Homicide: Trends by race.

From the Bureau of Justice Statistics Homicide Trends in the U.S.:

Racial differences exist, with blacks disproportionately represented among homicide victims and offenders

• In 2005, homicide victimization rates for blacks were 6 times higher than the rates for whites.
• In 2005, offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites

The race distribution of homicide victims and offenders differs by type of homicide

For the years 1976-2005 combined -

• Black victims are over represented in homicides involving drugs. Compared with the overall involvement of blacks as victims, blacks are less often the victims of sex-related homicides, workplace killings, and homicide by poison.
• Race patterns among offenders are similar to those among victims.

Although slightly less true now than before, most murders are intraracial

From 1976 to 2005 –

• 86% of white victims were killed by whites
• 94% of black victims were killed by blacks

Stranger homicides are more likely to cross racial lines than those that involve friends or acquaintances

For homicides committed by –

• a friend or acquaintance of the victim, less than one-tenth (8%) were interracial
• a stranger to the victim, one-quarter were interracial

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Those quotes were taken from the Bureau of Justice Statistics website. So everything up to this point was the FBI’s own analysis of the data. Of particular interest was the difference in interracial homicides given i.e. 86% of white victims killed by whites versus 94% of black victims killed by blacks. So, clearly, most homicides are intraracial as the FBI points out.

But the difference between 86% and 94% is not insignificant. This means only 6% of blacks were murdered by someone of another race compared to 14% of whites who were murdered by someone of another race. Put another way, blacks who are only 13% of the population killed 692 whites compared to non-hispanic whites who are 72% of the population who killed 254 blacks. This is an enormous difference indicating blacks are more than 15 times as likely to kill whites than the reverse.

Now, this could simply be the result of blacks having a higher overall murder rate as the Bureau of Justice Statistics points out. One would have to examine the Trends in Racial Composition of Acquaintance and Stranger Homicides tables to find out. The following numbers were taken from these tables with percentages in parenthesis supplied by me.

Acquaintance Homicides by Racial Composition of Victims and Offenders

For 2005 -

• Black on Black  1,957   (86.2%)
• Black on White    314   (13.8%)

• White on White 2129   (93.1%)
• White on Black    159      (6.9%)

Stranger Homicides by Racial Composition of Victims and Offenders

For 2005 -

• Black on Black   689     (64.6%)
• Black on White   378     (35.4%)

• White on White   933    (90.8%)
• White on Black      95       (9.2%)

As shown, all of the previous statements from the FBI’s own website are true. But they left out several interesting points.

• Blacks are twice as likely to murder an acquaintance across racial lines as Whites but four times as likely to murder a stranger across racial lines as Whites.

• There are significantly fewer black on black stranger homicides compared to black on black acquaintance homicides. But there are slightly more black on white stranger homicides compared to black on white acquaintance homicides.

One would expect most homicides to be acquaintances since one would have fewer reasons to kill a stranger. And, indeed, one sees significantly fewer black on black stranger homicides compared to black on black acquaintance homicides. But the increase in black on white stranger homicides compared to black on white acquaintance homicides strongly suggests race is a factor in blacks choosing white victims.

This would certainly be true for many stranger homicides. But there is no reason to think this wouldn’t be similarly true among acquaintance homicides, as well. After all, blacks are still twice as likely to murder an acquaintance across racial lines as whites. A reasonable speculation would be that these differences reflect an increase in racial animus. And these differences would represent the minimum of black racial animus since at least some portion of the whites who murdered across racial lines were no doubt motivated by racial animus, as well.

Another observation from examining the data tables was that there was no Hispanic category listed. This is odd considering Hispanics now comprise 16% of the nation’s total population. There was an “other” category but the numbers were negligible. One can only assume the FBI now includes Hispanic crime figures under the White category. This is a very deceptive practice which inflates White crime figures.