The Color of Crime

Race, Crime, and Justice in America
Second, Expanded Edition, 2005

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Major Findings:

Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.

Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.

Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.
Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.

Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million.
Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.

The Color of Crime is an expanded version of a monograph on crime first published by NCF in 1999. The older version of the report is located here.