LogFAQs > #940342655

Why is that African Americans represent 12 percent of the US population but lead the nation in murder, robbery, and almost every violent crime

By taking crime statistics at face value, Taylor made the same mistake Frederick Hoffman did in 1896: blaming higher rates of black crime on an innate black criminality, when in fact those disproportionate crime rates could be explained by poverty and related structural disadvantages. On average, African Americans were and remain far poorer and more likely to live in disadvantaged neighborhoods than whites. Concentrated poverty has a criminogenic effect: lack of access to jobs, increased idle time and poorer educational opportunities all increase ones chances of engaging in criminal behavior, and the effect is the same for black and white people. One study, released three years before The Color of Crime, found that when sociologists controlled for structural disadvantages, there were no significant differences between crime rates in black and white communities.[59]