Nature or Nurture

"African-Americans make up 6% of the state's population but account for 45% of the adult prison population. These numbers suggest that either blacks are more criminal by nature or some whites seldom get punished for lawless behavior. Either way, it demonstrates a clear imbalance in the way the law works."

Those words belong to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane.

If "blacks are more criminal by nature", this would not be evidence of "a clear imbalance in the way the law works." If blacks are "more criminal by nature", then their increased incarceration rates would make perfect sense and this would not necessarily indicate any failure "in the way the law works." So Kane is wrong.

And Kane is wrong again in presenting us with the false choice of either "blacks are more criminal by nature or some whites seldom get punished for lawless behavior." If we agree that blacks are more criminal by nature, then we are surely racists. I don't believe for a second that blacks have a more criminal nature than whites.

I believe we all have a criminal nature regardless of the color of our skin and that it is up to parents and ultimately ourselves to control our base instincts.

If there are indeed more crimes being committed by blacks, it is not a result of a criminal nature. I suspect a nurture problem. Children having children, single parent families, no male role models etc...

Now if Kane would recognize the possibility of a nurture problem, he might begin to understand and address the incarceration problem.