'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 perpetrators, 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.

::Interracial Crime::

In 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.

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 important 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 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 calculations 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 monetary motive, accounted for fewer than one third of
these crimes. The rest were gang assaults, including 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. 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 nonviolent 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-homosexual, 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 characteristics. 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.  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. 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.  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.  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. (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.

Different racial groups in the United States commit 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 percent of the country’s population. The UCR is
unquestionably the most comprehensive and authoritative 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 numbers are in the
NCVS, because they include crimes not reported to the police. Somewhat
smaller are the UCR figures on offenses reported to authorities, 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. During that same year, there were
only 535,000 arrests for aggravated assault.  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.  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). 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. 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).  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 police 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
unfairly against minorities. Drug offenses are beyond the scope of this
report but here, too, there is independent 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). There is only one plausible
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 understanding 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 Hispanics, 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).
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 categorized 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 arrest 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 v. white arrest rates are very close to the
multiples of male v. 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.  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 someone 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 information 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.)

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 national 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
dangerous 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 understand the problems.

It seems that England has a similar problem with Blacks.  Following is a
similar report that corroborates the same problems in England that we have
in the United States:

From Right Now, October 2000: an article by John Woods; Race and Criminal
Cowardice.

I acquired recently a copy of a 1999 Home Office publication entitled
Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System: A Home Office
publication under Section 95 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991*. The 1999
edition is the fifth in a series, with previous reports issued in 1992,
1994, 1995 and 1997. this remarkable study makes for a most interesting
read.

First, you have to wade through the statutory foreword by Jack Straw telling
us that we must learn the lessons of the Macpherson report, and purge the
criminal justice system of "institutional rac­ism". Then we have another
foreword by Mr. Justice Rose, Chair­man of the Criminal Justice Consultative
Committee, stating that we must learn the lessons of the Macpherson Report
and purge the criminal justice system of "institutional racism". Then we
have an insert from the Commission for Racial Equality telling us that we
must learn the lessons of the Macpherson Report and purge the crimi­nal
justice system of "in­stitutional racism".

Then we have a dis­cussion on deaths of black people in police custody. Then
we are told that blacks are six times more likely to be stopped and searched
by police. Then we are told that racist incidents are up by 66% over the
last year, "although this is thought to be due to better reporting". Then we
have the usual breast-beating about how there are not enough black
policemen, prison offic­ers, magistrates or judges. Then we are told that 9%
of homicide victims in the UK in the period covered by the sur­vey (1996-99)
were black, an over-representation by a factor of four and a half (although
we are not told who committed these murders.)

And then -- finally -- buried half way down Table 7.5 on page 44, we get
some real figures. 'Resipsa loquitor', as they doubtless say in Brixton
police station can­teen. Bear in mind that 2% of the population of the UK is
classified as black. The figures are stark: as of 30th June 1998, 7.1% of
those serving prison sentences for burglary were black. The equivalent
figure for theft and handling is 7.5%, for sexual offences 8.1%, violence
against the person 9.7%, fraud and forgery 13.2% and drugs offences 19%,
while for robbery it is a staggering 22.6%.

Now, the massive over-representation of blacks in these catego­ries, could,
I am sure, be 'explained' by reference to "institutional racism". There will
no doubt be many who hold that these are the only career options open to
black youths. But I defy even Lord Macpherson to explain, for example, a
four-fold over-representa­tion in sex crimes among blacks by reference to
that meaningless concept. Perhaps wisely, the Home Office does not give us a
breakdown of the racial origins of the victims of black sexual crime. I
would also be interested in seeing the figures for juveniles con­victed of
sexual offences.

Moreover, virtually every Asian ethnic group within the UK is
under-represented in the jails -- except in fraud cases. The incar­ceration
rate for Indians is one fourteenth of the black rate. Yet, presumably,
Asians must be laboring under the same yoke of soci­etal "institutional
racism" as blacks? Furthermore, if we are to explain the six-fold
over-representation of blacks in prison by refer­ence to that elastic
concept, and we note the fact that whites are over-represented in prison in
comparison with Asians, then the logical conclusion would seem to be that
the criminal justice system must be "institutionally racist" against whites.
But that would be an absurd conclusion.

Blacks represent 2% of the population of the UK, 12% of the jail population
and 15% of incarcerated young offenders. Even this, however, does not tell
the full story, as the figures do not distinguish between Africans and
Afro­-Caribbeans. It may be an hypothesis too far, but I would be prepared
to wager that the following propositions are true: that the proportion of
blacks of Afri­can origin incarcerated, although sig­nificantly larger than
the percentage of whites or Asians, will be signifi­cantly smaller than the
proportion of Afro-Caribbeans. Therefore the over-representation among
Afro­-Caribbeans will be even more extraordinary than these figures would
suggest. I suspect also that the sociological profile of the type of crime
for which Africans are im­prisoned will be rather different than that for
Afro-Caribbeans. Astoundingly, blacks are over-rep­resented by a factor of
six or seven among those incarcerated for fraud and forgery. I suspect that
the majority of these will be West Africans rather than West Indians.

