The Relationship Between Race And Crime

Crime has always been a hot topic in sociology. There are many different reasons for people to commit criminal acts. There is no way to pinpoint the source of crime. I am going to show the relationship between race and crime. More specifically, I will be discussing the higher chances of minorities being involved in the criminal justice system than the majority population, discrimination, racial profiling and the environment criminals live in.

Studies on relationship between race and delinquency primarily focus on two groups, African Americans and Whites. Applicable arrest data reports that African Americans are disproportionately involved in delinquency, with larger differences for serious crimes. Recent analysis has indicated that these race differences have declined in recent years. Criticism of these studies note that crimes committed by African Americans may be more likely to come to attention of the police and that African Americans offenders are more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts. Early self-report data found little or no relationship between race and delinquency. Later self-report studies found that African Americans and whites commit similar levels of minor delinquency, while African Americans are more likely to engage in serious delinquency, but not to extent reported in arrest data. The studies attributed the discrepancy to a larger percentage of high-rate African Americans offenders than high-rate white offenders. Victimization data suggests that African Americans are more likely than whites to be both offenders and victims of violence. Race and social class explain some but not all of the factors contributing to serious delinquency (Wright and Younts, 2009).

In the direct category they found that discrimination is more in federal level than the state level, blacks are more likely to be at a disadvantage form the start, etc. In the race/ethnicity with other offender characteristics they found that blacks are sentenced harsher than whites and unemployed black males are sentenced harsher than an unemployed white male. In the indirect effects of race/ethnicity and process-related factors they found that blacks have to pay more when it comes to trial penalties than whites, whites earn a bigger reduction in sentencing time than blacks, blacks are more likely to be jailed when they are waiting for there trial and whites are way more likely to hire a private attorney rather than one appointed to them by the state. In the interaction of race of the offender with race of the victim they found that when black committed a crime against white person they are sentenced more severely than a black committing a crime on another black person. In the interaction of race/ethnicity and type of crime they found the

In this article, Robert, April, and Jorge (2010) acknowledges previous research reports on this topic and reveals that race, and racial patterns have found their way in involvement of crime. However, Robert, April, and Jorge (2010) argue that there is no significant proof that there are meaningful racial disparities in the legal systems. Although some literatures provide research on the existence of racial profiling by police, in imprisonment, and sentencing, other researchers report no significant racial disparities in the legal systems (Black and Reiss, 1970; Pilivian and Briar, 1964). However, other researchers report on ample racial disparities based on race. These researches are controversial because the size of the differences in such reports tends to bring up the question of meaningfulness of the differences observed (Wilbanks, 1987).

Statistics do show that African Americans have a higher percent of crime rates than Caucasians. African Americans makes up thirteen percent of the countries total population; however they also make up thirty-one percent of all of the arrests. “... analysts say, [police] stop many more blacks and Hispanics on highways and on city streets then they do whites” (“Crime and Race”). Do the police target these minority races merely on race? Analysts not only believe the idea of racial profiling, they refute it. They consider the fact that these races commit more crimes than whites do. The high crime rates of minorities are argued that the minorities are arrested at a higher rate than whites because a higher population of minorities live in poor neighborhoods. Areas where unemployment is high, poverty is common, and schools are unfunded. Many socialists point out that crime tends to correlate with both poverty and unemployment. These factors may make minority youth feel they have to turn to criminal activities because of the “blocked opportunities” other adolescent people might receive. Minorities are not arrested at higher rate because they are targeted by police, they are just committing more crimes for the reason that they live in deprived regions (“Update: Crime and Race”).

In order to understand the nature of the statistical disparity, the first aspect that must be examined is necessarily the statistics themselves. Recent data (1998) shows that more than two out of every three arrested persons are white (67.6%) and that African Americans account for only 30% of all arrests. More striking is the data adjusted per capita: African Americans are two and a half times as likely to be arrested as whites, and are even more over-represented in violent crimes, for which they are over three times as likely to be arrested. African Americans are five times as likely to be arrested in cases of robbery or murder (Walker et al., 39).

The existence of racial disparity and structural inequality within the criminal justice system renders the concept of true justice for all unobtainable. The statistics of convictions and prison sentences by race definitely support the concept that discrimination is a problem in the justice system as well as the insignificantly number of minority judges and lawyers. There are a multitude of circumstances that influence these statistics according to the “Central Eight” criminogenic risk factors. The need for programs and methods to effectively deter those at risk individuals has never been greater and the lack of such programs is costing society in countless ways.

