The sociology of homicide

It is certainly true that at present, the rate of violent offending is considerably higher among African-Americans in the U.S. than it is among white non-Hispanics. The rate among Latinos is somewhat higher but not nearly as much.(However, the disparity is not as great as your teevee would have you believe.   Also here.)This observation, however, is specific to time and place. As Darnell Hawkins wrote in Health Affairs some year back (Winter, 1993):In the United States the social scientific efforts to provide " causes " forantisocial conduct, including violence, were first found in studies of whiteethnic groups rather than nonwhite groups. High rates of crime and violencewere said to be evident among the waves of immigrants from Europeto America from the mid-1800s to World War I.8 Although statistics for thepast are not always reliable or easily obtainable, some data suggest that theIrish, Italians, Greeks, Jews, and other groups of recently arrived whiteethnics during this period had considerably higher rates of homicide, assault,and other forms of violence than is found among them today.9These and other " new " immigrant groups of the period, especially secondand third generations among them, had higher rates of crime and violencethan the more privileged and settled ethnic groups that preceded them.Roger Lane found that certain white ethnic groups in nineteenth-centuryPhiladelphia had rates of interpersonal violence that closely resembledthose of blacks living in ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs