Summary
The Color of Crime, a New
Century Foundation study based on federal crime reports, has found significant
differences in violent crime rates for different racial and ethnic groups.
Blacks, for example, are many times more likely to commit crimes of violence
against whites than vice versa. Of the approximately 1,700,000 interracial
violent crimes involving blacks and whites reported every year, blacks commit 90
percent and whites commit only ten percent. Blacks are therefore more than 50
times more likely than whites to commit interracial crimes of violence. The
differences are even greater for multiple-offender interracial crimes, with
blacks 100 to 250 times more likely to be involved in gang attacks on whites
than the reverse.
Some people may argue that blacks attack whites because they expect them to be carrying cash or valuables. However, fewer than 20 percent of black attacks on whites are robberies; rape and assault do not usually have economic motives.
Some people may argue that blacks attack whites because they expect them to be carrying cash or valuables. However, fewer than 20 percent of black attacks on whites are robberies; rape and assault do not usually have economic motives.
There is more
black-on-white violent crime than black-on-black violent crime. When blacks
commit violence they attack whites 50 to 55 percent of the time. When whites
commit violence they attack blacks only two to three percent of the
time.
Hate crimes are thought
to be the most serious acts of interracial crime, but there were only 9,861
reported in 1997. Of these, 6,981 were race-related and 4,105 were violent. This
very small number of crimes receives a disproportionate amount of attention, but
it is likely that the millions of ordinary interracial crimes–90 percent of
which are committed by blacks against whites–are more damaging to race
relations. Although white-on-black hate crimes receive a great deal of
attention, blacks are approximately twice as likely to commit hate crimes as
whites.
Hispanics are considered
a victim category for hate crimes but not a perpetrator category. A Mexican who
is attacked because of ethnicity is recorded as Hispanic, but if the same
Mexican attacks a black or white for racial reasons he is considered white. This
inflates the figures for “white” hate crime per-petrators, and gives the
impression that Hispanics commit no hate crimes.
For virtually all crimes,
there are consistent and pronounced differences in arrest rates for violent
crime by race and ethnicity. Blacks are five to ten times more likely to be
arrested than whites, Hispanics are approximately three times more likely,
American Indians are about twice as likely, and Asians are only one half to
two-thirds as likely to be arrested for violent crimes as whites. The very high
rates for blacks means that the single best independent predictor of crime rates
for an area is the percentage of the population that is black.
Blacks are as much more
likely to be arrested for violent crimes as men are more likely to be arrested
than women. To the extent that arrest rates are a good indication of actual
criminal behavior– and there is very strong evidence that they are– blacks are
as much more dangerous than whites as men are more dangerous than women. If
people feel more threatened by unknown men than by unknown women and are
justified in taking additional precautions against them, from a statistical
point of view they are equally justified in making the same distinctions between
blacks and whites.
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On June 7, 1998, white
supremacists hitched James Byrd of Jasper, Texas, to the back of a truck, and
dragged him to death. This appalling crime reminded the country in the most
forceful way that racial hostility and interracial crime continue to be serious
problems in the United States. The resulting national outcry demonstrated how
deeply Americans feel about racial violence. Outrage over acts of this kind is
entirely appropriate. However, to concentrate on one crime, no matter how
sickening, is to present a distorted picture of interracial crime. If we are to
respond appropriately to the problem of racial violence it is important to know
its true nature and proportions.
Most Americans probably
believe that whites commit most interracial crimes, and that blacks are the most
frequent victims. The reverse is true: In approximately 90 percent of the
interracial crimes of violence involving blacks and whites, blacks are
perpetrators and whites are victims. In terms of crime rates (calculated as the
number of crimes per 100,000 population), blacks are more than 50 times more
likely to attack whites than the reverse. To use the common short-hand
expression, interracial crime is overwhelmingly “black-on-white.” Because
statistics of this kind are surprising to most people, it is worth explaining
them in some detail.
Every year since 1972,
the U.S. Department of Justice has carried out what is called the National Crime
Victimization Survey (NCVS) to determine the frequency of certain kinds of
crimes. The NCVS survey sample is very large–approximately 100,000 people in
some 50,000 households–and is carefully selected on the basis of census data to
make it as representative as possible of the nation as a whole. The NCVS is an
invaluable record of criminal victimization as reported directly by Americans,
and it is the only significant nationwide measure of interracial
crime.
Two pages from the NCVS
are included as Appendix A of this report.(1) The first page, Table 42, lists
various categories of single-offender interracial violent crimes for 1994 (the
NCVS is carried out annually, but the Department of Justice does not issue full
reports every year; 1994 is the most recent year for this data).
