Race and crime in the United States - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article addresses the issue of race and crime in the United States. For treatment of related issues in other countries, see Race and crime
Race and crime
Observations of relationships between race and crime have been part of criminological theory since its early inceptions. In early criminology this relation was used to argue that certain racially defined populations were more prone to crime than others, and in turn as motivation for policies of...

and Immigrant criminality
Immigrant criminality
Immigration and crime refers to perceived or actual relationships between crime and immigration.-Worldwide:The Handbook of Crime Correlates , a review of studies of correlates with crime, states that most studies on immigrants have found higher rates of crime...

.

The relationship between race and crime in the United States has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. Since the 1980s, the debate has centered around the causes of and contributing factors to the disproportional representation of racial minorities (particularly African Americans, hence "Black crime") at all stages of the criminal justice system, including arrests, prosecutions and incarcerations.

Many theories of causation have been proposed, most of which assume predominantly social and/or environmental causes; while a few others argue for a reconsideration of the role of biology.

Racial demographics of the US

The racial composition of the US population as of 2008 was 79.79% White American

White American

White Americans are people of the United States who are considered or consider themselves White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those "having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa...

(65.60% non-Hispanic and 14.19% Hispanic

White Hispanic and Latino Americans

White Hispanic and Latino Americans are citizens and residents of the United States who are racially White and ethnically Hispanic or Latino.White American, itself an official U.S...

), 12.84% African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

(12.22% non-Hispanic and 0.62% Hispanic), 4.45% Asian American

Asian American

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent. The U.S. Census Bureau definition of Asians as "Asian” refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent, including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan,...

(4.35% non-Hispanic and 0.10% Hispanic), 1.01% American Indian

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

or Alaska Native

Alaska Natives

Alaska Natives are the indigenous peoples of Alaska. They include: Aleut, Inuit, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Eyak, and a number of Northern Athabaskan cultures.-History:In 1912 the Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded...

(0.76% non-Hispanic and 0.25% Hispanic), 0.18% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander American

Pacific Islander American

Pacific Islander Americans, also known as Oceanian Americans, are residents of the United States with original ancestry from Oceania. They represent the smallest racial group counted in the United States census of 2000. They numbered 874,000 people or 0.3 percent of the United States population...

(0.14% non-Hispanic and 0.04% Hispanic), and 1.69% Multiracial American

Multiracial American

Multiracial Americans, US residents who identify themselves as of "two or more races", were numbered at around 9 million, or 2.9% of the population, in the census of 2010. However there is considerable evidence that the real number is far higher. Prior to the mid-20th century many people hid their...

(1.64% non-Hispanic and 0.05% Hispanic). 15.25% of the total US population identified their ethnicity as Hispanic

Hispanic and Latino Americans

Hispanic or Latino Americans are Americans with origins in the Hispanic countries of Latin America or in Spain, and in general all persons in the United States who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino.1990 Census of Population and Housing: A self-designated classification for people whose origins...

Crime rate statistics

Historically, crime statistics have played a central role in the discussion of the relationship between race and crime in the United States. As they have been designed to record information not only on the kinds of crimes committed, but also on the individuals involved in crime, criminologists and sociologists have and continue to use crime rate statistics to make general statements regarding the racial demographics of crime-related phenomena such as victimization, arrests, prosecutions, convictions, and incarceration. Regardless of their views regarding causation, scholars acknowledge that some racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in the arrest and victimization reports which are used to compile crime rate statistics. There is, however, a great deal of debate regarding the causes of that disproportionality.

Data gathering methods

In the United States, crime data is collected from three major sources: law enforcement agency crime reports, collected monthly by the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

and processed annually as Uniform Crime Reports

Uniform Crime Reports

The Uniform Crime Reports are published by the United States Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program...

(UCR); victimization surveys, collected biannually by the Bureau of Justice Statistics

United States Bureau of Justice Statistics

The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics is a federal government agency belonging to the U.S. Department of Justice. Established on December 27, 1979, the bureau collects, analyzes and publishes data relating to crime in the United States. The agency publishes data regarding statistics...

and processed annually in the National Crime Victimization Survey

National Crime Victimization Survey

The National Crime Victimization Survey , administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is a national survey of approximately 49,000 to 77,400 households twice a year in the United States, on the frequency of crime victimization, as well as characteristics and consequences of victimization...

(NCVS); and self-report surveys

Self report study

A self-report study is a type of survey, questionnaire, or poll in which respondents read the question and select a response by themselves without researcher interference....

. The UCR represents the primary source of data used in the calculation of official statistics regarding serious crimes such as murder and homicide, which is supplemented by the information provided through the NCVS and self-report studies, the latter being the best indicator of actual crime rates for minor offenses such as illegal substance abuse

Drug abuse

Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...

and petty theft

Theft

In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

. These crime data collection programs provide most of the statistical information utilized by criminologists and sociologist in their analysis of crime and the extent of its relationship to race. Another form of data is that regarding the prison population.

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR)

The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) program, established in 1927, is a summary-based reporting system that collects data on crime reported to local and state law enforcement agencies across the United States. The UCR system indexes crimes under two headings: Part I and Part II offenses. Part I offenses include: murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

and non-negligent homicide

Homicide

Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...

