NCJ Number
188462
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 29 Issue: 2 Dated: March-April 2001 Pages: 157-166
Date Published
March 2001
Length
10 pages
Annotation
A study of the phenomenon of conflict-related social threat as a measure of criminal behavior by black persons and white persons tested three hypotheses regarding social threat and used data from the 1990 census and the Uniform Crime Reports.
Abstract
The research aimed to overcome the limitations of research based on arrest rates, given that victimization data had crucial shortcomings and arrest rates did not measure all crimes or even all crimes known to the police. Social threat interpretations derived from the assertion of conflict theory that law enforcement and police expenditures concentrate on minorities because the of 'the ruling elites’ perceptions of threat and fear of crime. The research tested hypotheses regarding a positive association between percentage black and arrest differentials in cities, independent of criminal conduct, and for arrest differentials in cities with populations that were less than or more than 50 percent black persons. Results indicated a significant relationship between the proportion black and arrest differentials. Findings also suggested that this relationship may be a reflection related more to whites’ perceptions of threat relative to the proportion of black persons in a city’s population than to black persons’ criminal conduct. Tables and 62 references (Author abstract modified)