In 1978, there were 19.65 million blacks, age 12 and older (thus, eligible for consideration in crime data), and their victimization rate was 40.6 victimizations for every 1000 blacks that age, for a total of about 900,000 victimizations.
By 2008, despite the so-called collapse of the black community, the emergence and explosion of hip-hop, the introduction of saggin’ pants, and all those other things the right would have us believe are inextricably linked to crime and deviance, there were fewer than 800,000 violent victimizations of blacks, and this, in a much larger black population. In 2008, there were 30.7 million blacks 12 and over, an increase of 56 percent. Yet, despite the fact that there were 11 million
more blacks, 12 and over in the population in 2008 than in 1978, there were 100,000
fewer black victims of violent crime in the more recent year, and the victimization rate for blacks as of 2008 had fallen to 25.9 per 1000 persons, down from 40.6 per 1000, thirty years ago.
The same trends are true for black men in particular: the group pegged as especially criminal and increasingly so.
In 1978, there were 8.9 million black males, age 12 and older, whose violent victimization rate was 53.6 per 1000 such black males, meaning there were roughly 480,000 black males violently victimized that year.
By 2008, despite roughly 5 million additional black males that age in the population, the numbers of black males victimized by violent crime fell to 410,000.
So, 5 million
more black males to be potentially victimized, but 70,000
fewer who actually were, relative to 1978. As such, the victimization rate for black males fell from 53.6 per 1000 in 1978 to 29.2 per 1000 in 2008: a drop of 46 percent!
As for criminal offending rates, in 1978 there were about 910,000 black offenders who committed single-offender violent crimes and 550,000 who committed multiple offender violent crimes, in crimes where the race of the perp was known. If we assume that the same percentage of “race not known” offenders were black, as were the percentage of those whose race
was known (which seems reasonable), this would give us an additional 11,000 black offenders in the single-offender category and an additional 11,500 in the multiple-offender category, for a total of 1.48 million black criminal offenders that year.
In 2008, there were about 830,000 black offenders in single-offender crimes and 280,000 in multiple-offender violent crimes, in crimes where the race of the perp was known. If we add in those offenders whose race was not known but were likely to be black (by once again applying the same relative racial shares to those crimes as the crimes with known-race offenders) we would come up with approximately 120,000 additional black offenders in the single-offender category (for a total of 950,000), and an additional 50,000 in the multiple offender category (for a total of about 330,000). This would produce a grand total of 1.28 million violent crimes committed by blacks in 2008.
Comparing these totals to 1978 we discover that despite an increase in the black population of about 11 million people over the thirty year period, there were roughly 200,000
fewer violent crimes committed by blacks in 2008 than there were in 1978: a drop of about 14 percent, numerically, and a
massive drop in the violent crime offending rate, from 75.3 violent offenses per 1000 black people in 1978 to 41.7 per 1000 by 2008:
a decline of 45 percent in the rate at which blacks commit violent crimes.
Got that conservatives?
Black crime is down by almost half since the late 1970s.
As for murder — which is tallied separately, by the FBI — rates have also dropped precipitously, in general, and for blacks specifically, in the past forty years.
In 1971, for instance, there were over 16,000 murders in the U.S., and 8,900 of the victims that year were black; this number grew to 21,505 murders in 1991, of which more than 10,700 victims were black.
By 2011, however, the total number of murders stood at 12,664, of which 6,332 of the victims were African American.
In other words, over a 40-year period, even as the overall population grew dramatically, there were around 3500 fewer murders in 2011 than in 1971, and almost 9000 fewer murders than in 1991! And by 2011 there were about 2500 fewer blacks being murdered every year than in 1971, and almost 4500 fewer blacks being killed annually than twenty years before in 1991.
From 1976-2005, the murder victimization rate for blacks fell 45 percent, from 37.1 murder victims for every 100,000 blacks to 20.6 murder victims for every 100,000 blacks (the rates for whites also fell 40 percent), and the offending rate for blacks fell 43 percent, from 46.6 murders committed for every 100,000 blacks in the population to only 26.5 murders committed per 100,000 blacks by 2005. As
additional homicide data since then demonstrates, the numbers of murders committed by blacks, both numerically and in terms of their homicide offending rate, has continued to fall through 2010 (the latest year for which we have comprehensive offending data on homicides).
In other words, by every possible measure of criminal violence, and in terms of both victimization
andvictimizing, the black community — which the right typifies as a tangle of pathology — is doing
better, not worse, than in the past. This means that conservatives are simply wrong when they suggest that black folks are increasingly given to lawbreaking. Any suggestion that the “real solution” to the problems facing blacks is to put the brakes on criminal wrongdoing is simplistic in the extreme: the trend lines are all positive in that regard, and yet, gaps in well-being between whites and blacks persist. Crime is not the culprit.
