This does seem to be part of an ongoing debate, which was made explicit by brexit.
On the one hand are those who think that in general people know what they are doing, are fair, capable of objectivity and reason etc.
On the other there are those who think things would be better left to experts – or perhaps to a subset of people (basically people like themselves).
This tension is everywhere we look – in arguments over free speech, for example, between those who believe in free speech, and those who believe experts (or people like themselves) should define what can be said.
In order to further the “expert” agenda it is necessary to undermine the value of the common voice – by claiming it is prone to “myth” for example.
We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts. – Harold MacMillan
marschalljones
3 years ago
Jury service being the only form of national service I have performed, I found it hugely instructive (served in Kingston too!). The article confirms my impressions of its value. Jurors sit there and listen to the whole case, which must give a different set of perceptions to members of the public served a summary. And seeing real people does have the effect of encouraging more serious thought
You should have ended your last sentence ‘…amongst most jurers’. i have served as a jurer in two Scottish trials,one murder and the other rape. The verdicts were decided by majority, the split being male jurers against female jurers in both cases. Scary stuff.
I served on a female majority jury in Scotland, metal theft being made an example of with an added charge of reckless endangerment added. There was no split by sex in terms of verdict. There was in the choosing of a foreman, myself, the women decided I was to do it.
Anecdotes do not make good cases. Especially when we are discussing gold standard research. The plural of anecdote is not data remember.
I agree that anecdotes never make any kind of case. However, gold standard research into jury member voting decisions is impossible due to the legal mandate of forever secrecy about jury room business . Even our two anecdotes are borderline contempt of court in Scotland.
In our case the Sheriff noted the large majority of women on our jury and expressed his hope this would lead to a female foreperson. This was in open court. The matter was thus broached in the open. My accession to the position of foreman was impossible without at least a majority of the women voting for me. I was persuaded by the Sheriff’s point and did not put myself forward for it. I thus feel confident in being able to fend off any claim of being in contempt.
Sounds like the sheriff provided grounds for a mistrial if there was a conviction.
Blue Tev
3 years ago
“End Violence Against Women” Because men never face violence. It’s always, always, about the victims of cruel patriarchy.
Here is the funny bit. If you ask EVAW about a (heterosexual) case where a man states he was coerced into sex, but there is no physical violence…would EVAW agree that the woman is guilty of rape and should be jailed.
It’s all about diluting the standards and concept of innocent until proven guilty, but only when it’s a woman complaining, and the potential rapist is not from certain categories, say Democrat president candidate or “Asian” gangs
I can’t speak for EVAW, but as a woman I am just as against violence towards men as I am towards women, in whatever way that presents. But what you are saying here is just the same as saying ‘all lives matter’ when the issue is racial violence towards BIPOC communities – it’s diverting from the actual issue at hand. Being unaccountable as individuals just perpetuates the societal issues. The statistics show that gender violence is a huge problem world wide, and if people could get past their own defensive privileges we could actually start to move things on from this rather stagnant and pointless hamster-wheel of an argument.
That in my mind is it’s principal virtue. A system that’s evolved over hundreds of years of literally “trial & error has got to be better than one coming out of the political system where grabbing a headline is as important as justice.
Alex Lekas
3 years ago
given that non-white people are over-represented in prisons seems they are over-represented in the commission of crime, too, and in being victimized by it. Do those things not matter?
“Non White people are more likely to be poor than Whites.”
Which country? And do you mean proportionally poorer or in absolute numbers?
Interestingly proneness to crime and violence does not seem to be related to poverty in a simple way. Different groups suffering similar levels of poverty appear to respond in different ways.
So far as I am aware there is no agreement on why – though cultural factors seem likely.
Proneness to violence is very likely to have biological causes albeit that these will be moderated by cultural conditioning. The biological influence on violence I am thinking of is testosterone. males have far higher levels of testosterone than females and are far more violent. If we are concerned that cultural influence may be a confounding variable, lets get rid of it by looking at aggression in animals. Male animals -especially entire male animals are far more aggressive than females. We habitually castrate male bovines except for breeding specimens because of this. The bull is far more likely to kill you than the cow and far more likely than the castrated bullock. So what has this to do with levels of violence in black and white men? Serum testosterone levels in black American college students are 20% higher on average than those of white college students. Incidentally, the rates of prostate cancer in black American men are twice those of white men.