The group of numbers at
the top of the page represents totals calculated for single-offender violent
crimes reported for that year. They are extrapolated from the actual crimes
reported by the survey sample. We find that in 1994 6,830,360 whites were
victims of violent crimes, and that 16.7 percent (1,140,670) reported that the
perpetrator was black. Blacks were victims of 1,100,490 violent crimes, of which
12.3 percent (135,360) were committed by whites. Adding these figures for
interracial crime together (1,140,670 and 135,360) we get a total of 1,276,030
interracial crimes, of which 1,140,670 or 89 percent were committed by
blacks.
To get the rates at which
blacks and whites commit interracial crime we divide the number of crimes by the
population to get crimes per 100,000 population. The Census Bureau reports that
the 1994 white and black populations were 216,413,000 and 32,653,000
respectively. Whites therefore committed acts of interracial violence at a rate
of 62.55 per 100,000 while the black rate was 3,493.63 per 100,000, a figure
that is no less than 55.85 times the white rate. Put in the most easily
understood terms, the average black was therefore 56 times more likely to commit
criminal violence against a white than was a white to commit criminal violence
against a black. Similar calculations show that the black rate for interracial
robbery, or “mugging,” was 103 times the white rate. These two rates are
illustrated in the graph on the next page, and it is im-portant to understand
what these figures mean. The multiple of 56 does not mean that blacks commit 56
times as much interracial violence as whites. What it means is that if whites
commit interracial violence at a rate of 10 crimes per 100,000 whites, the rate
for blacks is 560 per 100,000, or 56 times the white rate. This is the kind of
calculation that is represented in most of the graphs in this
report.
The figures from Table 42
of the NCVS show other facts about interracial violence. If we once Interracial
Crime again concentrate on the group of figures at the top of the table we can
calculate the total number of crimes committed by perpetrators of each race, and
the percentage that is committed against the other race. We find that the
1,140,670 acts of violence committed by blacks against whites constitute 56.3
percent of all violent crimes committed by blacks. That is to say that when
blacks commit violent crimes they target whites more than half the time or, put
differently, there is more black-on-white than black-on-black crime. Similar
calculations for whites show that of the 5,114,692 acts of criminal violence
committed by whites, only 2.6 percent were directed at blacks. (Although
homicide is a violent crime, the NCVS does not include it because victims cannot
be interviewed. The number of interracial murders is small and does not affect
the percentages and ratios presented here.)Some may argue that
blacks commit violence against whites because whites are more likely to have
money and are therefore more promising robbery targets. However, of the
1,140,670 black-on-white acts of violence reported in 1994, only 173,374 were
robberies. The remaining 84.8 percent were aggravated assaults, rapes, and
simple assaults, which presumably were not motivated by profit. Rape, in
particular, has nothing to do with the presumed wealth of the victim. More than
30,000 white women were raped by black men in 1994, and about 5,400 black women
were raped by white men. The black interracial rape rate was 38 times the white
rate.
The second page of
Appendix A of this report is another page from the NCVS. Table 48 shows
interracial crime data for acts of violence committed by multiple offenders. By
doing the same calcula-tions as before, we can determine how much group or
“gang” violence (not in the sense of organized gangs) is interracial, and how
much is committed by blacks and by whites. Of the total of 490,266 acts of
multiple-offender interracial violence, no fewer than 93.9 percent were
committed by blacks against whites. Robbery, for which there is a mon-etary
motive, accounted for fewer than one third of these crimes. The rest were gang
assaults, includ-ing rapes, presumably for motives other than
profit.
Rates of group violence
for each race can be calculated as before, and the difference between the races
is stark. The black rate of overall interracial gang violence is 101.75 times
the white rate; for robbery it is 277.31 times the white rate. Differences as
great as this are seldom found in comparative studies of group behavior, and
they cry out for study and explanation. It is probably safe to say that if the
races were reversed, and gangs of whites were attacking blacks at merely four or
five times the rate at which blacks were attacking whites the country would
consider this a national crisis that required urgent attention.
Hate Crimes in
Perspective
Ever since passage of the
Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990, the FBI has been charged with collecting
national statistics on criminal acts “motivated, in whole or in part, by bias.”
The law does not compel local law enforcement agencies to supply the FBI with
this information but most do. (2) In 1997, the most recent year for which data
are available, the FBI received hate crime information from 11,211 local
agencies serving more than 83 percent of the United States
population.
In that year, there was a
total of 9,861 offenses, of which 6,981 represented bias crimes based on race or
ethnic origin. The remainder were for reasons of religion, sexual orientation,
or disability.
The FBI reports 8,474
suspected offenders whose race was known. Of that number, 5,344 were white and
1,629 were black. Their offenses–which included all categories of hate crime,
not just racial bias–can, in turn, be divided into violent and non-violent
offenses, and by calculating the rate of offense by race we find that blacks
were 1.99 times more likely than whites to commit hate crimes in general and
2.24 times more likely to commit violent hate crimes.
