Editorial: The Falsehood of the 13:50 Ratio

With the Black Lives Matter movement reaching people across the globe, there have been many disbelievers of the cause. These people feel that police are doing what has to be done to prevent crime. They argue that since black people makeup 13% of the population, but commit 52% of violent crimes, this justifies police racially targeting them.

Though the 13:50 ratio is not completely untrue, this article will discuss why it is not a valid way of explaining police brutality. Like every crime statistic, there is always a bigger picture behind the numbers. It is extremely important to understand data before using it to prove an opinion.

First, let’s see what this ratio actually means. Contrary to popular belief, 52% only shows the percentage of Black Americans that are arrested for violent crimes. Nothing in this statistic shows if these people who were arrested ended up being convicted or if their charges were eventually dropped. Ergo, to say black people commit more crime is not true in the first place.

Nonetheless, they are arrested for violent crimes more often, so let’s dig a bit deeper into this statistic. There can be many factors that show us why Black people have higher arrest rates. One of those factors can be the over-policing of black neighbourhoods. Historically, Black neighbourhoods were under policed which made crime occur often. American states believed the solution to that problem was to increase policing in these neighbourhoods.

Despite this, the problem was not solved. Having more police in an area does not exactly mean that there will be less crime. It only means that the rate of the arrests within this area will increase. Of course, many times Black people are arrested fairly and prove to be guilty.

That being said, Black Americans who have been arrested are often exonerated. So using the fact that Black people are arrested more often does not prove anything at all. According to Barbara O’Brien at the Michigan State University College of Law, African-Americans are around 50% more likely to be proved innocent than other convicted murderers. They also spend more time in prison.

So let’s look back to the argument of people who do not believe in racial prejudice in law enforcement. 52% of people arrested for violent crimes are Black. Black people are 50% more likely to be exonerated even after being convicted. Therefore, Black people do not make up the largest criminal population.

Even if the argument that African-Americans makeup 13% of the population but commit 52% of the crime was factual, this does not in any way shape or form justify police brutality. Even if Black people are more likely to be criminals, this does not mean police are able to shoot suspects. And even if they were resisting, there are other methods of de-escalation that do not include using lethal force. Americans have the right to a fair trial. Crimes like assault or theft do not deserve the death penalty.

Although most of the people killed by police are white, Black people are more than 2 times more likely to be killed by police. Therefore, it is hard to believe that this issue is not a racial one. However, police brutality is an issue that affects all Americans. So, we shouldn’t be denying its existence. Instead, we should think of solutions to this problem. Like stated earlier, teaching police officers how to properly de-escalate situations and how to deal with people who are not complying would be the best solution to the problem.

At the same time, Black people are often complying with officers when they are arrested and later killed. We can use the cases of Elijah McClain and Jacob Blake as examples of people who were innocent and not resisting, yet were still brutalized by law enforcement. In the case of Elijah McClain, he sadly died due to the excessive force along with other factors. For this issue, police units should be thoroughly ensuring that people within the force do not have racist tendencies. Prejudice in law enforcement is extremely dangerous and needs to be acknowledged.

We can argue about the meaning behind statistics all day, but this issue is more complex than a few numbers. This is more than just a simple debate topic; American lives are at stake.