Crime by a relatively few blacks is destroying the blackrncommunity. The criminals in this small group are not thernbreed of times past. While it is now fashionable to ridicule thernpsychological explanations of crime that gained favor in thern1940’s, it may well be that, in times of strong social values, powerfulrnpsychological urges are required to overcome resistance torncrime. The few blacks who today commit vastly disproportionaternnumbers of violent crimes suffer not from emotions toornpowerful to resist, but from a lack of conscience itself (owing inrnlarge part to the absence of a father). For such people, fear isrnthe only deterrent.rnThis means that an increase in the probability of the criminal’srnbeing caught and punished will decrease the rate of crime,rneven if all other causal variables remain unchanged. Indeed,rnthe decrease in crime is likely to decrease the strength of thernother causal contributors to crime. (All this can be said of anrnincrease in punishment—as opposed to probability of beingrncaught—but this is much less effective because the criminalrnwho correctly believes that there is little chance of his beingrncaught hardly cares about the severity of the punishment.)rnIt no longer matters whether the historical treatment ofrnblacks by white America is responsible for violent black crime.rnWhatever the ultimate cause, crime renders impossible any solutionrnto the black community’s otherwise solvable problems.rnSolutions will remain impossible as long as significant numbersrnof influential blacks and whites insist that the social forces suppressingrnblacks also suppress black free will and, therefore, justifyrnleniency. This view confuses the distinction between a possiblyrnjustified analysis of legal and moral desserts (i.e., onernthat sees “free will” as a fiction or as an incomprehensible orrnmeaningless concept) and the role in determining behaviorrnplayed by a belief in free will.rnOur legal system assumes that there is free will and that a reductionrnof free will reduces guilt and, therefore, justifiablernpunishment. Any legal system that failed to assume this wouldrnbe likely to careen into self-parody by saying “you can’t do this,rnbut since you can’t help it, you can do this” (a view permissiblernonly for the legally insane). But even if a legal system tookrna purely operationalist view—and even if the notion of “freernwill” were in fact an incoherent or meaningless concept—ourrnlegal system would have to assume free will because one of thernvital causal forces determining behavior—even in a deterministicrnworld—is the individual’s belief that there is “free will.”rnWe all act in a way that feels free. But we do not believe thatrnthis has anything to do with how we treat others. That must bernencouraged by our society telling us that free will makes us responsible.rnTo the extent that a society does not do this, it isrnmuch more likely to produce people with a conscience insufficientrnto keep them from killing.rnOne of the many, and one of the most effective, ways inrnwhich society reinforces responsibility is the threat of punishment.rnThis potential punishment exerts its influence evenrnwhen the individual does not consciously consider the likely resultsrnof the potential behavior; it exerts its influence from therntime it is internalized by the conscience. In other words: tellrnsomeone that for him to commit theft is not really wrong, or ifrnwrong, not his fault, or if his fault, not punishable, and he willrnbe less likely to resist the temptation to steal.rnAs a rule, the stronger the potential punishment, the greaterrnthe internalized resistance to committing the crime. This resistancerncomes into play long before conscious thought does.rn(Unlike the small child, we have no conscious battle overrnwhether to steal the shiny object; most of us have long since internalizedrna resistance to considering such an act.) Thus, if arnperson feels an impulse to kick you in the shin, the likelihoodrnof his doing so will depend upon the strength of his resistancernto doing so. The stronger the punishment, the stronger thernresistance he internalizes. This is true even if the impulse isrnemotional (anger) and when he is not consciously consideringrnthe punishment. It is certainly true when the impulse is primarilyrn”rational” and the cogitation conscious (bank robbery).rnAnd this is all true even if the deterrninist is almost entirelyrncorrect in his identification of the psychological, familial,rneconomic, and social causes of the behavior, and even if freernwill (as opposed to a belief in free will) plays no role.rnBlack Americans have generally remained a friendly peoplernin spite of their oppression. Indeed, this kindness would be unbelievablernif we did not know it were true. But where slaveryrnand ostracism failed to unleash black rage, black crime—andrnthe fear and destruction this crime causes in the black communityrn—may succeed.rnThe rate of violent crime can be lowered—reducing thernslaughter that kills blacks and the terror that grips whites—rnonly if it is acknowledged that blacks are responsible for mostrnviolent crime. The problem—which is not merely the problemrnof crime but the problem of the black community’s survivalrnand success—can be solved. But it cannot be solved withoutrnfacing the fact that a small number of irredeemably violentrnpeople are destroying the possibility of solution. The black majorityrnalone cannot solve the problems of the black community,rnand a reduction of black violence is only a necessary but notrna sufficient condition for the solution of its problems; therncommitment and resources of the entire society are required.rnHowever, the problems cannot be solved at all unless the blackrnmajority can socialize the rest of the members of its communityrnto meet the norms that must be met in any communityrnthat is to survive, and there is no chance whatever that membersrnof the black majority will be able to do this while beingrnpicked off one by one on streets that a relatively small numberrnof predators now control.rnThe black community will not solve its problems if it in effectrnexcuses black murder on the grounds that “America is arnracist society.” The conservative abhors this view because it impliesrnthat the murderer bears little responsibility for his crime.rnThe black, on the other hand, feels the term to be justified becausernhe knows that the white unfairly reserves for the majorityrnof black males expectations the white would not have ofrnwhites. The black is utterly correct; attaching to an individualrnmember of the black group expectations that, even when statisticallyrntrue of the group, are not true of the individual memberrnis a perfectly reasonable definition of “racist.” It is “racist”rnin its effect on the innocent individual, even though there is nornavoiding the tendency to perceive the individual through a statisticalrnlens and no possibility of assessing a person one hardlyrnknows “as an individual.”rnIn any case, we are at the point where it would make no differencerneven if black violence were entirely the fault of whiternAmerica. Black survival requires that the black majority not berndestroyed by a black minority, and it makes no sense for whitesrnto let a sense of guilt—whether justified or not no longer mattersrn—lead them to blame such depradations on an “Americanrntradition of violence” of which there is little evidence. Falsernexplanations seldom lead to solutions.rn22/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn