Race and crime

An observed correlation between race and crime has been noted in a number of countries that have relatively multicultural populations as well as between different geographical world regions corresponding to different races. This has prompted controversy regarding the possible causes and social effects, and regarding which actions should consequently be taken.

Crime statistics

Worldwide

The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009), a review of studies of correlates with crime, many of which are from the United States but also including other countries, states that studies on official data consistently finds higher crimes rates for blacks than for whites, especially regarding violent offenses. Victim surveys also show higher black crime rates. Studies on self-reported offending are more inconsistent with studies being about equally divided between those finding a higher overall offending and those finding no relationship. One possible explanation for the inconsistency between self-reported offending and other forms of data is biases in the criminal justice systems, but evidence for such an effect is mixed. Another is that self-reported offending primarily involves relatively trivial and victimless offenses, such as marijuana use. A third explanation is that some research indicates that whites tend to provide more complete self-reported information regarding offending.

Also Hispanics have a higher official crime rates than whites. Studies on self-reported offences are more inconsistent. Both official and self-reported offending are higher for Native Americans than for whites. East Asians have lower official and self-reported crime rates than whites. The official offending rates for south Asian are similar to that for whites although self-report is higher. Both official and self-reported crime rates are higher for Pacific and Indian Oceanic Islanders than for whites.

J. Philippe Rushton collated crime statistics from the INTERPOL Yearbooks for different nations and presented the results as crime rates per 100,000 people for groups of nations with similar racial composition.

From the 1986 Yearbook, 12 East Asian countries, 48 European countries, and 28 African and Caribbean countries.

• murder, 6, 5, and 9
• rape, 3, 6, and 14
• serious assault, 29, 66, and 130

From the 1990 Yearbook, 12 East Asian, 41 European, and 23 Afro-Caribbean countries.

• murder, 3, 5, and 13
• rape, 3, 6, and 17
• serious assault, 27, 63, and 213

From the 1993–96 Yearbooks, 7 East Asian, 45 Caucasian, and 22 Afro-Caribbean countries.

• murder, 2, 4, and 8
• rape, 3, 5, and 6
• serious assault, 31, 34, and 136

There were similar or greater differences if instead analyzing subsets of nations from the more ethnically homogeneous northeast Asia, central Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa. The same pattern also appeared when comparing total violent crime in six mainly White/Amerindian Caribbean countries to eight mainly Black Caribbean countries (72 vs. 449).

United States

As of 2001, the chances of going to prison in percentages for various demographic groups in the United States

Main article: Race and crime in the United States

There are large disparities in crime rates for the different racial/ethnic groups in the United States. A number of theories have been proposed as explanations.

Canada

Although aboriginal persons make up 3.6% of Canada's population, they account for more than 20% of Canada's prison population. Similarly, while black people make up only 2 percent of the Canadian population, they represent over 6 percent of federal prison population. Overall, the federal incarceration rate for aboriginal (185 per 100,000) and black Canadians (146 per 100,000) is many times higher than the rate for Whites (42 per 100,000) and Asians (16 per 100,000).

According to figures for admissions to prison in 1992 in Ontario, expressed per 1000 of the population, Chinese had the lowest crime rates at 3.5 per 1000, only half that of whites (7.1 per 1000). The South Asians had the next lowest rate at about two thirds that of whites. The Native American Indians had much higher crime rates (19.9) at more than two and half times that of whites. The blacks had by far the greatest crime rates (36.9) at more seven times that of whites. The seven-fold over-representation of blacks in crime in Ontario was almost exactly the same as that of Britain and the United States. The low crime rates of the Chinese are also found in both Britain and the United States.

United Kingdom

Main article: Race and crime in the United Kingdom

Different racial/ethnic groups differ in crime rates such as overrepresentation for Afro-Caribbeans.

Sweden

Immigrants are overrepresented in Sweden's crime statistics. During the period 1997-2001, 25% of the almost 1,520,000 offences were committed by people born overseas, while almost 20% were committed by Swedish-born people with a foreign background. Those from North Africa and Western Asia were overrepresented.

Australia

Further information: Indigenous Australians and crime

According to the Australian government's June 2006 publication of prison statistics, while only 2.3% of the national population, Indigenous peoples make up 24% of the overall prison population in Australia. ("Indigenous" meaning those identifying themselves as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin)

New Zealand

In 2004, Maori made up just 15% of the total population but 49.5% of prisoners. Maori were entering prison at 8 times the rate of non-Maori.

Czech republic

Roma make 2-3% of population in the Czech republic. According to Říčan (1998), Roma make up more than 60% of Czech prisoners and about 20-30% earn their livelihood in illegal ways, such as prostitution, trafficking and other property crimes. Roma are thus more than 20 times overrepresented in Czech prisons than their population share would suggest.