Modern manners seek to discourage any consideration that people o different races are different and deny the very concept of race. In this they are hiding from the facts.
“Serum testosterone levels in black American college students are 20% higher on average than those of white college students.”
The figure I’ve heard is 15% – but in any case this is an uncomfortable idea for most people. We still have to explain why most of the people with such elevated levels of testosterone are not violent and do not commit crime.
Is this random, or are there social or cultural factors which account for it – and which could perhaps be replicated to reduce it.
The fact that the level of violence in societies, and ethnic groups, changes over time suggests this is the case.
I too have seen figures for the proportion of black American males testosterone being variously between 15% and 21% higher in different publications. One would expect some degree of variance, I suggest.
Well, the idea may be uncomfortable in a modern context, but I am more interested in the question of whether it is true. These days we see more and more a tendency to shut down areas of inquiry if they do not fit in with the modern zeitgeist. As far as scientific enquiry is concerned, such censorship of what may be studied and what may not is a complete disaster. This, to take an extreme example is exactly how Galileo’s work was suppressed. He was made to recant his theories and to promise never to do further research on his unacceptable ideas.
Of course you are right that most black men do not commit violence. It is the same in all parts of society that only a few people act with serious violence against others – however, the context of my point was the suggestion above that the number of black men dealt with by the justice system is a result of racism; presumably in the police for investigating them and in the legal hierarchy for prosecuting them and applying punishments. I contend that those so dealt with, are very much in jail for good reason. I have given a potential explanation of why on a population basis, black men are more likely to be involved in serious criminality and violence and stated that the same kinds of criminality can be seen among some of them in different cultures – particularly in Africa where there is a very high rate of homicide. Looking at crime and violence in African societies presumably removes the possibility that racism has polluted the data.
Tom – I agree with you on two points. Censoring ideas because they are uncomfortable is both wrong and unproductive. But I understand why people are concerned about raising the issue of innate racial differences. It has a bad history. David Reich is good on this.
Secondly I agree that we should not go automatically to racism as the only possible explanation.
I’m concerned that some theorising can lead to policies which are unfriendly to the population themselves – racist, or even eugenic policies. The capacity to hate people just for what they are is still there in our culture (I believe it is precisely visible in some feminism, and in hating on white men, but won’t labour it here).
Africa is so different in so many ways, I don’t think a clear comparison can be made.
It’s pure conjecture, but raised testosterone may be an adaptation for dealing with a harsh environment. Remove the environmental triggers then the response too may dwindle.
On the issue you raise about people’s differential reaction to poverty. It is always true that most poor people of any race manage to generally stay within the law. Those who behave in a violent and seriously criminal way are always the small minority. Those who seek to excuse criminality on the basis that the perpetrator was provoked into his behaviour by poverty, do a real disservice to the thousands of his contemporaries in the same or similar circumstances who strive to behave properly and succeed in doing so.
Good point Muscleguy. Once you consider the common factors (ignoring race) leading to criminal propensity (fatherlessness, truancy, drug and alcohol abuse, lack of educational and work qualifications, mental health issues etc.) you find the true extent of the racial factor. The prima facia assumption that the criminal justice system is systemically racist is seriously exaggerated if not straight out wrong. You can’t solve a problem if you’re wrong about it’s cause.
The assumption that so-called over representation of black people as defendants must mean that the police and the justice system is racist is deeply flawed. The possibility that black people, especially black men are on a population basis, inherently more violent is being ignored because of mistaken political assumptions. To test this hypothesis one could examine the crime rates in various African societies and by doing so, cancel out any influence of white racists. Take a look at the murder rates per hundred thousand in various African and European societies as a metric of how violent people are.
Africa homicides per hundred thousand 12.5 Europe homicides per hundred thousand 3 Asia homicides per hundred thousand 2.9.