As for cases of racial
bias, there were 718 blacks charged with anti-white (as opposed to
anti-homo-sexual, anti-Semitic, etc.) crimes and 2,336 whites charged with
anti-black hate crimes. Although the number of white offenders was larger, the
black rate per 100,000 was twice as high. A larger number of whites commit these
crimes, but blacks are 2.0 times more likely to commit them. This
overrepresentation of blacks in hate crimes, not just in race bias cases but in
all categories, runs counter to the common impression that whites are the
virtually exclusive perpetrators of hate crimes and are certainly more likely to
commit them than blacks.
But perhaps of even
greater significance is the relatively small number of bias crimes to begin
with. Of the 6,981 offenses based on race or ethnicity, only 4,105 were violent,
involving murder, rape, robbery, or assault. The rest included such offenses as
vandalism and intimidation. These numbers are almost insignificant compared to
the 1,766,000 interracial crimes of violence (combining both single-and
multiple-offender offences) reported in the NCVS.
Needless to say, part of
this huge disparity in numbers is explained by the fact that the NCVS covers all
crimes–whether reported to police or not– whereas for a crime to be included in
the FBI’s hate crime statistics it must first be reported to police and then
officially classified as a hate crime. No doubt there is some number of crimes
never reported to the police that authorities would consider hate crimes if they
knew about them.
However, how important is
the distinction between interracial crimes that are officially designated as
hate crimes and those that are not? For a crime to be considered a hate crime,
the perpetrator must make his motive clear, usually by using racial slurs. It is
not hard to imagine that of the 1,766,000 interracial crimes committed in 1994,
some–perhaps even a great many–were “motivated, in whole or in part, by bias”
but the perpetrators did not express their motives.
Given the realities of
race in the United States, would it be unreasonable for a person attacked by
someone of a different race to wonder whether race had something to do with the
attack, even if his assailant said nothing? Such suspicions are even more likely
in the case of the 490,266 acts of group violence that crossed racial lines in
1994. What is the psychological effect on a victim set upon by a gang of people
of a different race? A white woman gang-raped by blacks or a black man cornered
and beaten by whites can hardly help but think he was singled out at least in
part because of race, even if the attackers used no racial slurs.
Many states have passed
laws that increase penalties for people convicted of hate crimes. These laws
recognize the harm done to society when people are attacked because of race or
other char-acteristics. However, one might ask which does more damage to
society: the few thousand violent acts officially labeled as hate crimes or the
vastly more numerous interracial crimes of violence that go virtually
unnoticed?
Hate Crimes Committed by
Hispanics
The government’s
treatment of hate crimes is misleading in another, even more obvious way, in
that the FBI reports hate crimes against Hispanics but not by Hispanics.
Appendix B is the FBI’s “Hate Crime Incident Report,” which is used to record
bias crimes. Although Hispanics are clearly indicated as a victim category in
the “Bias Motivation” section, they are not a perpetrator category in “Suspected
Race of Offender.” The FBI therefore forces local law enforcement agencies to
categorize most Hispanic offenders as “white” (see “Measuring Hispanic Crime
Rates,” below) and the figures for 1997 reflect this. The total number of hate
crimes for that year–9,861–includes 636 crimes of anti-Hispanic bias, but not
one of the 8,474 known offenders is “Hispanic” because the FBI’s data collection
method does not permit such a designation.
If a Mexican is assaulted
for reasons of ethnicity he is officially recorded as Hispanic. However, he
becomes white if he commits a hate crime against a black. Even more absurdly, if
a Mexican commits a hate crime against a white, both the victim and the
perpetrator are reported as white. And, in fact, the 1997 FBI figures duly
record 214 “white” offenders who committed anti-white hate crimes.(3) The
offenders were probably Hispanic, but if that is the case the report should say
so. If some of the “whites” who are reported to have committed crimes against
blacks are also Hispanic, the report should indicate that, too.
An examination of
specific crimes shows that official reports can be misleading. Murder is the
most serious and shocking of all hate crimes, and the FBI lists five cases of
racially-motivated murder for 1997–three “anti-black” and two “anti-white.” The
FBI report does not provide details about the perpetrators or the circumstances
of the killings, but the local police departments that reported the crimes to
the FBI have this information.
Two of the anti-black
killings took place in the same town, a largely Hispanic suburb of Los Angeles
called Hawaiian Gardens. Hawaiian Gardens has a history of black-Hispanic
tension that is so bad many blacks have been forced to leave. In one of the
murders, a 24-year-old black man was beaten to death by a mob of 10 to 14
Hispanics who took turns smashing his head with a baseball bat. In the other, a
Hispanic gang member challenged a 29- year-old black man’s right to be in the
neighborhood. A few minutes later he returned and shot the man in the chest. In
both cases, the victims and killers did not know each other and the motivation
appears to have been purely racial. (4) These crimes are typical of what we
think of as hate-crime murders, and because no Hispanics are identified as
perpetrators in the FBI report, it is safe to assume the killers were classified
as white.
