Discuss crime with reference to race and gender. Support your answer with recent statistics.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers will vary. Although crime and victimization rates have decreased across racial lines over the past twenty years, the trends have been less positive for African Americans than for whites. African Americans are particularly susceptible to gun violence. Homicide rates are not the only area in which there is a divergence in crime trends between the races. Official crime data seem to indicate a strong correlation between minority status and crime: African Americans-who make up 13 percent of the population-constitute 36 percent of those arrested for violent crimes and 28 percent of those arrested for property crimes.To put it bluntly, crime is an overwhelmingly male activity. Almost 63 percent of all murders involve a male victim and a male perpetrator, and in only 2.5 percent of homicides are both the offender and the victim female. Only about 9 percent of the national prison and jail population are female, and in 2015 only 24 percent of all arrests involved women. Between 1991 and 2015, the number of men arrested each year declined about 18 percent. Over that time period, annual arrests for women increased by 31 percent. However, a significant percentage of women arrested are involved in a narrow band of wrongdoing, mostly drug- and alcohol-related offenses or minor property crimes.Research shows that as recently as the 1980s, many of the women now in prison would not have been arrested or would have received lighter sentences for their crimes. Consequently, more scholars are convinced that rising female criminality is the result of a criminal justice system that is "more willing to incarcerate women."