But the real story here is the way that the Home Office has presented the
figures. The statistics would appear to have been set out in a deliberately
misleading, confusing and obfuscatory manner, designed to prevent the casual
reader from working out the true situation. One has to wade through reams of
information on arrest rates in the various county police forces, where very
few members of ethnic minorities reside, and the figures for the Met., the
West Midlands etc, are buried among them. It is not terribly meaningful to
tell us that 99% of those arrested by Dyfed-Powys or Devon & Cornwall Police
are white. Moreover, the percentages of arrests for the various different
ethnic groups within a particular police area are not compared with the
actual ethnic breakdown of the population within that area, except for the
Metropolitan Police District and a few others. And these are presented
several pages apart, perhaps in the hope that no-one will notice them.

According to the Home Office figures, 7.5 % of the population of London are
black. A quarter of all the arrests in the Metropolitan Police District are
of black people. As relatively few blacks live in suburban areas of London,
I would suggest that they must now represent a majority, or close to it, in
arrests in almost every cat­egory of crime in the inner London boroughs.
Blacks represent 54% of those arrested for robbery in London. In the inner
city, this must surely be 80-90%. Again, the race of the victims of these
robberies is not recorded. I wonder why not.

Another jaw-dropping statistic: during the period 1996-1999 which this
survey covers, 59 black people and 69 white people died from gunshot wounds.
The chances of a black person being shot dead are therefore approximately 40
times higher than for a white person. In virtually every case, blacks who
died of gunshot wounds were shot by other blacks.

On page 47 of this extraordinary document, one finds another startling
statistic relating to "racially motivated incidents". The British Crime
Survey, published in 1998, estimates that in 1995, 382,000 offences were
racially motivated. Of these, 143,000 were committed against members of
ethnic minorities, and 238,000 against white people. This fact is
extraordinary enough in itself. More extraordinary still is the lack of
further discussion given to it in this report. And of course, the Home
Office is not indelicate enough to point out the obvious corollary: if the
ethnic minorities comprise 6% of the population of the UK, and are producing
238,000 racial assaults per year, and the white population, who comprise 94%
of the population, are producing 143,000 racial assaults per year, it would
appear that, on a per capita basis, the ethnic minorities are producing
about 25 times more racial assaults than the white population. In fact,
this clearly underestimates the discrepancy, since some of the racial
assaults against blacks will have been committed by Asians, and some (I
would guess a lot) of the assaults on Asians will have been committed by
blacks (like the murderous attack on Abdul Bhatti at Notting Hill).
Moreover, the British Crime Survey does not tell us who committed the
238,000 racial assaults against whites. I think we may safely assume that
the majority were not committed by Sikhs, Parsees, Thais or Hong Kong
Chinese.

Obviously, certain caveats must be born in mind. What constitutes a racial
assault? If two motorists of different pigmentations get into an altercation
over a parking space, does this constitute a racial incident? If one of them
employs racial epithets in the course of the dispute, does it then become
one? Fortunately, we now know what constitutes a racial assault, because
Macpherson's definition has been accepted by the Government, the police and
the Crown Prosecution Service, and is reproduced in this document. "A racial
incident is any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or
any other person". So, if 238,000 white people per year per­ceive themselves
to have been the victims of racist crimes, then they must have been, mustn't
they?

On page 15 of the Home Office document, we are told "Much (sic) of these
differences were found to be due to socio-demographic factors that are
associated with victimization. For example, ethnic minorities tend, on
average, to be younger, of lower socio-economic status, and more often
living in higher risk areas". This is an exer­cise in deliberately missing
the point. Certain ethnic minorities  -- Indians and Chinese, for example --
have an average social status which is significantly higher than that of
whites, and a crime rate which is approximately half the national average.
It is only blacks who are of a significantly lower average social status.
And, of course, the Home Office statisticians do not address themselves to
the ques­tion of why this should be. Blacks certainly do live in higher risk
areas. They are higher risk areas for a very good reason.

But then the whole document is an exercise in deliberately missing the
point. Almost every civil servant, policeman, judge, prosecutor and
journalist is busily missing the point these days, busily pretending that
the emperor has got some clothes on, because in Tony's Britain, that's how
you keep your job.

The reality of the situation is simply too horrific for liberals to
contemplate. Therefore, they choose not to contemplate it, preferring to
scapegoat the police, or the judiciary, or the schools, or anyone or
anything else, rather than face the facts. Unfortunately, however much we
might all wish it, reality will not go away.

*The report can be obtained from the following web site:

www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/index.htm

Copyright © 1999 by New Century Foundation

New Century Foundation
2717 Clarkes Landing
Oakton, VA 22124

Tel:    (703) 716-0900
Fax:    (703) 716-0932

____________________________________________________________

http://www.newnation.org/NNN-Black-on-White.html

http://www.libreopinion.com/members/standarteslc/race05.html