The third anti-black
killing took place in Anchorage, Alaska. According to press reports, a white
man, 33-year-old Brett Maness, killed his neighbor, a 32-year-old black man
Delbert White, after a brief struggle. Mr. Maness, who was growing marijuana in
his apartment and kept an arsenal of weapons, had been shooting a pellet gun at
Mr. White’s house, and the black man had come over to complain. Interestingly, a
jury found that Mr. Maness killed Mr. White in self defense, but convicted him
of weapons and drugs charges. The incident was considered a hate crime because
Mr. Maness had brandished weapons and shouted racial slurs at Mr. White in the
past. (5) A police spokesman adds that racist literature was found in Mr.
Maness’ apartment after the shooting.
The remaining two
killings were classified as anti-white, but only one fits the usual conception
of such crimes. Four white men were walking on a street in Palm Beach, Florida,
when a car came to a stop not far from them. Two black men got out with their
hands behind their backs and one said “What are you crackers looking at?” One of
the white men replied, “Not you, nigger,” whereupon one of the blacks brought a
gun from behind his back and fired several times, killing one white and wounding
another. Attackers and victims did not know each other, and the criminal
motivation appears to have been purely racial. (6) The other anti-white killing
involved a Texas businessman from India, Sri Punjabi, who shot his Mexican
daughter-in-law because his son had divorced an Indian wife to marry her. Mr.
Punjabi was incensed that his son should marry anyone who was not Indian. (7)
(Presumably, this crime
should have been classified as anti-Hispanic rather than
anti-white.)
These five
racially-motivated murders reported for 1997 do not fit the popular image of
hate crimes, namely, of whites brutalizing non-whites. In fact, only one
perpetrator was “white” in the usually accepted sense. What was the nature of
the thousands of other officially-reported hate crimes? Without examining all
9,861 of them it is impossible to say.
It is clear, however,
that the FBI report gives a false impression. It inflates the number of hate
crimes committed by “whites” by calling Hispanics white. At the same time it
gives the impression that Hispanics never commit hate crimes. The reason for
gathering these data is to arrive at a better understanding of the extent of
racial friction and violence in the United States. If statistics are to have any
meaning they must reflect American reality, namely, that most Hispanics think of
themselves as a separate group, distinct from non-Hispanic whites, and are
perceived by others as a different group. It is impossible to understand or
alleviate group friction without recognizing this. If the FBI wants to collect
meaningful data, it must recognize Hispanics as a perpetrator category as well
as a victim category.
The Color of
Crime
Different racial groups
in the United States com-mit crimes at different rates. Most Americans have a
sense that non-white neighborhoods are more dangerous than white
neighborhoods–and they are correct. However, it is very unusual to find reliable
information on just how much more dangerous some groups are than
others.
The Uniform Crime Reports
(UCR), published annually by the FBI, is the standard reference work for crime
and crime rates in the United States. The UCR is a nationwide compilation of
criminal offenses and arrest data, reported voluntarily by local law enforcement
agencies. In the most recent UCR, which covers 1997, the FBI received reports
from 17,000 law enforcement agencies, covering 95 per-cent of the country’s
population. The UCR is un-questionably the most comprehensive and authori-tative
report on crimes brought to the attention of the police. News stories about
rising or falling crime rates are almost always based on the UCR. In trying to
determine crime rates for different racial groups, it is important to understand
the differences between the UCR and the National Crime Victimization Survey
(NCVS) referred to above. The NCVS contains only one kind of information: crimes
Americans say they have suffered. The UCR includes two different kinds of
numbers: crimes reported to the police and arrests of perpetrators. Even for the
same year and for the same crime, these three sets of numbers are different. The
largest num-bers are in the NCVS, because they include crimes not reported to
the police. Somewhat smaller are the UCR figures on offenses reported to
authori-ties, and smaller still are arrest figures, which represent offenses for
which a suspect is arrested.
For example, in the 1997
NCVS Americans say they suffered a total of 1,883,000 cases of aggravated
assault, but according to the UCR, only 1,022,000 were reported to the
police.(8) During that same year, there were only 535,000 arrests for aggravated
assault. (9) Racial data enter the UCR figures only when an arrest is made, so
it can be argued that racial comparisons should not be based on UCR data.