Alan Thorpe
3 years ago
I have only served on one jury which was for three weeks on a conspiracy to commit burglary case about 20 years ago. There were five black defendants and an all-white jury. I did not detect any racial prejudice. One member of the jury had a view from the start and did not participate much in the discussion. We took three days to reach a decision. My recollection is that most of us did not believe a lot of the evidence provided by the police and we felt there was evidence known by the legal teams that was being withheld from us. We were all aware that a guilty verdict would result in young men being sent to prison. In the end we found one not guilty and the others had all served prison sentences, so we didn’t feel too bad. A newspaper report I saw later when another member of the same gang was found and tried convinced me that we had made the right decision. Based on that I can only conclude that juries take their responsibilities seriously and are not biased.
Christopher Barclay
3 years ago
The 2018 EVAW report repeatedly misrepresented the actual questions asked in the survey. Most surveys also miss a fundamental point: juries consist of 12 people not 1. Even if as many as 1 in 3 people have a tolerant view on rape, the probability of 10 out of 12 people having a tolerant view on rape is far smaller than 1 in 3.
The desire to take rape cases out of the hands of juries is motivated by a desire to intimidate men into silence as Julian Assange is finding. It should be resisted as should all steps towads a totalitarian state.
Mike Hearn
3 years ago
This is a good article! Fully agree with basically all of it. The fact that EVAW was doing manipulative surveys is no surprise at all, it sadly seems like a lot of feminist groups do that sort of thing. The big problem for a long time has been these groups claiming that “women can lie about being raped” is a myth that should be stamped out, even though there are quite a few data points and scholarly studies showing enormous rates of false claims. The false claim problem in this crime seems to be on a unique scale – who knows how many men have been wrongly put behind bars thanks to the justice system being steadily and systematically biased over time in favour of women? It’s good that jury trials exist, as they seem to be the only force that can reliably push back on emotionally manipulative claims by feminists that women must always be believed, regardless of how many inconsistencies there are in her story.
This does seem to be part of an ongoing debate, which was made explicit by brexit.
On the one hand are those who think that in general people know what they are doing, are fair, capable of objectivity and reason etc.
On the other there are those who think things would be better left to experts – or perhaps to a subset of people (basically people like themselves).
This tension is everywhere we look – in arguments over free speech, for example, between those who believe in free speech, and those who believe experts (or people like themselves) should define what can be said.
In order to further the “expert” agenda it is necessary to undermine the value of the common voice – by claiming it is prone to “myth” for example.
We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts. – Harold MacMillan
Jury service being the only form of national service I have performed, I found it hugely instructive (served in Kingston too!). The article confirms my impressions of its value. Jurors sit there and listen to the whole case, which must give a different set of perceptions to members of the public served a summary. And seeing real people does have the effect of encouraging more serious thought
You should have ended your last sentence ‘…amongst most jurers’.
i have served as a jurer in two Scottish trials,one murder and the other rape.
The verdicts were decided by majority, the split being male jurers against female jurers in both cases.
Scary stuff.
I served on a female majority jury in Scotland, metal theft being made an example of with an added charge of reckless endangerment added. There was no split by sex in terms of verdict.
There was in the choosing of a foreman, myself, the women decided I was to do it.
Anecdotes do not make good cases. Especially when we are discussing gold standard research. The plural of anecdote is not data remember.
I agree that anecdotes never make any kind of case. However, gold standard research into jury member voting decisions is impossible due to the legal mandate of forever secrecy about jury room business . Even our two anecdotes are borderline contempt of court in Scotland.
In our case the Sheriff noted the large majority of women on our jury and expressed his hope this would lead to a female foreperson. This was in open court. The matter was thus broached in the open.
My accession to the position of foreman was impossible without at least a majority of the women voting for me. I was persuaded by the Sheriff’s point and did not put myself forward for it.
I thus feel confident in being able to fend off any claim of being in contempt.
Sounds like the sheriff provided grounds for a mistrial if there was a conviction.
“End Violence Against Women”
Because men never face violence. It’s always, always, about the victims of cruel patriarchy.
