ABSTRACT
General theories of crime assume that Whites and African Americans commit crime for exactly the same reasons. Scholars refer to this foundational assumption as “the racial invariance thesis.” The racial invariance thesis is provocative. It dismisses the possibility that systemic racism causes a minority of African Americans to commit crimes. This dismissal also requires scholars to assume that the innumerable forms of racial subjugation, such as racist stereotypes and discrimination, that African Americans ubiquitously encounter have nothing to do with their likelihood of committing crimes. In short, the racial invariance thesis argues that the differences in the power and privileges between Whites and African Americans are irrelevant for explaining why some African Americans commit crimes. In this chapter, I discuss why this thesis has prohibited scholars from generating a holistic understanding of why a minority of African Americans commit crime. Most of my discussion focuses on how social disorganization theory’s adherence to the racial invariance thesis has forced it to make assumptions that are untestable and are at odds with the lived experiences of African Americans. I also review the existing literature that has tested the racial invariance thesis and conclude that it generates little support. I conclude that scholars must generate race-specific analyses that explicate the unique interpretive frameworks that give meaning to the reasons why African Americans and Whites offend.
