Racial Reconciliation - Crime

By Jerry Price - Feb 6, 2006 -

“Every day 1,118 African American teenagers are victims of violent crimes; 1,451 African American children are arrested; and 907 African American teenage girls get pregnant. A generation of African American males is drowning in its own blood in prison camps that we euphemistically call ‘inner cities.’ And things are likely to get worse. Some forty years after the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, younger African Americans are now growing up unqualified even for slavery.”

Gerald Austin, Sr., “Who Is My Neighbor?” in Timothy George and Robert Smith, Jr., editors, A Mighty Long Journey (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2000), 89.

For 2004, the following statistics on crime by racial group was reported by the U.S. Department of Justice:

  • Per every 1,000 persons in that racial group, 26 African Americans, 21 whites and 13 persons of other races sustained a violent crime.
  • African American and white persons experienced similar rates of simple assault.
  • African American, white, and other races experienced about the same rates of rape/sexual assault.
  • According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, in 2003 about 49 percent of murder victims were white, 49 percent were African American, and 3 percent were Asians, Pacific Islander, and Native Americans.
  • African Americans were more likely than whites to be victimized by a carjacking (6 versus 2 per 10,000 respectively) 1992-96.
  • Between 1992-2001, American Indians experienced violence at rates more than twice that of African Americans, 2 1/2 times that of whites, and 4 1/2 times that of Asian.
  • 563,250 Hispanic persons age 12 or older were victims of rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault and simple assault.
  • Violence against Hispanics age 12 or older most often took the form of simple assault (64 percent).
  • Hispanic persons age 12 or older experienced 11 percent of all violent crime and made up 13 percent of the population.
  • Hispanics were victims of overall violence at a rate higher than non-Hispanics.
  • Hispanics were more likely to be victims of simple assault than non-Hispanics.
  • Hispanics and non-Hispanics experienced similar rates of aggravated assault, robbery, and rape/sexual assault.

Adapted from Victim Characteristics (Bureau of Justice Statistics) [Accessed October 4, 2005]

Further Learning

Learn more about: Citizenship, Racial Reconciliation