Different racial groups may report crime to the police at different rates, some
groups may be more successful at escaping arrest, and the police may
discriminate between racial groups in their arrest efforts. However, there is a
great advantage in using UCR data because its racial categories are more
detailed. Unlike the NCVS, which reports only on “black,” “white,” and “other,”
the UCR compiles arrest data on “black,” “white,” “American Indian/Eskimo,” and
“Asian/Pacific Islander.” These are the only national crime data that make these
distinctions. Also, as we will see later, UCR arrest data can be compared to
other data in ways that make it possible to treat Hispanics as a separate ethnic
category.
Another good reason to
use UCR data is that although the racial proportions vary somewhat between the
NCVS survey data (race of perpetrator as reported by victims) and the UCR arrest
data (race of persons arrested), they are not that different. For example,
according to the UCR, 57 percent of people arrested for robbery in 1997 were
black, as were 37 percent of those arrested for aggravated assault. (10)
According to NCVS data on single-offender crimes, 51 percent of robbers were
reported by their victims to be black as were 30 percent of those who committed
aggravated assault (once again, using 1994 data). (11) Since there is a greater
overrepresentation by blacks in NCVS-reported multiple-offender crimes,
combining the two sets of figures brings the racial proportions in the NCVS
figures extremely close to the racial proportions in UCR arrest figures.(12) Put
differently, police are arresting criminals of different races in very close to
the same proportions as Americans say they are victimized by people of those
races.
By this measure, who is
committing crime in America? The graph on the next page shows arrest rates
(calculated, as before, as the number of arrests per 100,000 population) as
multiples of the white arrest rate for various crimes. The white rate is always
set to one, so if the black rate is three, for example, it means that blacks are
arrested at three times the white rate. Once again, it does not mean that three
times as many blacks as whites were arrested; it means that if 100 of every
100,000 whites were arrested for a crime, 300 of every 100,000 blacks were
arrested for the same crime.
The data show a very
consistent pattern: Blacks are arrested at dramatically higher rates than other
racial groups. American Indians and Eskimos (hereinafter “Indians”) are arrested
at slightly higher rates than whites, and Asians are arrested at consistently
lower rates. The popular conception of crime in America is correct; rates are
much higher among blacks than among whites or other groups.It is for this reason
that the single best independent indicator of a jurisdiction’s crime rate is the
percentage of its population that is black. The scatter chart to the right plots
homicide rate and black percentage of population for all the states and for the
District of Columbia (which is the outlying data point at the upper right).(13)
The tendency is clear: The higher the percentage of blacks, the greater the
number of murders.
It is worth noting that
murder rates are a different kind of data from both NCVS reports and UCR arrest
data. They are not based on victim reports nor can they be distorted by
differences in arrest rates by racial group that could reflect possible po-lice
bias. Pure homicide rates tell us nothing about the race of either the killer or
the victim. They are simply an expression of the level of homicidal violence in
a community, and that level increases as the percentage of blacks
increases.
Nevertheless, to return
to the view that arrest data reflect police bias rather than genuine group
differences in crime rates, police actually have very little discretion in whom
they arrest for violent crimes. Except for murder victims, most people can tell
the police the race of an assailant. If a victim says he was mugged by a white
man, the police cannot very well arrest a black man even if they want
to.For this reason, many
people accept that police have little discretion in whom to arrest for violent
crime, but still believe drug laws are enforced un-fairly against minorities.
Drug offenses are beyond the scope of this report but here, too, there is
inde-pendent evidence that arrest rates reflect differences in criminal
behavior, not selective law enforcement. The U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services keeps records by race of drug-related emergency room admissions. It
reports that blacks are admitted at 6.67 times the non-Hispanic white rate for
heroin and morphine, and no less than 10.49 times the non-Hispanic white rate
for cocaine. (Rates for Hispanics are 2.82 and 2.35 times the white rates;
information is not reported on American Indians or Asians).(14) There is only
one plau-sible explanation for these rates: Blacks are much more likely to be
using drugs in the first place.
Finally, if racist white
police were unfairly arresting non-whites we would expect arrest rates for
Asians to be higher than for those for whites. Instead, they are lower for
almost every kind of crime.
Measuring Hispanic Crime
Rates
Any study of group crime
rates in America is complicated by the inconsistent treatment of Hispanics by
different government agencies. For example, the Census Bureau’s official
estimate for the 1997 population of the United States divides all 268 million
Americans into four racial groups: white, black, Indian and Eskimo, and Asian
and Pacific Islander. The bureau then explains that among these 268 million
people there are 29 million Hispanics who “can be of any race.” However, it also
counts non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, Indians, etc. Thus we find that
although according to the strictly racial classification, there are 221 million
whites in the United States, there are only 195 million non-Hispanic whites.
