Race and Crime Revisited

Abstract

The objectives of this paper are twofold: first, to examine the relationship between race and crime as reflected in the literature and, second, to eval uate explanations based upon these findings. Much of the debate about the extent of black involvement in crime reduces to a methodological is sue. Studies using official data sources consistently show that blacks are overrepresented in arrest, conviction, and prison statistics. While victim survey results support these findings, self-report research fails to demon strate a relationship between race and crime. Further, the disproportionate amount of black involvement in officially measured crime and delinquen cy is frequently explained by selection bias based on racial characteristics. Such explanations, however, are not consistently supported by research findings. The paper concludes by outlining two perspectives for future research that should prove promising.