Ethnic/racial homogeneity

The degree to which is a country is compromised of more than one ethnic/racial group is referred to as its ethnic/racial homogeneity. Many studies have examined if ethnic/racially heterogeneous areas, most often neighborhoods in large cities, have higher crime rates than homogeneous areas. The evidence is largely consistent for that the more ethnically/racially heterogeneous an area is, the higher its crime rates tend to be.

Racial group conflicts

See also: Dominant minority, Model minority, and Middleman minority

The relationships between different racial groups are sometimes tense and have in some cases caused large scale criminal violence with genocide being the most extreme case. The book World on Fire described tension and violence against successful ethnic minorities worldwide.

Theories of causation

See also: Causes and correlates of crime

Criminologists from the United States have proposed a large number of theories attempting to explain the US data as described in the Race and crime in the United States article. However, these do not necessarily work for other nations or for worldwide statistics.

Some argue that because a majority group in a population will usually have an easier time to reach their goals and plus explicit and implicit discrimination of the minority groups, tendency to commit crime by minority group increases. For instances in African American ghettos, there is obvious lack of economic opportunity, segregation, and social discrimination that make people more susceptible to commit crime than in a neighborhood and population where there is abundant work opportunity, education level and relative social acceptance. The economic condition of certain groups make committing crime higher to achieve their ends. However, this theory does not explain why certain minorities such as East Asians are underrepresented regarding crime to the majority.

Trait and genetic theories

Race and crime were studied by criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso, who belonged to the Italian school of criminology of the end of the 19th century. Lombroso divided Northern Italian and Southern Italians in two different "races." Henceforth, he thought that "Southern Italians were more crime-prone and lazy because they were unlucky enough to have less Aryan blood than their northern countrymen." Enrico Ferri, a student of Lombroso, considered Black people to be of an "inferior race" and more prone to crime than others

Such theories were criticized by later works of criminology, which argued that only social, economic and cultural factors explained criminality. Genetics as an explanation was largely abandoned in criminology after WWII. Race (classification of humans) has also been criticized as a biological concept.

Recent research in ares such as sociobiology, which aims at explaining behaviour by biological factors, or in the area of race and genetics, have caused a renewed interest in genetic explanations, reviving the old debate of nature versus nurture. Scholars critical of this include clinical psychologist Jay Joseph in The Gene Illusion (2002).

Richard Lynn has in the books Race Differences in Intelligence and the The Global Bell Curve argued that there is a relationship between IQ and crime which is an important explanation for differing crime rates across the world.

J. Philippe Rushton in his book Race, Evolution, and Behavior applied r/K selection theory to human races and a number of factors including crime. Rushton and Templer (2009) examined how several factors correlated with high national rate of violent crime (murder, rape, and serious assault). Higher violent crime rates correlated with higher rate of HIV/AIDS (0.5), lower national IQs (0.25), darker skin color (0.23), shorter life expectancy (0.21), but had not relationship with national income (correlation of 0.00). They argue that this, as well as an analysis showing that 52% of the variance of these as well as other factor (birth rate and infant mortality) could be explained by a single factor, support the existence of a r/K factor.

Linda Gottfredson has argued that denying or trying to conceal real biological differences between groups on average IQ instead cause people to seek something to blame for the differing average group achievements, causing resentment and hostility. She argues that "virtually all the victim groups of genocide in the Twentieth Century had relatively high average levels of achievement (e.g., German Jews, educated Cambodians, Russian Kulaks, Armenians in Turkey, Ibos in Nigeria; Gordon, 1980)."

Use in law enforcement

Racial profiling

Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement (e.g. make a traffic stop or arrest). The practice is controversial and is illegal in some nations.

Forensics

In forensics several methods are used to determine the race of a victim or a perpetrator. Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology and human osteology (the study of the human skeleton) in a legal setting, most often in criminal cases where the victim's remains are in the advanced stages of decomposition.

DNA profiling is another method that can be used in law enforcement to used to identify a person's race/geographic ancestry or degree of admixture of different races/geographic ancestries. It has also been used to infer features of physical appearance such as hair and eye color. Since in particular results for persons with a mixed ancestry may be difficult to interpret, some companies supply photographs of persons with a similar genetic mix in order to help identification. Research is also being done on more exactly determining physical traits such as hair texture, skull shape, or the distance between the eyes, possibly allowing a crude sketch of a suspect to be generated from a DNA sample. Critics have questioned the reliability of the results and argue that physical appearances vary, even for close relatives such as siblings. There is also worry about the possibility of genetic racial profiling.

See also

• Genetics of aggression
• Race and Intelligence
• Racial profiling
• Sex and crime
• White flight
• Nature versus nurture
• Scientific racism

External links

• In London in 2006, 79% of the suspects of gun crime were black

The Color of Crime

• The Color of Crime (about)
• The Color of Crime PDF file