Policing and punishment in America is hardly colorblind. It is not a coincidence that minorities serve longer sentences, have higher arrest and conviction rates, face higher bail amounts, and are more often the victims of police use of deadly force than white citizens. When it comes to criminals, many people have a preconception of what a criminal is. Usually when people think of a criminal they picture a Black or Latino face. The thought of an Asian criminal is often related to Asian gangs. Interestingly enough, White people as a group are rarely associated with the thought of crime, even though they account for 70% of arrests and 40% of the prison population each year (Russel xiv). This seems to be

Mac Donald (2008) looks at the idea that cops over arrest blacks and ignore the crimes that whites commit. However, the races of criminals that are reported by the victims do in fact match arrest data. According to a research study as far back as 1978, “a study of robbery and aggravated assault in eight cities found parity between the race of assailants in victim identifications and in arrests--a finding replicated many times since, across a range of crimes” (Mac Donald, 2008, p. 15). It does not make sense to think why crime victims would be biased in the reports they give to the police.

While looking at the massive number of people incarcerated in the United States, it is easy to see that a major disparity presents itself when looking at the races of those incarcerated. The numbers are astonishing: “Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015” (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet”, n.d.). These questions arise: Is our criminal justice system discriminatory? Or, do minorities actually engage in more crime than whites? The statistics are clear:

Racism has a huge impact on society to this day. The greatest wrong doing in the U.S criminal justice system is that it is a race based organization where African Americans are specifically focused on and rebuffed in a considerably more forceful route than white individuals. Saying the Us criminal justice system is racist might be politically disputable in different ways. In any case, the actualities are debatable. Underneath I explain many cases of these issues. Information on race is available for each step of the criminal justice system – from the use of drugs, police stops, arrests, getting off on bail, legal representation, jury selection, trial, sentencing, prison, parole, and freedom.

Over time more and more news reports have raised flags on law enforcement, courtrooms and their outcomes due to the crime and the criminal and their racial background. Although a long time has passed since all decision making came from the white supremacist and we do have a more diverse system the race of the criminal seems to still be affecting the outcomes of criminal justice. In earlier times, courtrooms and many jurisdictions were all white decisionmakers. We can see a lot of poorly executed decisions by law enforcement such as stop and frisk due to racial profiling or taking advantage of young minorities influencing them to falsify a confession . Race plays an important role in the justice

( HYPERLINK l "_ENREF_4" o "Johnson, 2008 #13" Johnson). Public perception, though, believes in favor of seeing race as a reason for crime, and having a considerable fear of anyone outside their own ethnic group depending on the situation. Similarly, much so-called "organized crime," amounting to billions of dollars annually has similar stereotypes of ethnic origin (e.g. Mafia La Costa Nostra, Russian Mafia, Chinese Triads, Mexican Mafia, etc.). Still, over the past few decades, at least since the Rodney King beating, the use of race by law enforcement, and then after 9/11 by Homeland security, has received considerable political and media attention. One is agog, for instance, at the number of traffic stops that seem to target certain drivers, or the amount of arrests for similar situations focused on minorities. We must remember, too, that racial profiling, or stereotyping, is nothing new for centuries, cultures have looked to the "other" for excuses to go to war, to incarcerate, or to find reason for authoritarian behavior. Witness the

The issue of Race, ethnicity or social structure is important yet an unattended one. The world in which we live in has witnessed many crimes related to Race, Ethnicity and Social Structure of an Individual.

Crime, racism, drugs, alcohol, AIDS, child labour, polygamy, child abuse, unemployment, homelessness, poverty and rape are prime examples which help define the notion social problems (SPs) (Best, 1989). Sociologist often define SPs as arrangements that fail to work within society (Bassis, Gelles, and Levine, 1982:2), which are seen and viewed widely as a problem, are caused by human action and affect a mass of people (Farley, 1987:2, Gusfield,1989). Welfare societies create policies and legislation to deal with SPs and, take responsibility for ensuring that individuals in society are safe, out of harm’s way and, try to combat poverty by having minimum standards of living, so that it is affordable within the free market. There is a problem when it comes to defining SPs because, it relies on a significant proportion of society to identify an objective social condition and subjectively interpret it as troublesome and require change (Theodorson and Theodorson, 1969:392). Theories that make attempts to view SPs as objectively rejected conditions in society, fail to explain why certain conditions are labelled as SPs (Hilgartner and Bosk, 1988). The real question here then is, how do we go about deciding what is and isn’t a SP objectively? Who decides and how do they make that decision? Whose responsibility is it to deal with the problem? How do we go about rating SP like crime against homelessness and child labour? This essay will attempt to answer these question while examining