Black Canard: The Enduring Myth of the Black-on-Black Crime Epidemic
- Michael Jackson
- Jul 30, 2018
- 5 min read
Updated 5/28/15
Originally Published 4/29/13
It’s great to see celebrities, YouTube commentators, and so-called prominent leaders (like those here, here, and here), have finally noticing that crime in Black communities is a problem that should be addressed. Ironically, but not surprisingly, many of these same people also advocate cuts to institutions and policies proven to curb crime like community policing, raising the minimum wage, public education investments, and job training & placement programs.
Between 1994 and 2015, black-on-black violence declined 78%, while white-on-white crime declined at a nearly identical rate of 79%. However, they are about 20 to 25 years too late. The years between 1995 and 2014 show that the rates of crime among African American youth have plummeted dramatically with all categories significantly lower. A researcher at the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice in a recent report said,"Today’s young African Americans display the lowest rates of crime and serious risk of any generation that can be reliably assessed". This, while Black education achievement rates have substantial increased and during a period within which both the post-9/11 recession and more recent 'Great Recession' occurred:
All offenses 47% Decrease Drug offenses 50% Decrease Property offenses 51% Decrease Serious Part I offenses 53% Decrease Assault 59% Decrease Robbery 60% Decrease All violent offenses 60% Decrease Rape 66% Decrease Murder 82% Decrease
Black Educational Achievement (25 years and older)
High School Completion 1980-2017 71% Increase
College Enrollment 1980-2017 98% Increase
College Completion 1980-2017 203% Increase
While the detractors slept, across the country African-American community leaders, parents, churches, and activists, having already noticed the problem, have been tirelessly working to make the communities they love safer. Senior staff writer at Mic Zak Cheney-Rice and Slate's chief political correspondent Jamelle Bouie wrote poignantly how Black-on-Black crime is being falsely framed as a distinctly African American pathology rather than a component of poverty, opportunity, & proximity. If America is to have this much touted ‘conversation’ on race, it is important the dialogue itself adhere to the basic guiding principal of being rooted in actual rather than anecdote, perception, and conjecture:
Ironically throughout the 1970's and 80's, countless African Americans communities across the country tried to draw attention to high crime rates, guns, gang activity, and drug abuse that pervaded their neighborhoods. The Black urban poor, through community institutions, churches, and individual efforts were most often met with neglect, divestment of private and public resources, and outright disdain. I witnessed firsthand while growing up in Camden, New Jersey in the 1980’s, how the mostly white surrounding suburbs of America’s cities as well as state and federal governments ignored mostly Black urban victims of crime and dismissed whole urban areas as havens of pathologically violent criminals. Residents suffered as the ‘War on Poverty’ became the ‘War on Drugs’ and incarceration rates skyrocketed while social services, education, and urban infrastructure funds were slashed.
It is within this context that I’ve marveled and cringed at the recent dialogue about crime, discrimination, and inequality in the criminal justice system. From conservatives opining President Obama acted too ‘black’ by speaking of his experiences, to progressives arguing he was not being‘black’ enough by having insufficiently explicit rhetoric and policies focusing solely on the problems of African Americans. The most amusingly bewildering aspect of this rhetoric is how assertions of racial inequalities in the American criminal justice system during tragedies, like deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner, are almost immediately rebutted by pointing to the so-called ‘genocide’ of Black-on-Black urban crime. This falsely equivalent focus, from many of the same political quarters who ignored the problem at its peak, belies the actual facts of both the causes and trends of Black-on-Black crime, and the structural inequality in the American criminal justice system.
Black-on-Black Crime Facts
Among Black youth, rates of robbery and serious property offenses are the lowest in more than 40 years.
According to FBI statistics, 7361 Blacks were killed by fellow African-Americans in 1991. By 2014, it had dropped dramatically (70% decline) to 2205 African-Americans.
In the 18 years between 1995 and 2013, Black-on-Black homicides have decreased by 49.2% in 20 years, a sharper rate of decrease than the 39% drop in white-on-white homicide during the same years. **
Racial Inequality in the Criminal Justice System Facts
African Americans were two times as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.
Between 2010 & 2012, young black men were 21 times as likely as their white peers to be killed by police.
In the federal system, Black offenders receive sentences that are 10% longer than white offenders for the same crime.
Five times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of Whites.
African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of Whites.
African American juvenile youth are about 16% of the youth population, 37% of their cases are moved to criminal court & 58% of convicted African American youth are sent to adult prisons.
Controlling for other factors, including severity of the offense and prior criminal history, white men aged 18-29 were 38% less likely to be sentenced to prison than their Black male peers.
African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated.
African American defendants are 21% more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than Whites and are 20% more like to be sentenced to prison.
While it is essential that we address the high levels of violence and incarceration in America compared to other industrialized countries, we cannot accurately do so by perpetuating the myth of a uniquely African American pathology toward violence and crime. Instead of denying the downward trends in crime in the Black community, we must applaud it and reward it with a serious examination of racial inequality in the American criminal justice system. Although, I am not sure whether those with a dubious newfound interest in Black crime would agree.
* This blog is an edited, expanded, and updated version of the original blog entitled, “The Myth of the Black-on-Black Crime Epidemic” for political think tank Demos as a research intern and is backed up by accurate and verifiable data within each hyperlink.
** In 1995, the number of white-on-white homicides were 4,124 while the black-on-black homicides were 4,422. By 2013, that number had dropped to 2,509 for whites and 2,245 for blacks.
Michael Jackson is a political analyst/researcher and freelance writer/editor living in New York City. He holds a B.A. in political science with a concentration in American Politics & Urban Studies from California State University, East Bay and was formerly graduate fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences' Ph.D program
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