When American Hispanics, approximately half of whom are Mexican, are apportioned
to the four racial categories, the Census Bureau considers 91 percent to be
white, six percent black, one percent American Indian, and two percent
Asian.
The treatment of
Hispanics can make for odd results. For example, according to the 1990 census,
the 3,485,000 people of Los Angeles were 52.9 percent white, 13.9 percent black,
0.4 percent American Indian, and 22.9 percent Asian–which adds up to 100
percent. This makes the city appear to be majority white. However, Los Angeles
was also 39.3 percent Hispanic, and if we subtract the 91 percent of them who
were classed as whites, the non-Hispanic white population suddenly drops to only
16.6 percent.
What does this mean for
crime statistics? Because the UCR figures do not treat Hispanics as a separate
category, almost all the Hispanics arrested in the United States go into
official records as “white.” This is contrary to the usual understand-ing of the
word, which is not normally thought to include most Mexicans and
Latinos.
If violent crime rates
for Hispanics are substantially different from those of non-Hispanic whites,
putting Hispanics in the “white” category distorts the results. This is not as
serious as in the case of hate crimes, in which the crime itself has to do with
the very personal characteristics that are being omitted from the records, but
there is no reason not to make ethnic or racial comparisons as accurate as
possible. The UCR tabulates separate data on American Indians and Eskimos–who
are less than one percent of the population–but it ignores His-panics, who are
12 percent of the population.
Some data-gathering
agencies do treat Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites separately. The California
Department of Justice, which records all arrests within the state, consistently
makes this distinction (though it lumps Asians and American Indians into the
“other” category). Some of these California figures are included as Appendix C
of this report. In conjunction with Census Bureau population figures for
Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites, and non-Hispanic blacks living in California in
1997, we can calculate the arrest rates for the different groups for different
crimes. In the graph below, these rates are once again represented as multiples
of the white rate. As is the case with national UCR data, blacks are arrested at
much higher rates than whites, but Hispanics are also arrested at considerably
higher rates.
The different rates at
which Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites are held in prisons and jails are
another indicator of the differences in crime rates between the two groups.
Although the UCR does not treat Hispanics as a separate category for arrest
purposes, some government reports on the prison population do consider them
separately. For example, the Department of Justice has calculated 1996
incarceration rates per 100,000 population for non-Hispanic whites (193),
Hispanics (688), and non-Hispanic blacks (1,571).(15) Expressed as multiples of
the white rate, the Hispanic rate is 3.56 and the black rate is 8.14. These
multiples are close to those from the California arrest data, and justify the
conclusion that Hispanics are roughly three times more likely than non-Hispanic
whites to be arrested for various crimes.If we make this
assumption, we can use the following formula to incorporate this differential
into the UCR racial data on white arrests so as to calculate more accurate
arrest rates for non-Hispanic whites:
R (Number of non-Hispanic
whites) + 3R(Number of white Hispanics) = Actual Number of Arrests
Here, R is the arrest rate
for non-Hispanic whites and 3R is the arrest rate for Hispanics who are
cat-egorized as white when they are arrested. Calculations of this kind show
that if Hispanics are broken out as a separate ethnic category with an arrest
rate assumed to be three times the non-Hispanic rate, the rate for non-Hispanic
whites decreases by 19.5 percent. The graph below shows arrest rates (as
multiples of the white arrest rate) adjusted for this reduction. For lack of
more precise information, the multiple for Hispanics is set at three times the
white rate for all crimes even though there is certain to be some variation in
the multiples for different types of crimes. The unadjusted arrest rate chart is
also reproduced next to it for purposes of comparison. Because the evidence from
national incarceration rates and California arrest rates suggests that Hispanics
commit violent crimes at some multiple of the white rate, the adjusted graph is
probably a more accurate indicator of group differences. Both graphs are on the
same scale and show the extent to which separating out Hispanics reduces arrest
rates for non-Hispanic whites.
It should be noted here
that the NCVS survey data on interracial crime referred to at the beginning of
this report also includes Hispanics in the “white” category. It is therefore
impossible to know how many of the “whites” who committed violent crimes against
blacks were actually Hispanic or how many of the “whites” against whom blacks
committed violent crimes were Hispanic. If Hispanics commit violent crimes
against blacks at a higher rate than whites–and judging from their higher
ar-rest and incarceration rates for other offenses this seems likely–the NCVS
report also inflates the crime rates of non-Hispanic whites.Men versus
Women
Many people resist the
idea that different racial groups can have significantly different rates of
violent crime. However, there are several group differences in crime rates that
virtually everyone understands and takes for granted. Men in their 20s, for
example, are much more prone to violence than men in their 50s, and when they
are arrested more frequently for it, no one doubts that it is because they
commit more crime. Likewise, virtually no one disputes the reason for higher
arrest rates for men than for women: Men commit more crime than women. This is
the case for racial groups as well: Asians are arrested at lower rates than
whites because they commit fewer crimes; blacks and Hispanics are arrested at
higher rates because they commit more crimes.