; non-lethal violent crimes comprising robbery

Robbery

Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear. At common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear....

, forcible rape

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

and aggravated assault

Assault

In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

; and property crimes comprising burglary

Burglary

Burglary is a crime, the essence of which is illicit entry into a building for the purposes of committing an offense. Usually that offense will be theft, but most jurisdictions specify others which fall within the ambit of burglary...

, larceny/theft

Larceny

Larceny is a crime involving the wrongful acquisition of the personal property of another person. It was an offence under the common law of England and became an offence in jurisdictions which incorporated the common law of England into their own law. It has been abolished in England and Wales,...

, motor vehicle theft

Motor vehicle theft

Motor vehicle theft is the criminal act of stealing or attempting to steal a motor vehicle...

and arson

Arson

Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...

. Part II offenses include fraud

Fraud

In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...

, forgery

Forgery

Forgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...

/counterfeit

Counterfeit

To counterfeit means to illegally imitate something. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product...

ing, embezzlement

Embezzlement

Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly appropriating or secreting assets by one or more individuals to whom such assets have been entrusted....

, simple assault, sex offenses, offenses against the family, drug and liquor offenses, weapons offenses and other non-violent offenses excluding traffic violations.

There are fundamental limitations of the UCR system, including:

Inaccuracy: UCR statistics do not represent the actual amount of criminal activity occurring in the United States. As it relies upon local law enforcement agency crime reports, the UCR program can only measure crime known to police and cannot provide an accurate representation of actual crime rates.
Misrepresentation: The UCR program is focused upon street crime, and does not record information on many other types of crime, such as organized crime, corporate crime or federal crime. Further, law enforcement agencies can provide inadvertently misleading data as a result of local policing practices. These factors can lead to misrepresentations regarding the nature and extent of criminal activity in the United States.
Manipulation: UCR data is capable of being manipulated by local law enforcement agencies. Information is supplied voluntarily to the UCR program, and manipulation of data can occur at the local level.

As a response to these and other limitations, a new system of crime data collection was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of the UCR system. The National Incident Based Reporting System

National Incident Based Reporting System

National Incident-Based Reporting System is an incident-based reporting system used by law enforcement agencies in the United States for collecting and reporting data on crimes. Local, state and federal agencies generate NIBRS data from their records management systems. Data is collected on every...

(NIBRS) is an incident-based reporting system that will collect more comprehensive and detailed data on crime from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. As it is still under development, NIBRS coverage is not yet nationwide.

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) program, established in 1972, is a national survey of a representative sample of households in the United States which covers the frequency of crime victimization and the characteristics and consequences of victimization. The primary purpose behind the NCVS program is to gather information on crimes that were not reported to police, though information is also collected on reported crimes. The survey collects data on rape, assault, robbery, burglary, personal and household larceny and motor vehicle theft. The NCVS also includes supplemental questions which allow information to be gathered on tangentially relevant issues such as school violence, attitudes towards law enforcement or perceptions regarding crime.

There are fundamental limitations to the NCVS program, including:

Reliability: NCVS statistics do not represent verified or evidenced instances of victimization. As it depends upon the recollection of the individuals surveyed, the NCVS cannot distinguish between true and fabricated claims of victimization, nor can it verify the truth of the severity of the reported incidents. Further, the NCVS cannot detect cases of victimization where the victim is too traumatized to report. These factors can contribute to deficits in the reliability of NCVS statistics.
Misrepresentation: The NCVS program is focused upon metropolitan and urban areas, and does not adequately cover suburban and rural regions. This can lead to misrepresentations regarding the nature and extent of victimization in the United States.

Comparison of UCR and NCVS data

According to the NCVS for 1992-2000, 43% of violent criminal acts, and 53% of serious violent crime (not verbal threats, or cuts and bruises) were reported to the police. Overall, black (49%) and American Indian (48%) victims reported most often, significantly higher than whites (42%) and Asians (40%). Serious violent crime and aggravated assault against blacks (58% and 61%) and Indians (55% and 59%) was reported more often than against whites (51% and 54%) or Asians (50% and 51%). American Indians were unusually unlikely to report a robbery (45%), as with Asians and a simple assault (31%).

Despite the differences in the amount of crime reported, comparisons of the UCR and NCVS data sets show there to be a high degree of correspondence between the two systems. This correspondence extends to the racial demography of both perpetrators and victims of violent crime reported in both systems.

Classification of Hispanics

The UCR classifies most Hispanics into the "white" category. The NCVS classifies some Hispanic criminals as "white" and some as "other race". The victim categories for the NCVS are more distinct.

Murder

]

UCR, Murder Victims by Age, Sex, and Race, 2009: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_02.html
UCR, Murder Offenders by Age, Sex, and Race, 2009: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_03.html
UCR, Race and Sex of Victim by Race and Sex of Offender, Single victim/single offender, 2009: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_06.html

A United States Department of Justice report which surveyed homicide

Homicide

statistics between 1974 and 2004 stated that of the crimes surveyed, 52.2% of the offenders were Black, 45.8% were White, and 2% were Other Races. Of the victims in those same crimes, 50.9% were White, 46.9% were Black, and 2.1% were Other Races. The report further stated that "most murders are intraracial" with 86% of White murders committed by Whites, and 94% of Black murders committed by Blacks. However, the document does not provide any details concerning what races or ethnicities are included in the designations "White", "Black", or "Other Races".

