Race and crime: An international dilemma

Abstract

The overrepresentation of blacks in U.S. crime statistics has existed since the turn of the twentieth century. The census of 1910 showed more blacks than whites in jail, in the north as well as in the south. Official figures from the 1930s through the 1950s showed that the number of blacks arrested for crimes of violence in proportion to the number of whites ranged from 6:1 to 16:1. These statistics have not improved in the interim. Breaching a long taboo, liberals from Bill Clinton to Jesse Jackson have recently made it respectable to theorize about “black-on-black” crime. Conservative magazines like the National Review have also begun to discuss aspects of the race/crime link (see “Blacks… and Crime,” May 16, 1994; “How to Cut Crime,” May 30, 1994). What is yet to be acknowledged, however, is the international generalizability of the race/crime relationship. The matrix found within the United States, with Asians being most law-abiding, Africans least, and Europeans intermediate, is to be observed in other multiracial countries like Britain, Brazil, and Canada. Moreover, the pattern is revealed in China and the Pacific Rim, Europe and the Middle East, and Africa and the Caribbean. Because the “American dilemma” is global in manifestation, explanations must go well beyond U.S. particulars. I emphasize at the outset that enormous variability exists within each of the populations on many of the traits to be discussed. Because distributions substantially overlap, with average differences amounting to between 4 and 34 percent, it is highly problematic to generalize from a group average to a particvular individual. Nonetheless, as I hope to show, significant racial variation exists, not only in crime but also in other traits that predispose to crime, including testosterone, brain size, temperament, and cognitive ability.