When it comes to violent
crime, blacks are approximately as much more likely to be arrested than whites,
as men are more likely to be arrested than women. The multiples of black vs.
white arrest rates are very close to the multiples of male vs. female arrest
rates, suggesting that blacks are as much more dangerous than whites as men are
more dangerous than women.
The first graph on this
page shows arrest rates for men as multiples of arrest rates for women for the
same crimes.(16)
The differentials are
roughly similar to those between blacks and whites. The next two graphs compare
arrest rates for murder and robbery, and demonstrate that the black/white arrest
multiple is almost as great as the male/female multiple. The last graph makes
the same comparison for arrest rates for all violent crimes. (These figures have
not been adjusted for the fact that Hispanics are included with whites. As we
have seen, this adjustment lowers the white arrest rate by nearly 20 percent,
and would make the black/white multiples greater than the male/female
multiples.)
What does this mean?
Although most people have no idea what the arrest rate multiples may be, they
have an intuitive understanding that men are more violent and dangerous than
women. If some-one in unfamiliar circumstances is approached by a group of
strange men he feels more uneasy than if he is approached by an otherwise
similar group of strange women. No one would suggest that this uneasiness is
“prejudice.” It is common sense, born out by the objective reality that men are
more dangerous than women.
In fact, it is just as
reasonable to feel more uneasy when approached by blacks than by otherwise
similar whites; the difference in danger as reflected by arrest rates is
virtually the same. It is rational to fear blacks more than whites, just as it
is rational to fear men more than women. Whatever additional precautions a
person would feel are justified because a potential assailant was male rather
than female are, from a statistical point of view, equally justified if a
potential assailant is black rather than white.
Likewise, there is now
much controversy about so-called “racial profiling,” by the police, that is, the
practice of questioning blacks in disproportionate numbers in the expectation
that they are more likely than people of other races to be criminals. This is
just as rational and productive as “age” or “sex profiling.” Police would be
wasting their time if they stopped and questioned as many old ladies as they do
young men. It is the job of the police to catch criminals, and they know from
experience who is likely to be an offender. Americans who do not question the
wisdom of police officers who notice a possible suspect’s age or sex should not
be surprised to learn that officers also notice race.
Conclusions
Two things can be said
about most of the infor-mation in this report: It is easily discovered but
little known. Every year, the FBI issues its report on hate crimes, and
distributes thousands of copies to scholars and the media. Why does no one find
it odd that hundreds of whites are reportedly committing hate crimes against
whites? And why does no one question the wisdom of calling someone white when he
is a perpetrator but Hispanic when he is a victim? (An FBI spokesman refused to
discuss the reasons for this by telephone and insisted on an exchange of
letters. His reply is provided below.(17) )
For some years there has
been an extended national discussion about the prevalence of black-on-black
crime–and for good reason. Blacks suffer from violent crime at rates
considerably greater than do Americans of other races. And yet, amid this
na-tional outcry over the extent of black-on-black crime, there appears to be
little concern about the fact that there is actually more black-on-white crime.
Nor does there seem to be much interest in the fact that blacks are 50 to 200
times more likely than whites to commit interracial crimes of
violence.
Everyone knows that young
people are more dangerous than old people and that men are more dangerous than
women. We adjust our behavior accordingly and do not apologize for doing so. Why
must we then pretend that blacks are no more dan-gerous than whites or Asians?
And, of course, it is no more than pretense. Everyone knows that blacks are
dangerous, and everyone–black or white–takes greater precautions in black
neighborhoods or even avoids such neighborhoods entirely.
The answer to these
questions lies in the current intellectual climate. Americans are extremely
hesitant to “perpetuate stereotypes,” and generally take care not to draw or
publicize conclusions that may reflect badly on racial minorities. This is
understandable, but has reached the point that certain subjects can no longer be
investigated without bringing down charges of “racism.” Needless to say,
research that reflects badly on the majority population is not constrained by
the same fears. However, our willingness to ignore sensibilities should not be
selective. Violent crime and interracial violence are important, agonizing
concerns in this country, and we cannot begin to formulate solutions unless we
un-derstand the problems.
References
1 U.S. Department of
Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization in the United
States, 1994 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1997), pp. 41, 45.
2 U.S. Department of
Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Hate Crime Statistics 1997
(Washington, DC: USGPO, 1999).
3 Hate Crime Statistics
1997, p. 12.
4 Ron Russel and Victor
Mejia, City of Fear, New Times (Los Angeles), Feb. 12-18, 1998, p.
13.