Victim Survey

NCVS, Race data: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/html/cvus/race.cfm
NCVS, Perceived race of offender, single-offender, 2007:http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/html/cvus/single_offender_victimizations694.cfm
NCVS, Perceived race of offender, mulitple-offenders, 2007:http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/html/cvus/single_offender_victimizations694.cfm
NCVS, Victim rates per 1,000 persons age 12 or older of violent crime, 2009: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/html/cvus/violent_crimes717.cfm

In a 2004 United States Department of Justice report which analyzed carjacking

Carjacking

Carjacking is a form of hijacking, where the crime is of stealing a motor vehicle and so also armed assault when the vehicle is occupied. Historically, such as in the rash of semi-trailer truck hijackings during the 1960s, the general term hijacking was used for that type of vehicle abduction,...

trends over the previous decade, carjacking victims identified 56% of the offenders as black, 21% as white, and 16% as members of other races.

Racially motivated hate crime

The federal government publishes a list annually of Hate Crime Statistics, 2009

Also published by the federal government is the Known Offender's Race by Bias Motivation, 2009

Hispanics

According to a 2009 report by the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2007 Latinos "accounted for 40% of all sentenced federal offenders-more than triple their share (13%) of the total U.S. adult population". This was an increase from 24% in 1991. 72% of the Latino offenders were not U.S. citizens. For Hispanic offenders sentenced in federal courts, 48% were
immigration offenses and 37% drug offenses. One reason for the large increase in immigration offenses is that they exclusively fall under federal jurisdiction.

Crime trends

Some studies had argued for smaller racial disparities in violent crime in recent times. However, a 2011 study which examined the racial disparities in violent crime and incarceration from 1980 and 2008 found little difference for black share of violent offending. Racial imbalances in arrests vs. incarcerations were both small and consistent across the time period. The authors argued that the prior studies had been confounded by not separating Hispanics from Whites. The number of Hispanic offenders has been increasing rapidly and have violence rates higher than that of Whites but lower than that of Blacks.

Youth gangs

The "National Youth Gang Survey Analysis" (2009) state that of gang members, 49% are Hispanic/Latino, 35% are African-American/black, 9% are white, and 7% are other race/ethnicity.

Prison data

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 39.4% of the prison and jail population in 2009. Hispanics (of all races) were 15.9% of those incarcerated in 2009. Hispanics comprised 16.3% of the US population according to the 2010 US census. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2000 to 2008 the rate of prevalence of incarceration for blacks declined to 3,161 per 100,000 and the white rate slightly increase to 487 per 100,000. In 2009 American Indians and Alaskan Natives were jailed, paroled, or on probation at 932 per 100,000, 25% higher than for non-Indians/Natives (747), up 5.6% that year and 12% higher than 2007.. However, crime in general declined during this time down to near 1970 levels, an 18% decrease from the previous decade.

For men in their early thirties, African-Americans are about 7 times more likely to have a prison record than whites. They are more likely to have been in prison (22.4 percent) than in the military (17.4 percent). However, more blacks are enrolled in college than in prison. According to the US Census Bureau as of the year 2000 there were 2,224,181 blacks enrolled in college. In that same year there were only 610,300 black inmates in prison according to the Bureau of Justice. 12.5 percent have a bachelor’s degree. The results are highly dependent on education. 30 percent of those without college education and nearly 60 percent of high school dropouts had prison records.

Racial homogeneity of geographic areas

Studies have examined if ethnic/racially heterogeneous areas, most often neighborhoods in large cities, have higher crime rates than more homogeneous areas. Most studies find that the more ethnically/racially heterogeneous an area is, the higher its crime rates tend to be.

Racial composition of geographic areas

Studies examining the relationship between percentages of different rates in an area and crime rates have generally either found similar relationships as for nationwide crime rates or no significant relationships. Most studied is the correlation between proportion of blacks in an area and crime with most of the studies finding a relationship, especially regarding violent offenses.

Theories of causation

As noted above, scholars acknowledge that some racial and ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans, are disproportionately represented in the arrest and victimization reports which are used to compile crime rate statistics in the United States. The data from 2008 reveals that, though White Americans constituted the vast majority of total arrests made, African Americans were disproportionately represented in all forms of violent crime and property crime, as well as in the three measured forms of white-collar crime, with the average rates of representation 2 to 3 times higher than African American representation in the general population. Such disparities become greater if calculating crimes per person for different races since overrepresentation for one group also means underrepresentation for other groups. The issue of disproportional minority representation in crime rate statistics has thus become a source of debate and controversy.

While most criminologists have traditionally assumed that disproportional representation in crime rate statistics is an indication of disproportional participation in criminal behavior, prominent specialists in the field of race and crime studies have voiced concern over such an assumption. Pointing to the limitations generally recognized as inherent in the UCR and NCVS systems, scholars note that the crime rate statistics derived from them may be misleading. In particular, the racial demographics of crime rate statistics may be tainted or made otherwise unreliable through recognized ambiguities in racial categorization, through misreporting due to personal bias or prejudice, through error in calculation due to local police recording practices, or through bias in the criminal justice system itself.

