ABSTRACT
Homicide rates in the United States exceed by far those of any other industrial nation. Moreover, despite some declines, in 1995 homicide rates were three times higher than they were thirty years ago. For as long as records have been kept, the homicide rates of blacks have been four to ten times higher than those of whites. The same pattern is also reflected in arrest rates for violent crimes, where black arrests for adult crimes range from six to more than ten times higher than comparable rates for whites. Arrest rates for black juvenile violence reveal roughly the same differentials, ranging from five to eleven times higher than whites. The problem of violent crime has been attributed to a familiar list of causes: poverty, unemployment, broken homes, poor education, teenage pregnancy, gangs, and drugs. Most blacks, regardless of social class, think about crime, punishment, and justice differently than do most whites.