5 Patty Sullivan,
Anchorage Man Gunned Down in Spenard, Anchorage Daily News, Nov. 22, 1997, p.
D1. Peter Porco, Murder Suspect Acquitted, Anchorage Daily News, Dec. 12, 1998,
p. E1.
6 Offense Report, Case
No. 97123655, Palm Beach Country (Fla.) Sheriff?s Office.
7 Gloria Padilla, Murder
Trial Defendant Misses Court Appearance, San Antonio Express-News, March 11,
1997.
8 U.S. Department of
Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization 1997 (Washington,
DC: USGPO, 1998), p.3.
9 U.S. Department of
Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Crime in the United States 1997 [known
as Uniform Crime Reports or UCR] (Wash-ington, DC: USGPO, 1998), pp. 33,
36.
10 Arrest information by
race is from Crime in the United States 1997, p. 240.
11 Criminal Victimization
in the United States, 1994, p. 40.
12 According to the UCR,
blacks are arrested for violent crimes at 4.72 times the rate at which whites
are arrested. This multiple is shown on the graph on page 10. How does this
figure compare with the number of blacks who are reported to be commit-ting
crimes in the NCVS? In order to make a com-parison we must make certain
assumptions about the NCVS figures. Since police concentrate their efforts on
making arrests in cases of completed rather than threatened or attempted
violence, it makes sense to use the NCVS numbers for com-pleted violence. At the
same time, NCVS figures pose a problem in that they do not report the number of
offenders in multiple-offender crimes (see Appendix A, page 2.) In comparing UCR
arrest figures to NCVS reported offenses, we are comparing the racial
proportions of persons arrested with the racial proportions of people reported
by the public to be committing crimes. It is therefore necessary to make an
assumption about the average number of assailants in multiple-offender crimes.
Since the black disproportions in NCVS-reported violent crimes are even greater
in multiple-offender crimes, a high estimate for the number of offenders in such
crimes increases the number of black offenders as compared to white. All
multiple-offender crimes have at least two perpetrators, and an estimate of
three participants in each such crime is probably conservative, and keeps the
black disproportion lower than a higher estimate would. Using this figure of
three, and using NCVS-reported data for completed crimes of violence, we find
that blacks are reported by the public to be committing such crimes at 4.77
times the white rate (the reader can make this calculation himself, using the
data in Appendix A.). This figure is extremely close to the 4.72 multiple of the
white rate at which blacks are arrested. It would be hard to find stronger
support for the view that police are not racially biased in their arrests but
are simply arresting people of different races in essentially the same
proportions as people of those races are reported by the public to be committing
crimes of violence.
13 Glayde Whitney,
Ideology and Censorship in Behavior Genetics, Mankind Quarterly, Summer,1995, p.
338.
14 U.S. Department of
Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
1997 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1998), p. 253.
15 Sourcebook of Criminal
Justice Statistics 1997, p. 494.
16 Crime in the United
States 1997, p. 239.
17 “First, you ask why
“Hispanics are a distinct victim category but are not a distinct perpetrator
category?” The answer to your question is that under the current Hate Crime Data
Collection Program we do not collect information concerning ethnicity for either
the victim or the offender. The primary focus of the hate crime program is on
the type of offense and the bias motivation. Ethnicity is of interest only as it
relates to the bias motivation for a particular criminal offense. The fact that
an anti-Hispanic hate crime was reported does not necessarily imply that the
victim was of Hispanic origin. Only the offender’s perception or bias motivation
is being reported. [David R. Loesch, Deputy Assistant Director (FBI), letter
dated March 30, 1999.]
Like you, at one
time I believed that the essential difference between Jews and Christians was
that the Jews believed in the Old Testament and the Christians believed in the
New Testament. The truth is that their “real bible” is The Talmud. The Jewish
book “The Mitzbeach” states that “there is nothing superior to ‘Holy Talmud’.”
While the Jews profess to be attached to the Old Testament to the outside world,
the real essence of the Jewish creed is not the Old Testament as
such, not the books of Moses, but The Talmud. 
Jews and Jewish
organizations love to whine when they feel they are being “persecuted.” However
Jewish groups are the first ones to try to infringe on the rights of other
citizens when they feel their interests are in “danger.” Why do Jews push for
gun control in the US and elsewhere while in Israel it is completely legal for a
Jew (Israeli citizen non-Jews are not considered citizens) can walk down the
street with a fully automatic sub machine gun? Why do Jews push for special
rights for non-whites and try to make the world think they are so concerned with
human rights while in Israel Jews are the kingpins in the white slave trade that
forces White teenage girls that they lure there from the Ukraine with fake
employment ads into prostitution? The fact is Jews wear a mask of deceit, in an
attempt to try to make the world believe that they are a small oppressed
community that’s just like us only their religion is slightly different.