Defenders of the relative accuracy and reliability of the racial demographic component of crime statistics in the US point to international crime statistics showing remarkably similar results. INTERPOL statistics on homicide, forcible rape and aggravated assault from the years 1984-1996 are reported to show the same racial disproportionality, with Asian and White populations rating consistently lower than Black populations. In 1996, the rates per 100,000 were estimated at 35 for Asians, 42 for Whites and 149 for Blacks, yielding a Black rate more than 3 times the Asian or White rate. See also the Race and crime

Race and crime

Observations of relationships between race and crime have been part of criminological theory since its early inceptions. In early criminology this relation was used to argue that certain racially defined populations were more prone to crime than others, and in turn as motivation for policies of...

article.

Regardless of their arguable accuracy, public focus on the disproportionate representation of minorities in violent crime rate statistics has led to both the general racialization

Racialization

Racialization refers to processes of the discursive production of racial identities. It signifies the extension of dehumanizing and racial meanings to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group...

of the discussion regarding crime as well as to the emergence of a racial stereotype which characterizes young African American men as "inherently more sinister, evil and dangerous" than the young men of other racial groups, which Katheryn Russell-Brown has dubbed the "criminal black man" stereotype. Research conducted over the last two decades on the public perceptions of crime reveals that 54% of surveyed White Americans believe that African Americans are more prone to violent behavior.

However, this perception of African Americans as inherently violent is not limited to the White segment of the population: the National Race and Politics Survey of 1991 recorded more than half of both White Americans and African Americans as being in agreement with the statement "Blacks are aggressive or violent". Further, a study conducted in 2002 found that the general public holds the belief that African Americans are involved in a greater percentage of violent crime (39.4%) than stated in victim surveys for completed violent crime (29.4%). For burglary the public estimated 38.3% while of those arrested 31.6 were blacks. On the other hand, the public thought 39.8% of robberies were done by blacks when victim surveys stated 48.8% for completed robberies.

There is, at present, no consensus as to the causes behind the racial disproportionality in arrests, charges and incarceration of African Americans in the United States. However, scholars agree that more research is needed. Gary LaFree

Gary LaFree

Gary LaFree is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Maryland and the director of the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism . His main areas of expertise are sociology, criminology, race and crime, and terrorism.-Education:LaFree...

gives an account of how studies correlating race and crime were discouraged from the 1960s on as sociologists developed a sensitivity to research that could be seen as placing blame on those who could be victims of racial discrimination.

He further identifies an urgent need for renewed studies of race differences in crime. John Paul Wright, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati

University of Cincinnati

The University of Cincinnati is a comprehensive public research university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and a part of the University System of Ohio....

, opines that the connection between crime and race should be studied "honestly and courageously" precisely because it is African Americans who have suffered most from the America's collective failure to understand and control street crime. No other group, says Wright, would benefit more from a "candid examination of race and crime."

Engaging in the direct study of race and crime, however, is not a straightforward matter. Wright observes that researchers who produce findings which identify race as a determining factor in criminal behavior run the risk of "public repudiation, professional exile, and even career death". He writes: "If social security is the holy grail of politics, race and crime is the holy grail of criminology. Touch it and you expose yourself to wrath and fury. For this reason, many criminologists are loath to examine the connection between race and crime outside the modern sociological paradigm that holds that race is a mere social construct

Convention (norm)

A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms or criteria, often taking the form of a custom....

- that is, something defined by any given society, ... a 'social invention'." Other scholars have also deplored the current climate surrounding the discussion of race and crime. Professors of sociology Robert J. Sampson

Robert J. Sampson

Robert J. Sampson is the Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Chair of the Department of Sociology. Before joining Harvard he taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago for twelve years and before that the University of Illinois at...

and William Julius Wilson

William Julius Wilson

William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist. He worked at the University of Chicago 1972-1996 before moving to Harvard....

of Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

describe it as "mired in an unproductive mix of controversy and silence."

School of thought

The relationship between race and crime has been an area of study for criminologists since the emergence of anthropological criminology

Anthropological criminology

Anthropological criminology is a field of offender profiling, based on perceived links between the nature of a crime and the personality or physical appearance of the offender...

in the late 19th century. Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso, born Ezechia Marco Lombroso was an Italian criminologist and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature...

, founder of the Italian school of criminology

Italian school of criminology

The Italian school of criminology was founded at the end of the 19th century by Cesare Lombroso and two of his Italian disciples, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo .- Lombroso's conception of the "atavistic born criminal" :...

, argued that criminal behavior was the product of biological factors, including race. He was among the first criminologists to claim a direct link between race and crime. This biological perspective, sometimes seen as racist and increasingly unpopular, was criticized by early 20th century scholars, including Frances Kellor

Frances Kellor

Frances Alice Kellor was an American social reformer and investigator, who specialized in the study of immigrants to the United States and women.-Biography:...

