Minneapolis police study: 82% of those arrested for robbery were black

David Chanen:

Victims reported that the robber or robbers were black 85 percent of the time; 82 percent of those arrested for robbery were black. Of the victims, 48 percent were white and 30 percent were black. (A victim's race is reported at the discretion of officers, and about 16 percent were listed in a category including mixed race or unknown race.)

"It's not a secret to any of us that we were concerned about violent crime in our community," said Clarence Hightower, executive director of the Minneapolis Urban League. "Being a person of color, I'm disappointed that such a high percentage of suspects are persons of color. I'm concerned if it's parallel to the number of convictions."

The intensifying rise of racial and social segregation in the Twin Cities is a contributing factor to the high number of blacks alleged to be committing the majority of the robberies in Minneapolis, said Myron Orfield, executive director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. Public policy seems to be encouraging schools and low-income housing to become more segregated, which cuts the opportunities for minorities to succeed, he said.

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