One of the prolific fiction writers in the United States once wrote and said “reality is what exists whether you recognize it or not.” Some of these observations should be noted when considering some of the touchier issues of the society today. One of these issues is that of race and crime. For a long time now in America, one of the most diverse countries in the world playing host to several people from walks of life has been faced with the long debate about crime, biasness and inequality as far as race and crime is considered (Morenoff, 2005).
In the early 1960s, in 1965 to be exact, one of the most controversial American writers at that time Patrick Daniel Moynihan wrote an article about the deteriorating state of the black American family in the US. This article was however bashed by several quarters since it came at a time when the people were trying to fight for more rights for the black people hence this came as a step backward in detriment of such achievement. The liberals at that time brought so much debate about this article and to the extent that they almost rendered the topic radioactive. However, several years later, this particular trait if deterioration of the black American family became very apparent that some began to recall his article and even some concluded that Daniel Patrick was a prophet who was unjustly condemned (Sampson and Lauristen, 1997).
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In the 1990s there came one of the most contentious cases of the 20 th century. This was the case of The People V O.J Simpson in which the accused person was charged with the murder of his wife in who was white. Many people were keen to see how the system would treat a black man accused of killing his white wife.
However, this is not a challenge unique only to America, in developed countries like the South Africa which is a mixed race society; many violent crimes are associated with black people. For instance when the trial of Oscar Pistorius a known Paralympics champion who was accused of killing his wife was sentenced to house arrest for two years, some people complained that he was favored by the system simply because he was white.
This contentious and seemingly biased social analysis of crime was in mind when the study of Hispanic crime rates was being studied in late 2009. One traditionally common challenge in this type of study is the inconclusiveness of the Data. Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) uniform crime report show black and Asian criminal activities, Hispanic and whites are generally grouped together hence one may be inclined to draw such figures on either side so as to be able to conclude on a biased scale. In order to draw the line between vivid imagination and the actual reality, the study focused mainly on the data from the larger cities exploring the difference of the data between the FBI reported crimes and the own Hispanic census reports on violent crimes. If urban crime was anything to go by, it would clearly show that the Hispanic had a low crime level since in the cities there criminal activities turned up low.
However, the same simply calculation yielded a different result in the correlation between black people and violent crimes across the United States. This greatly confirmed the implications of the FBI report on uniform crime and black perpetrators. One of the major concerns cited by critics of these report is the overly representation of black people to in the violent crime reports. Racial specific arrests by the FBI uniform crimes unit (UCR) is often used to illustrate this problem. More crimes have been largely attributed to the black people as white people have been perceived to be less violent and criminal in nature. There have however emerged several explanations for this kind of conclusion. Some have brought forth the ‘differential involvement capacity (Elliott, 1994).
This hypothesis states that many black crimes are documented because they involve violence which leads to processing and documentation by the criminal justice system unlike the white people who mostly engage in non -violent crimes. Moreover, it pre supposes that most black people begin there crime activities in early teenage years which they carry to adulthood hence this results to a widespread range of crimes that an individual has been involved in given the number of years one has been exposed to crime.
The second hypothesis which is named ‘differential criminal justice system selection hypotheses’ dictates that the presence of police patrols, the profiling, harassment, and general prejudicial police presence in black neighborhoods result to more black being arrested. Furthermore the biased system in which the courts treat black suspects has resulted to more black people being incarcerated. This is also the case this hypothesis is likely to apply in victimless crimes in which the police or federal agent has to choose their own discretion. These crimes include drug abuse and public order crimes (Zimring & Hawkings, 1997).
Although there is an agreement that there is a minority overrepresentation in the criminal justice system, researcher have not yet come to be in agreement about the main true reason as to why this is so. In fact the National Academy of sciences panel recently concluded that the two hypotheses above have led to what they referred to as ‘conceptual and methodological impasse.’
There are however several problems that arise with relating crimes to a particular race of people. For instance correlating drug trafficking with people of Hispanic origin, gang related violence with people of African origin and relating serial killers to the white people. This particular type of stereotyping can result into serious divisions in the society and can promote racial profiling. With the recent shooting of allegedly unarmed civilians by police is alarming. What is however interesting is that these victims were all black. This problem can be attributed to the general assumption by police officers and other law enforcement agencies that black people are always armed and dangerous hence the need to be approached and handled with extreme cautions. Over the recent times, there have been few related cases of police mistakenly shooting a white person. This in my own view is no coincidence. The high level of black shootings by police officers is directly related to the correlation of black people with violent crimes.
Secondly, relating a race to a particular crime can be detrimental since it may result into a blanket judgement of that race and may even affect the progress of the race and develop a false phobia for people of that state. A good example is the current ongoing debate about refugees in Europe. Many countries in Europe are refusing to accept refugees from Libya and Syria citing that they may be terrorist sleeper agents coming to plot an attack in their country. This is as a result of correlation the crime of terrorism with the people of the middle eastern origin. Another example is where the US president elect Donald Trump stated in one of his campaign speeches that he will build a wall on the border between the United States and Mexico to prevent drug cartels and immigration as a whole (Wilbanks, 2016).
In as much as this may look like a problem solver at the first instance, it is not so because it is clearly a blanket judgement that if one is Hispanic and are coming to the US its either one is a drug trafficker and or illegal immigrant. In conclusion, the correlation of race with crime is not a bad idea after all however the systems and approaches in place ought to be changed in order ot have positive impact as opposed to negatives ones.
References ;
Elliott D.S. (1994). Serious violent offenders: Onset, developmental course and termination. Criminology. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.
Morenoff J.D. (2005). Racial and ethnic disparities in crime and delinquency in the United States. Cambridge; UK, Cambridge University Press.
Sampson R.J, Lauritsen J.L. (1997). Racial and ethnic disparities in crime and criminal justice in the United States an Annual Review of Research. Vol. 21. Chicago,University of Chicago Press.
Wilbanks W. (2016). The myth of a racist criminal justice system. Monterey, CA, Brooks Publisher.
Zimring F.E, Hawkins G. (1997). Crime is not the problem: Lethal violence in America. New York,Oxford University Press.