, Johan Thorsten Sellin

Thorsten Sellin

Johan Thorsten Sellin was an American sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, a penologist and one of the pioneers of scientific criminology.-Biography:...

and William Du Bois, who argued that other circumstances, such as social and economic conditions, were the central factors which led to criminal behavior, regardless of race. Du Bois traced the causes of the disproportional representation of Blacks in the criminal justice system back to the improperly handled emancipation

Emancipation

Emancipation means the act of setting an individual or social group free or making equal to citizens in a political society.Emancipation may also refer to:* Emancipation , a champion Australian thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1979...

of Black slaves in general and the convict leasing

Convict lease

Convict leasing was a system of penal labor practiced in the Southern United States, beginning with the emancipation of slaves at the end of the American Civil War in 1865, peaking around 1880, and ending in the last state, Alabama, in 1928....

program in particular. In 1901, he wrote:
The debate that ensued remained largely academic until the late 20th century, when the relationship between race and crime became a recognized field of specialized study in criminology. As Helen T. Greene and Shaun L. Gabbidon

Shaun L. Gabbidon

Shaun L. Gabbidon is a criminologist and the author of many articles and books that typically focus on the areas of racial and ethnic issues in criminology.-Life:...

, professor of criminal justice at Pennsylvania State University

Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...

, note in their recently published Encyclopedia of Race and Crime (2009), many criminology and criminal justice programs now either require or offer elective courses on the topic of the relationship between race and crime.

Sociologist Orlando Patterson

Orlando Patterson

Orlando Patterson is a Jamaica-born American historical and cultural sociologist known for his work regarding issues of race in the America, as well as the sociology of development, currently holding the John Cowles chair in Sociology at Harvard University. Patterson took his B.Sc in Economics...

has seen the controversy as a dispute between liberal and conservative criminologists in which both parties focus on a single aspect of the causal net, with liberals focusing on factors external to the groups in question and conservatives focusing on internal cultural and behavioral factors.

Conflict theory

Conflict theory is considered "one of the most popular theoretical frameworks among race and crime scholars". Rather than one monolithic theory, conflict theory represents a group of closely related theories which operate on a common set of fundamental assumptions. As a general theory of criminal behavior, conflict theory proposes that crime is an inevitable consequence of the conflict which arises between competing groups within society. Such groups can be defined through a number of factors, including class, economic status, religion, language, ethnicity, race or any combination thereof. Further, conflict theory proposes that crime could be largely eliminated if the structure of society were to be changed.

The form of conflict theory which emphasizes the role of economics, being heavily influenced by the work of Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

and sometimes referred to as Marxist criminology

Marxist criminology

Marxist criminology is one of the schools of criminology. It parallels the work of the functionalist school which focuses on what produces stability and continuity in society but, unlike the functionalists, it adopts a predefined political philosophy...

, views crime as a natural response to the inequality arising from the competition inherent in capitalist society. Sociologists and criminologists emphasizing this aspect of social conflict argue that, in a competitive society in which there is an inequality in the distribution of goods, those groups with limited or restricted access to goods will be more likely to turn to crime. Dutch criminologist Willem Adrian Bonger, one of the first scholars to apply the principles of economic determinism

Economic determinism

Economic determinism is the theory which attributes primacy to the economic structure over politics in the development of human history. It is usually associated with the theories of Karl Marx, although many Marxist thinkers have dismissed plain and unilateral economic determinism as a form of...

to the issue of crime, argued that such inequality as found in capitalism was ultimately responsible for the manifestation of crime at all levels of society, particularly among the poor. Though this line of thinking has been criticized for requiring the establishment of a utopian socialist society, the notion that the disproportionality observed in minority representation in crime rate statistics could be understood as the result of systematic economic disadvantage found its way into many of the theories developed in subsequent generations.

Culture conflict theory, derived from the pioneering work of sociologist Thorsten Sellin

Thorsten Sellin

Johan Thorsten Sellin was an American sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, a penologist and one of the pioneers of scientific criminology.-Biography:...

, emphasizes the role of culturally accepted norms of conduct in the formation of cultural groups and the conflicts which arise through their interaction. Culture conflict theory argues that the group with the most power in any society ensures that their values, traditions and behaviors, which Sellin referred to as "conduct norms", are those to which all other members of society are forced to conform, and any actions which conflict with the interests of the dominant group are identified as deviant and/or criminal in nature. Sellin's original ideas continued to be developed throughout the 20th century, most notably by George Vold in the 1950s and Austin Turk in the 1960s, and continue to influence the contemporary debate. The recent work of Gregory J. Howard, Joshua D. Freilich and Graeme R. Newman applies culture conflict theory to the issue of immigrant and minority crime around the world. According to their research, while culturally homogeneous groups experience little to no cultural conflict, as all the members share the same set of "conduct norms", culturally heterogeneous groups, such as modern industrial nations with large immigrant populations, display heightened competition between sets of cultural norms which, in turn, leads to an increase in violence and crime. Societies which have high levels of cultural diversity in their population, it is claimed, are more likely to have higher rates of violent crime.

