished. In the 13 years before the homicide that opens her book, she writes, “a suspect was arrested in 38 percent of the 2,677 killings involving black male victims in the city of Los Angeles.” This lack of accountability is the primary cause, she argues, of the high homicide rate in some African-American neighborhoods: “Where the criminal justice system fails to respond vigorously to violent injury and death,” she writes, “homicide becomes endemic.” . . .Leovy’s relentless reporting has produced a book packed with valuable, hard-won insights — and it serves as a crucial, 366-page reminder that “black lives matter,” showing how the “system’s failure to catch killers effectively made black lives cheap.”
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IMO, upholding the armed self-defense rights of law abiding citizens in these black neighborhoods would help to curb violent murders. Legally armed responsible citizens are an asset, not a threat, to police.
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