Here is the funny bit.
If you ask EVAW about a (heterosexual) case where a man states he was coerced into sex, but there is no physical violence…would EVAW agree that the woman is guilty of rape and should be jailed.
It’s all about diluting the standards and concept of innocent until proven guilty, but only when it’s a woman complaining, and the potential rapist is not from certain categories, say Democrat president candidate or “Asian” gangs
I can’t speak for EVAW, but as a woman I am just as against violence towards men as I am towards women, in whatever way that presents. But what you are saying here is just the same as saying ‘all lives matter’ when the issue is racial violence towards BIPOC communities – it’s diverting from the actual issue at hand. Being unaccountable as individuals just perpetuates the societal issues. The statistics show that gender violence is a huge problem world wide, and if people could get past their own defensive privileges we could actually start to move things on from this rather stagnant and pointless hamster-wheel of an argument.
Rape is rape regardless of who commits it.
“the medieval jurists who designed our legal system” – It wasn’t designed, it evolved!
That in my mind is it’s principal virtue. A system that’s evolved over hundreds of years of literally “trial & error has got to be better than one coming out of the political system where grabbing a headline is as important as justice.
given that non-white people are over-represented in prisons
seems they are over-represented in the commission of crime, too, and in being victimized by it. Do those things not matter?
Poor people are over-represented in crime statistics and in being victims of crime.
Non White people are more likely to be poor than Whites.
FTFY
“Non White people are more likely to be poor than Whites.”
Which country? And do you mean proportionally poorer or in absolute numbers?
Interestingly proneness to crime and violence does not seem to be related to poverty in a simple way. Different groups suffering similar levels of poverty appear to respond in different ways.
So far as I am aware there is no agreement on why – though cultural factors seem likely.
Proneness to violence is very likely to have biological causes albeit that these will be moderated by cultural conditioning. The biological influence on violence I am thinking of is testosterone. males have far higher levels of testosterone than females and are far more violent. If we are concerned that cultural influence may be a confounding variable, lets get rid of it by looking at aggression in animals. Male animals -especially entire male animals are far more aggressive than females. We habitually castrate male bovines except for breeding specimens because of this. The bull is far more likely to kill you than the cow and far more likely than the castrated bullock. So what has this to do with levels of violence in black and white men? Serum testosterone levels in black American college students are 20% higher on average than those of white college students. Incidentally, the rates of prostate cancer in black American men are twice those of white men.
Modern manners seek to discourage any consideration that people o different races are different and deny the very concept of race. In this they are hiding from the facts.
“Serum testosterone levels in black American college students are 20% higher on average than those of white college students.”
The figure I’ve heard is 15% – but in any case this is an uncomfortable idea for most people. We still have to explain why most of the people with such elevated levels of testosterone are not violent and do not commit crime.
Is this random, or are there social or cultural factors which account for it – and which could perhaps be replicated to reduce it.
The fact that the level of violence in societies, and ethnic groups, changes over time suggests this is the case.
I too have seen figures for the proportion of black American males testosterone being variously between 15% and 21% higher in different publications. One would expect some degree of variance, I suggest.
Well, the idea may be uncomfortable in a modern context, but I am more interested in the question of whether it is true. These days we see more and more a tendency to shut down areas of inquiry if they do not fit in with the modern zeitgeist. As far as scientific enquiry is concerned, such censorship of what may be studied and what may not is a complete disaster. This, to take an extreme example is exactly how Galileo’s work was suppressed. He was made to recant his theories and to promise never to do further research on his unacceptable ideas.
Of course you are right that most black men do not commit violence. It is the same in all parts of society that only a few people act with serious violence against others – however, the context of my point was the suggestion above that the number of black men dealt with by the justice system is a result of racism; presumably in the police for investigating them and in the legal hierarchy for prosecuting them and applying punishments. I contend that those so dealt with, are very much in jail for good reason. I have given a potential explanation of why on a population basis, black men are more likely to be involved in serious criminality and violence and stated that the same kinds of criminality can be seen among some of them in different cultures – particularly in Africa where there is a very high rate of homicide. Looking at crime and violence in African societies presumably removes the possibility that racism has polluted the data.