According to conflict theorists such as Marvin Wolfgang, Hubert Blalock and William Chambliss, the disproportionate representation of racial minorities in crime statistics and in the prison population is the result of race- and class-motivated disparities in arrests, prosecutions and sentencing rather than differences in actual participation in criminal activity, an approach which has also been taken by proponents of critical race theory

Critical race theory

Critical Race Theory is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power.Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry...

. This line of argumentation is generally seen as part of a wider approach to race-related issues referred to as the Discrimination Thesis, which assumes that differences in the treatment received by people of minority racial background in a number of public institutions, including the criminal justice, education and health care systems, is the result of overt racial discrimination. Opposed to this view is the Non-Discrimination Thesis, which seeks to defend these institutions from such accusations.

At the time it was first proposed, conflict theory was considered outside the mainstream of more established criminological theories, such as strain theory

Strain theory (sociology)

In criminology, the strain theory states that social structures within society may pressure citizens to commit crime. Following on the work of Émile Durkheim, Strain Theories have been advanced by Robert King Merton , Albert K. Cohen , Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin , Robert Agnew , and Steven...

, social disorganization theory and differential association theory

Differential association

In criminology, Differential Association is a theory developed by Edwin Sutherland proposing that through interaction with others, individuals learn the values, attitudes, techniques, and motives for criminal behavior....

. Barbara D. Warner, associate professor of criminal justice and police studies at Eastern Kentucky University, notes that conflict theory has been the subject of increasing criticism in recent years. Recent studies claim that, while there may have been real sentencing differences related to non-legal characteristics such as race in the 1960s, sentencing discrimination as described by the conflict theorists at that time no longer exists. Criticism has also pointed to the lack of testability

Testability

Testability, a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components: the logical property that is variously described as contingency, defeasibility, or falsifiability, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logically possible, and the practical feasibility of...

of the general theory. While much research has been done to correlate race, income level and crime frequency, typically of less serious criminal behavior such as theft or larceny, research has shown there to be no significant correlation between race, income level and crime seriousness. Thus, conflict theory encounters difficulties in attempting to account for the high levels of violent crime such as murder, homicide and rape, in minority populations.

Strain (anomie) theory

Strain theory, which is largely derived from the work of Robert K. Merton

Robert K. Merton

Robert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor...

in the 1930s and 1940s, argues that social structures within society which lead to inequality and deprivation in segments of its population indirectly encourage those segments to commit crime. According to strain theory, differences in crime rates between races are the result of real differences in behavior, but to be understood as an attempt to alleviate either absolute or relative deprivation and adapt to the existing opportunity structure.

A more recent approach to strain theory was proposed by Steven F. Messner and Richard Rosenfeld in the 1990s. In their version of the theory, which they refer to as institutional anomie theory, Messner and Rosenfeld argue that the dominance of materialistic concerns and measurements of success manifested in the American Dream

American Dream

The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...

weakens the effectiveness of informal social control mechanisms and support processes, which encourages economic gain by any means, legal or illegal. In those segments of the population which experience the greatest relative deprivation, therefore, there is readiness to turn to crime to overcome inequality and eliminate relative deprivation.

Critics of strain theory point to its weaknesses when compared with actual criminal behavior patterns. Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi argue that strain theory "misconstrue(s) the nature of the criminal act, supplying it with virtues it does not possess." They further point out that, while strain theory suggests that criminals should tend to target people in a more advantageous economic situation than themselves, they more often victimize individuals who live in the same economic circumstances.

Social disorganization theory

Social disorganization theory proposes that high rates of crime are largely the result of a heterogeneous and impoverished social ecology. Proponents of the theory point to the process of urban decay

Urban decay

Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...

as a major contributing factor to the breakdown of healthy urban communities which would normally curb the spread of many forms of criminal behavior. The diversity of minority cultures present in poverty-stricken neighborhoods prevents the formation of strong social bonds and leaves inhabitants uninterested in maintaining positive community relationships. This has been observed to increase the likelihood of crime in certain urban areas, which can lead to increased policing and a further breakdown of familial structures as a result of arrests, which, in turn, precipitates more crime. Social disorganization theory has been instrumental in establishing the notion that stable, culturally homogeneous communities have lower rates of delinquency and crime regardless of race.

Macrostructural opportunity theory

Phillippia Simmons reports that many of the studies which have investigated intra- and interracial crime seek to explain this through a theory of macrostructural opportunity which states that interracial violence is primarily a function of opportunity and access. According to this theory, intraracial crime rates remain relatively high due to the fact that much of the US remains residentially segregated. She notes that this theory predicts that, if residential areas were more racially integrated, intraracial crime would decrease and interracial crime would increase correspondingly. However, she also notes that not all researchers on the topic of intraracial crime agree with this result, with some pointing to other macrostructural factors, such as income and education, which may negate the effect of race on inter- and intraracial crime.

Anthony Walsh criticizes the attempt to use the macrostructural opportunity model to explain interracial rape as has been done in studies conducted in the past few decades, pointing out that such a defense is directly contradicted by the data related to homicide. Walsh argues that, while the macrostructural opportunity model helps explain why black murderers almost always choose black victims, it does not explain why black rapists choose white victims roughly 55% of the time. However, on the opposite side there is also an elevated incidence of white rapists choosing black victims. This theory has not been tested on this data. There are disparities in rates of reporting rape where victims of some races are statistically less likely or more likely to report their rape, especially depending on the race of the offender. Black women in America are more likely to report sexual assault that has been perpetrated by a stranger. White women are more likely to report the offense if the offender is black whereas black women are still more likely to under-report rapes overall as they are more likely to blame themselves, feel they will be blamed or feel they won't be believed.

