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Arrests for Part Two felonies (less serious) and important misdemeanors showed an even higher incidence of Negro crime.

Estimating the Negro population at 50 percent, this means half the people commit 85 percent of all the crimes. As will be shown in a later chapter, a large quota of the white crimes can be charged to transients.

The data on crimes by whites are incontrovertible. Those by Negroes in Washington, as well as in all other northern cities, do not give the full picture. Most police officers prefer not to arrest blacks, especially if there is no white complainant. They have nothing to gain by such a pinch; they merely invite an uproar for “persecuting the gentle Negro.”

Many colored law breakers are never arrested; many who are are not booked, the officers often preferring to mete out summary punishment on the back stairs, which they know is a better deterrent than the inevitable discharge or suspended sentence by a timid, “seen” or left-wing judge.

If you doubt that, the following is from the record of a Congressional hearing and there are plenty of other stories like it: