Kids - Violent Juveniles: Blacks At High Rates

"The difference between blacks and whites with respect to crime, and especially violent crime, has, I think, done more to impede racial amity than any other factor." — James Q. Wilson, Ph.D., criminologist, economist, political analyst, author

African Americans are overrepresented at every level of the judicial system, including juvenile arrests for the violent crimes represented on the above chart (murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault). This has been so since at least 1980 (the complete data from 1980 through 2000 appear at the back of this book). The chart shows that in 2000, 909.4 young blacks per 100,000 blacks aged 10-17 were arrested for a violent crime. That year, the number for white juveniles was 239.2 per 100,000 young whites; for American Indian juveniles, 243.5 per 100,000 young American Indians; and for Asian juveniles, 122.1 per 100,000 young Asians.

While arrests of white juveniles make up the majority of juvenile arrests (in 1999, 71% of arrests for all types of crimes), black juveniles account for a very high percentage of the arrests for violent crimes (42% in 1999). In 1980, the black-to-white ratio of juvenile arrests for murder stood at about 5 to 1. By 1993, it had jumped to 9 to 1. Thankfully, rates for both groups then fell so that, by 1999, the black-to-white arrest rate ratio was once again 5 to 1 and both rates were at their lowest levels in 20 years. Arrests of young blacks for violent crimes increased 45% between 1980 and the peak year of 1994.

Much of this violent activity can be attributed to youth gangs. In a special report prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice, researchers noted that 19 states reported gang problems in the early 1970s when the study began. By the late 1990s, all 50 states and the District of Columbia reported gang problems. In 1998, the states with the largest number of gang-problem cities were California (363), Illinois (261), Texas (156), Florida (125), and Ohio (86). The report lists seven reasons for the "striking increase in the number of gang-problem localities: drugs, immigration, gang names and alliances, migration, government policies, female-headed households, and gang subculture and the media."

Black Proportion of Juvenile Arrests in 1999 by the Most Serious Offense Charged

The small chart brings us back to the topic of black overrepresentation in the justice system. It shows the black proportion of juvenile arrests in 1999 by the most serious offense charged. Of course, not every person arrested for a crime is guilty. The law enforcement establishment has been accused of overzealousness when it comes to arresting African Americans. James Q. Wilson notes, however, that when comparing arrest data to data obtained by interviewing victims of crimes (the National Crime Victimization Survey; see Chapter 1), researchers have found no significant difference between police arrests and victim reports. He concludes: "This suggests that, though racism may exist in policing (as in all other aspects of American life), racism cannot explain the overall black arrest rate. The arrest rate, thus, is a reasonably good proxy for the crime rate."

Sources: Chart: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/asp/. Small chart: Howard N. Snyder, "Juvenile Arrests 1999," Juvenile Justice Bulletin, December 2000, http://www.ncjrs.org/html/. James Q. Wilson, "Crime," in Beyond the Color Line: New Perspectives on Race and Ethnicity in America, Thernstrom, Abigail, and Stephan Thernstrom, eds., http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/homepage/books/fulltext/colorline/default.htm. "The era of extraordinary rates of juvenile murder arrests appears to have ended," http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/nrs_bulletin/nrs_2001_12_1/page7.html. U.S. Department of Justice, The Growth of Youth Gang Problems in the United States: 1970-1998, www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/ojjdprpt_yth_gng_prob_2001/.