Social control theory

Social control theory, which is among the most popular theories in criminology, proposes that crime is most commonly perpetrated by individuals who lack strong bonds or connections with their social environment. Based upon Travis Hirschi's Causes of Delinquency (1969), social bonding theory pioneered the notion that criminologists can gain useful insight into the motives behind criminal behavior by examining what normally motivates individuals to refrain from crime. From this it is argued that, in those segments of the population where such motivation is lacking, crime will be more prevalent. Hirshi was explicit in mentioning that he believed his theory held true across all racial boundaries, and subsequent research - both in the US and abroad - seems to confirm this belief. The core idea of social control theory is elaborated upon in several other theories of causation, particularly social disorganization theory.

Subculture of violence theory

As a theory of criminal behavior, subculture of violence theory claims that certain groups or subcultures exist in society in which violence is viewed as an appropriate response to what, in the context of that subculture, are perceived as threatening situations. Building upon the work of cultural anthropologist Walter B. Miller

Walter B. Miller

Walter B. Miller, anthropologist, was one of the America's foremost authorities on youth gangs.-Early life:Born February 7, 1920, in Philadelphia, Walter Benson Miller was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Chicago with an M.A. in Anthropology, and of Harvard University with a Ph.D. in...

's focal concerns theory

Focal concerns theory

In criminology, the focal concerns theory, posited in 1958 by Walter B. Miller, attempts to explain the behavior of "members of adolescent street corner groups in lower class communities" as being based around six focal concerns: trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement, fate, autonomy...

, which focused on the social mechanisms behind delinquency in adolescents, sociologists Marvin E. Wolfgang and Franco Ferracuti proposed that the disproportionally high rate of crime among African Americans could be explained by their possessing a unique racial subculture in which violence is experienced and perceived in a manner different from that commonly observed in mainstream American culture.

As to the origins of this subculture of violence among African Americans, sociologists promoting the theory have pointed towards their Southern

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

heritage. As noted in several studies conducted throughout the 1960s and 1970s, there is a traditional North-South discrepancy in the distribution of homicide in the US, regardless of race, and this, it was argued, indicates that lower-class Southern Blacks and Whites share the same subculture of violence.

The empirical basis for the subculture of violence theory, however, has been described as "extremely limited and unpersuasive". Very little has been done to attempt an adequate assessment of supposedly criminogenic subcultural values, and several studies conducted in the late 1970s claimed to falsify the assumptions upon which the subculture of violence theory depends. More recently, scholars have criticized the theory as potentially racist in nature as it implies that all African Americans are violent.

Police discrimination

One theory is that racial overrepresentation is due to police discrimination.

Various studies have shown that, in recent decades, there has not been any noticeable disparity in black vs white crime statistics in black-controlled vs white-controlled cities, say Atlanta vs San Diego. In the largest counties, the rates of conviction for accused blacks was slightly less than the conviction rates for whites, for example.

Heaton and Loeffler (2008) state that some scholars and studies have argued that police discrimination is not an important explanation for racial differences in crime. Others that it is the main cause. Some that both discrimination and different real crime rates contribute. The varying results can be explained to a large degree by the methods being uncertain with many possible confounding factors. As such they propose a method that they argue will remove all such observable and unobservable problems. They looked at the arrest rates for assault, robbery, and rape cases where the victims reported a black and white co-offending pair. They argue that differences in arrest rates should only reflect police bias. They found that the blacks offenders were 3% more likely to be arrested. Although this suggests some bias, it is insufficient to explain the large racial crime disparities.

Incarceration

]

The United States incarceration rate

United States incarceration rate

The United States of America has an incarceration rate of 743 per 100,000 of national population , the highest in the world. In comparison, Russia has the second highest 577 per 100,000, Canada is 123rd in the world with 117 per 100,000, and China has 120 per 100,000...

has increased dramatically in recent times. The deterrent

Deterrence (legal)

Deterrence is the use of punishment as a threat to deter people from committing a crime. Deterrence is often contrasted with retributivism, which holds that punishment is a necessary consequence of a crime and should be calculated based on the gravity of the wrong done.- Categories :Deterrence can...

and incapacitating

Incapacitation (penology)

Incapacitation in the context of sentencing philosophy refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing future offending....

effects of imprisonment, in particular regarding recidivism

Recidivism

Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have either experienced negative consequences of that behavior, or have been treated or trained to extinguish that behavior...

, continue to be debated.

