🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 02:35:10 -0400, Bob LeChevalier
<lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:

>How do you know?  Have you checked? let's see the data.


The Color of Crime
                        Race, Crime, and Violence in America



                                          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.

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.



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.]


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