NCJ Number
124349
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Education Volume: 1 Issue: 1 Dated: (March 1990) Pages: 111-116
Date Published
1990
Length
6 pages
Annotation
Native Americans, despite the fact that they suffer from one of the highest crime rates in the nation, have received very little attention from criminologists.
Abstract
One of the country's fastest growing ethnic groups, Native Americans have a serious crime problem. Much of this is related to substance abuse: the alcohol-related arrest rate for Native Americans over the age of 14 is approximately three times that for blacks and ten times that for whites. Alcohol-related crimes are believed to account for 70 to 80 percent of all arrests of Native Americans, who have a higher arrest rate than any other racial or ethnic group in the United States. Furthermore, the rates for murder and rape on reservations are, respectively, three and four times the rates for the entire rural United States. Despite these disturbing statistics, a nonrandom sample of 12 recently published and widely used introductory textbooks in criminal justice showed that none of the books mentioned Native American crime. Based on this and other studies, it appears that Native American crime has not been incorporated into the discipline of criminal justice as an important topic of study. While research on Native Americans may be complicated by their unique circumstance, criminologists are urged to make Native Americans a more central part of their studies. 21 references.