IQ theory

IQ theory views the racial disparity in crime rates as a result of IQ difference between races. In his book The g Factor (1998), Arthur Jensen

Arthur Jensen

Arthur Robert Jensen is a Professor Emeritus of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen is known for his work in psychometrics and differential psychology, which is concerned with how and why individuals differ behaviorally from one another.He is a major proponent...

cites data which shows that, regardless of race, people with IQs between 70 and 90 have higher crime rates than people with IQs below or above this range, with the peak range being between 80 and 90. Jensen and others have claimed that the average IQ of African Americans is 85, to be compared with 100 for White Americans and 106 for Asian Americans. According to Jensen, when crime rates are compared between races while adjusting for IQ, they are approximately the same. Thus, Jensen proposes, the disparity in crime rates between races can be explained by the proportions of each group with IQs in the range at greatest risk for antisocial behavior.

Gasper (2009) have argued that the connections between race and IQ, and between IQ and crime, are not well established. Regarding IQ and race, Gasper argued that the IQ gap between White Americans and African Americans has narrowed significantly over the last 30 years and that, if environmental factors such as educational opportunities are taken into account, differences in IQ may eventually disappear entirely. Rushton and Jensen (2006) have argued that the IQ gap remains stable. Regarding IQ and crime, Gasper has argued that current studies correlating the two focus almost exclusively on street crime and violent crime, failing to examine various kinds of white-collar and corporate crime whose perpetrators, it is assumed, are likely to have above-average IQs.

Hormonal theory

One of the most striking differences regarding crime is the difference between males and females. Thus, one proposed explanation is that average racial differences in sex hormones may be one explanation for crime differences.

r/K theory

In the 1980s, sociologist Lee Ellis developed a theory of criminality based on the concept of r versus K selection

R/K selection theory

In ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of combinations of traits in an organism that trade off between quantity or quality of offspring...

which enjoyed a degree of popularity in the 1970s among ecologists and evolutionary biologists. In the general theory, there is said to exist a spectrum of reproductive strategies, with the strategy of producing many offspring with little parental care designated as 'r'-type behavior and the strategy of producing few offspring with a great deal of parental care designated 'K'-type behavior. Ellis claimed that, while humans as a group are on the K side of the reproductive strategy spectrum, there are variations within the human population, with some tending towards r and others tending towards K.

This idea was expanded upon by J. Philippe Rushton

J. Philippe Rushton

Jean Philippe Rushton is a Canadian psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario who is most widely known for his work on racial group differences, such as research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and the application of r/K selection theory to humans in his book Race,...

in his book Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective
Race, Evolution, and Behavior
Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective is a controversial book written by J...

(1995) in which Rushton proposes that r/K selection theory

R/K selection theory

In ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of combinations of traits in an organism that trade off between quantity or quality of offspring...

can explain many of the physical and psychological differences between Africans, Europeans and Asians, including brain size, intelligence, speed of maturation, personality, marital relations, reproductive behavior and criminal behavior. In Rushton’s view, Africans tend towards the r end of the spectrum and Asians tend to be more K-strategists, with Europeans somewhere between the two. This, it is argued, explains both the disproportionately high crime rates among African Americans as well as the disproportionately low crime rates among Asian Americans and White Americans.

While some studies claim to have found support for the theory, R/K selection theory was abandoned as a valid theory in evolutionary biology in the early 1990'es, as the theory failed corroboration in a large number of empirical studies, and its basic assumptions were found to be unsound. Specialists in evolutionary theory have referred to the application of r/K theory to humans as having no empirical backing, and consider it best regarded as pseudo-science or scientific racism. Also, r/K theory has attracted heavy criticism due to reaching purportedly racist conclusions. Even tentative supporters of r/K theory, such as Anthony Walsh, voice agreement with Rushton's critics that the theory as presented is highly susceptible to misuse in the form of support for racist ideologies.

Household Income Correlation

There is a correlation between household incomes for black households in the lowest/1st quintile and the aggregate violent and property crime rates . The black households are chosen due to
the relation of race and crime in the united states

Race and crime in the United States

The relationship between race and crime in the United States has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century...

and racial segregation

Racial segregation

Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...

. The two charts below show the comparison of the 1st quintile for black household income vs overall crime rates (violent crimes in red, property crimes in green) in the US.
Between 1972 and 1990 there is strong correlation between decreasing real incomes of the poorest US black households, relative to the real incomes of the second highest US household income, and increasing crime rates. In the 90s the relative incomes increase and crime rates decrease. Though correlations appear to be inverse for the 2001 to 2007 period, the change in the crime rate shows positive correlation for this period (see below)
Since the change in the relative income of the 1st black household quintile is tightly connected to the change in the real income a similar, and of course inverse, correlation is observed, i.e. higher income increases correspond to lower crime rates. Though the 2001 to 2007 period appears to reverse the trend, the change in the crime rate shows positive correlation for this period (see below)
The 1971 to 1990 period shows the inverse of the expected relationship between income inequality and changes in crime rates (1st derivative of crime rates), primarily due to the lag in crime rates decreasing and after income inequality began to decrease. The 1990 to 2001 and 2001 to 2007 periods show a positive correlation between increasing income inequality, for the compared groups, and increasing change in crime rates (1st derivative of crime rates).

External links

The Center on Race, Crime and Justice (John Jay College of Criminal Justice)
National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (Bureau of Justice Statistics Publications)
Uniform Crime Reports (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
Bureau of Justice Statistics (US Department of Justice)

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