Tom – I agree with you on two points. Censoring ideas because they are uncomfortable is both wrong and unproductive. But I understand why people are concerned about raising the issue of innate racial differences. It has a bad history. David Reich is good on this.
Secondly I agree that we should not go automatically to racism as the only possible explanation.
I’m concerned that some theorising can lead to policies which are unfriendly to the population themselves – racist, or even eugenic policies. The capacity to hate people just for what they are is still there in our culture (I believe it is precisely visible in some feminism, and in hating on white men, but won’t labour it here).
Africa is so different in so many ways, I don’t think a clear comparison can be made.
It’s pure conjecture, but raised testosterone may be an adaptation for dealing with a harsh environment. Remove the environmental triggers then the response too may dwindle.
On the issue you raise about people’s differential reaction to poverty. It is always true that most poor people of any race manage to generally stay within the law. Those who behave in a violent and seriously criminal way are always the small minority. Those who seek to excuse criminality on the basis that the perpetrator was provoked into his behaviour by poverty, do a real disservice to the thousands of his contemporaries in the same or similar circumstances who strive to behave properly and succeed in doing so.
Good point Muscleguy.
Once you consider the common factors (ignoring race) leading to criminal propensity (fatherlessness, truancy, drug and alcohol abuse, lack of educational and work qualifications, mental health issues etc.) you find the true extent of the racial factor. The prima facia assumption that the criminal justice system is systemically racist is seriously exaggerated if not straight out wrong.
You can’t solve a problem if you’re wrong about it’s cause.
The assumption that so-called over representation of black people as defendants must mean that the police and the justice system is racist is deeply flawed. The possibility that black people, especially black men are on a population basis, inherently more violent is being ignored because of mistaken political assumptions. To test this hypothesis one could examine the crime rates in various African societies and by doing so, cancel out any influence of white racists. Take a look at the murder rates per hundred thousand in various African and European societies as a metric of how violent people are.
Africa homicides per hundred thousand 12.5
Europe homicides per hundred thousand 3
Asia homicides per hundred thousand 2.9.
I have only served on one jury which was for three weeks on a conspiracy to commit burglary case about 20 years ago. There were five black defendants and an all-white jury. I did not detect any racial prejudice. One member of the jury had a view from the start and did not participate much in the discussion. We took three days to reach a decision. My recollection is that most of us did not believe a lot of the evidence provided by the police and we felt there was evidence known by the legal teams that was being withheld from us. We were all aware that a guilty verdict would result in young men being sent to prison. In the end we found one not guilty and the others had all served prison sentences, so we didn’t feel too bad. A newspaper report I saw later when another member of the same gang was found and tried convinced me that we had made the right decision. Based on that I can only conclude that juries take their responsibilities seriously and are not biased.
The 2018 EVAW report repeatedly misrepresented the actual questions asked in the survey. Most surveys also miss a fundamental point: juries consist of 12 people not 1. Even if as many as 1 in 3 people have a tolerant view on rape, the probability of 10 out of 12 people having a tolerant view on rape is far smaller than 1 in 3.
The desire to take rape cases out of the hands of juries is motivated by a desire to intimidate men into silence as Julian Assange is finding. It should be resisted as should all steps towads a totalitarian state.
This is a good article! Fully agree with basically all of it. The fact that EVAW was doing manipulative surveys is no surprise at all, it sadly seems like a lot of feminist groups do that sort of thing. The big problem for a long time has been these groups claiming that “women can lie about being raped” is a myth that should be stamped out, even though there are quite a few data points and scholarly studies showing enormous rates of false claims. The false claim problem in this crime seems to be on a unique scale – who knows how many men have been wrongly put behind bars thanks to the justice system being steadily and systematically biased over time in favour of women? It’s good that jury trials exist, as they seem to be the only force that can reliably push back on emotionally manipulative claims by feminists that women must always be believed, regardless of how many inconsistencies there are in her story.
Juries should be judged on a perjury basis.