The idea of race as a causal factor in predicting criminal behavior goes back to the early criminological theories of Cesare Lombroso who based his theory of atavism on the prevailing scientific racist theories of his day. He believed that crime was primarily a manifestation of innate qualities and that humans could defined as prone to crime only judging their physical appearance. He saw two basic races, the white and the colored race, and of the two only the white race was disposed for civilization, whereas all members of the colored race were predisposed for crime and sexual licentiousness.^[1]

The notion that there is a correlation between race and crime still prevails in a number of countries. Often a correlation between race and crime has been statistically observed as well.^[2]

Crime statistics

Worldwide

The Handbook of Crime Correlates (2009) is a literature review of over 5200 scientific studies examining how many different factors correlate with and otherwise are related to crime. Many of the studies are from the United States but the review also includes studies from other countries. The review states that studies on official data consistently finds higher crimes rates for blacks than for whites, especially regarding violent offenses. Victim surveys also show higher black crime rates. Studies on self-reported offending are more inconsistent with studies being about equally divided between those finding a higher overall offending and those finding no relationship. One possible explanation for the inconsistency between self-reported offending and other forms of data is biases in the criminal justice systems, but evidence for such an effect is mixed. Another is that self-reported offending primarily involves relatively trivial and victimless offenses, such as marijuana use. A third explanation is that some research indicates that whites tend to provide more complete self-reported information regarding offending.^[3]

Also Hispanics have a higher official crime rates than whites. Studies on self-reported offences are more inconsistent. Both official and self-reported offending are higher for Native Americans than for whites. East Asians have lower official and self-reported crime rates than whites. The official offending rates for south Asian are similar to that for whites although self-report is higher. Both official and self-reported crime rates are higher for Pacific and Indian Oceanic Islanders than for whites.^[3]

J. Philippe Rushton collated crime statistics from the INTERPOL Yearbooks for different nations and presented the results as crime rates per 100,000 people for groups of nations with similar racial composition.^[4]

From the 1986 Yearbook, 12 East Asian countries, 48 European countries, and 28 African and Caribbean countries.^[4]

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

From the 1990 Yearbook, 12 East Asian, 41 European, and 23 Afro-Caribbean countries.^[4]

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

From the 1993–96 Yearbooks, 7 East Asian, 45 Caucasian, and 22 Afro-Caribbean countries.^[4]

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

There were similar or greater differences if instead analyzing subsets of nations from the more ethnically homogeneous northeast Asia, central Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa. The same pattern also appeared when comparing total violent crime in six mainly White/Amerindian Caribbean countries to eight mainly Black Caribbean countries (72 vs. 449).^[4]

United Kingdom

Different racial/ethnic groups differ in crime rates^[5] which has caused debate and several proposed explanations.

Australia

The relationship between Indigenous Australians and crime is debated with their imprisonment rate higher than that of non-Indigenous people.^[6]

United States

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

Ethnic/racial homogeneity

The degree to which is a country is compromised of more than one ethnic/racial group is referred to as its ethnic/racial homogeneity. Many studies have examined if ethnic/racially heterogeneous areas, most often neighborhoods in large cities, have higher crime rates than homogeneous areas. The evidence is largely consistent for that the more ethnically/racially heterogeneous an area is, the higher its crime rates tend to be.^[3]

Racial group conflicts

The relations between different racial/ethnic groups are sometimes tense and have in some cases caused large scale criminal violence. The book World on Fire described tension and violence against successful ethnic minorities worldwide.^[7]

Theories of causation

Nature vs. nurture debate

Race and crime were studied by criminal anthropologist Cesare Lombroso, who belonged to the Italian school of criminology of the end of the 19th century. Lombroso divided Northern Italian and Southern Italians in two different "races." Henceforth, he thought that "Southern Italians were more crime-prone and lazy because they were unlucky enough to have less Aryan blood than their northern countrymen."^[8] Enrico Ferri, a student of Lombroso, considered black people to be of an "inferior race" and more prone to crime than others.^[9]

Such theories were criticized by later works of criminology, which argued that only social, economic and cultural factors explained criminality. Genetics as an explanation was largely abandoned in criminology after WWII. Race (classification of humans) has also been criticized and supported as a biological concept.^[10] See also "Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy".

Sociological theories

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

Examples of sociological theories regarding different worldwide crimes rates include the theory that crimes rates decrease with democratization, the theory that crime rates decrease with economic development, the theory that crimes rates decrease with less economic inequality, and the theory that when certain groups are underrepresented in the population (notably young, unmarried, lower-income, less educated males), then there is less crime.^[11]

Trait theories

Richard Lynn has in the books Race Differences in Intelligence and the The Global Bell Curve argued that there is a relationship between IQ and crime which is an important explanation for differing crime rates across the world. It should be noted that this is not necessarily a genetic theory. Average IQ differences between nations can also be explained by environmental factors such as malnutrition and disease. There are also various criticisms both against intelligence quotient and genetic explanations regarding race and intelligence as discussed in the articles on those topics.^[12]

Linda Gottfredson has argued that denying or trying to conceal real biological differences between groups on average IQ instead cause people to seek something to blame for the differing average group achievements, causing resentment and hostility. She argues that "virtually all the victim groups of genocide in the Twentieth Century had relatively high average levels of achievement (e.g., German Jews, educated Cambodians, Russian Kulaks, Armenians in Turkey, Ibos in Nigeria; Gordon, 1980)."^[13] She has also disputed that a lower achieving group gains from denying or concealing real biological differences. An increasingly complex society built on the assumption than everyone can do equally well means that they who do not have this ability have increasing trouble functioning in most areas of life. They need various forms of special assistance which is not possible as long as the need is denied to exist.^[13][14]

Biological theories

J. Philippe Rushton in his book Race, Evolution, and Behavior applied r/K selection theory to human races and a number of factors including crime. Rushton and Templer (2009) examined how several factors correlated with high national rate of violent crime (murder, rape, and serious assault). Higher violent crime rates correlated with higher rate of HIV/AIDS (0.5), lower national IQs (0.25), darker skin color (0.23), shorter life expectancy (0.21), but had no relationship with national income (correlation of 0.00). They argue that this, as well as an analysis showing that 52% of the variance of these as well as other factor (birth rate and infant mortality) could be explained by a single factor, support the existence of a r/K factor.^[4] There have been various criticisms of the theory as described in the article on the book.^[15]

One example of criticism of biological theories for criminal behavior is the book The Gene Illusion.^[16]

Use in law enforcement

Racial profiling

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

Forensics

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

DNA profiling is another method that can be used in law enforcement to used to identify a person's race/geographic ancestry or degree of admixture of different races/geographic ancestries. It has also been used to infer features of physical appearance such as hair and eye color. Since in particular results for persons with a mixed ancestry may be difficult to interpret, some companies supply photographs of persons with a similar genetic mix in order to help identification. Research is also being done on more exactly determining physical traits such as hair texture, skull shape, or the distance between the eyes, possibly allowing a crude sketch of a suspect to be generated from a DNA sample. Critics have questioned the reliability of the results and argue that physical appearances vary, even for close relatives such as siblings. There is also worry about the possibility of genetic racial profiling.^[17][18]

See also

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

References