The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that certain population groups—the poor, younger persons, males, African-Americans, Hispanics, and residents of inner cities—are more likely to be victimized and are more vulnerable to violence than other groups. As discussed in other chapters of this book, African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be poor and to be unemployed …
African-Americans—particularly males—commit a higher number of offenses as a proportion of the population than other groups. Throughout the 1990s African-American males between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four made up a growing proportion of homicide offenders. In 1994 African-American males between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four made up more than 30 percent of homicide off…
In June 2002 there were more non-Hispanic African-American males in state or federal prisons or local jails than there were non-Hispanic white or Hispanic males. Of a total of 1.9 million incarcerated males, 818,900 were non-Hispanic African-Americans, 630,700 were non-Hispanic whites, and 342,500 were Hispanics. The largest proportion of non-Hispanic African-American males in the prison populatio…
Law enforcement agencies define a street gang as a "group of people that form an allegiance based on various social needs and engage in acts injurious to public health and safety." Although gangs have been involved with the drug trade for many years, gang-related deadly violence is more likely to come from territorial conflicts. Gangs are often (but not always) racially or ethnically…
The 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act (PL 101-275) calls for the U.S. attorney general to "acquire data about crimes that manifest evidence of prejudice based on race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity [and] publish an annual summary of the data acquired under this section." In 1994 the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act (PL 103-322) amended the Hate Crime Statistics Act to …
Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.
Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.
User Comments Add a comment…