Crime and Ethnicity

Crime and Ethnicity A crime rate difference among ethnic groups is probably a cultural universal. Chinese and Japanese Americans have lower crime rates then other Americans: Irish immigrants to England have higher crime rates. In Sweden, Hungarian and Yugoslav immigrants have a higher crime rate. Immigrant status can be related to higher rates, or, as in the case of Japanese and Chinese Americans, associated with lower rates. The ethnic/race factor generally occurs along with …

…they also are over-represented for "white collar" crime. Approximately one-third of fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, receiving stolen property, and one-forth of embezzlement arrests are of blacks, while only one-eighth of the population is black. Areas where blacks are under-represented are directly related to the makeup of the population committing the crime. Tax fraud and securities violation in general require high social status and income and thus are less likely to have blacks as members or perpetrators.