At 09:03 PM 11/05/2000 -0400, Issodhos @aol.com wrote:

What would also be interesting (while you've got the stats book out) is,
rather than black vs white, you compared poor vs rich.  Do you keep stats
like that in the US?

Alister

>       As to your attempt to put a racial spin on it the crime statistics do
>not support your suggestion that "the state" is focusing on nonwhites.
>Presented here for your edification:
>
>
>Bureau of Justice Statistics
>Homicide trends in the United States
>www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide
>
>Homicide offending rates by race
>
>          Rates per 100,000 population
>   Year     White    Black    Other           Ratio of black to white
>     1976      5.1     44.7      7.4               8.8
>     1977      5.3     42.3      8.3               8.0
>     1978      5.5     42.3      7.0               7.7
>     1979      6.0     45.2      9.5               7.5
>     1980      6.7     49.9      6.2               7.4
>     1981      6.1     44.8      6.2               7.3
>     1982      5.8     39.8      6.8               6.9
>     1983      5.3     35.6      6.4               6.7
>     1984      5.3     32.8      5.2               6.2
>     1985      5.1     33.3      5.6               6.5
>     1986      5.4     36.8      6.4               6.8
>     1987      5.3     35.6      4.9               6.7
>     1988      5.0     40.3      4.3               8.1
>     1989      5.1     41.9      4.3               8.2
>     1990      5.6     46.9      4.1               8.4
>     1991      5.7     50.4      5.4               8.8
>     1992      5.2     46.8      5.8               9.0
>     1993      5.2     49.3      5.6               9.5
>     1994      5.0     46.1      4.9               9.2
>     1995      4.9     39.1      5.1               8.0
>     1996      4.5     35.8      4.7               8.0
>     1997      4.1     32.4      4.5               7.9
>     1998      4.1     28.3      3.5               6.9
>
>Number of homicide offenders by race, 1976-98
>
>   Year     White    Black    Other           Ratio of black to white
>     1976     9467    10523      362               1.1
>     1977     9842    10133      414               1.0
>     1978    10293    10329      361               1.0
>     1979    11455    11227      503               1.0
>     1980    12935    12911      354               1.0
>     1981    11976    12145      354               1.0
>     1982    11524    10943      414               0.9
>     1983    10651     9941      415               0.9
>     1984    10709     9270      358               0.9
>     1985    10410     9548      415               0.9
>     1986    10981    10700      497               1.0
>     1987    10804    10496      404               1.0
>     1988    10417    12040      375               1.2
>     1989    10608    12707      391               1.2
>     1990    11790    14281      394               1.2
>     1991    12057    15665      545               1.3
>     1992    11135    14804      609               1.3
>     1993    11179    15844      614               1.4
>     1994    10895    15036      558               1.4
>     1995    10643    12931      615               1.2
>     1996     9844    11985      584               1.2
>     1997     9022    11005      575               1.2
>     1998     9051     9733      470               1.1
>
>Source: FBI, Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976-98.
>See the methodology section in Additional Information About
>the Data for weighting and imputation procedures used.
>
>   As you can see, Black Americans murder overwhelmingly out of all proportion
>to their percent of the population so it is to be expected that they would
>represent a high percentage of those who are on death row, yet they are still
>outnumbered on death row by white murderers.
>Yours,
>Issodhos