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CSPV
Fact Sheets
| Ethnicity, Race, Class and Adolescent Violence |
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Adolescence and early adulthood are characterized by
much higher rates of both perpetration and victimization
of violence than other years.
- Adolescents have also been shown to have higher
rates than younger children and adults for both
minor and serious forms of violence.
- Developmental and social-environmental factors
must be considered when attempting to explore the
elevated risk of violence found among U.S. adolescents
today.
- Involvement of adolescents in interpersonal violence:
- The modal age for involvement in serious and
lethal injuries has decreased over time.
- Firearm mortality rates among 15- to 19-year-old
urban youth rose markedly in the late 1980s.
- The 1994 report of the Centers for Disease
Control indicated that from 1985 to 1991 the
homicide and non-negligent manslaughter rates
for males between the ages of 15 and 19 increased
by 127%. By 1991 males of these ages were more
likely to be arrested for murder than were males
in any other 5-year age group.
- According to the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) juvenile
victimization rates for 1992 increased by nearly
14 per 1,000.
- National Crime Victimization Survey data suggest
that in 1992 the rate of violent crime victimization
per 1,000 for juveniles (12-17) and young adults
(18-24) was nearly twice the victimization rate
for 25- to 34-year-olds and was about five times
the rate for those over 35.
- Ethnic and racial differences in rates of adolescent
violence:
- Supplemental Homicide Reports suggest that
African Americans constituted nearly 61% of
all adolescents (10-20 years of age) known to
have committed murder in 1990.
- Firearm death rates for black males aged
15-19 in the United States in 1989 ranged from
15.5 per 100,000 for those residing in non-metropolitan
areas to 143.9 per 100,000 for those residing
in the central cities. Comparable rates for
white males were 3.0 and 21.5 respectively.
Non firearm rates for males showed a similar
geographic and racial pattern, as did rates
for females of both races.
- Hispanic males between the ages of 15 and
24 were shown to have a homicide victimization
rate of 97.3 per 100,000 as compared to 185.1
for African Americans and 10.0 for Anglo whites.
- Little is known about the distribution of homicide
among adolescents who are Native American or who
belong to the diverse ethnic groups that constitute
Asian and Hispanic racial categories.
- The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) have consistently
indicated that African Americans, Hispanics, and
Native Americans are substantially over represented
among those arrested for acts of interpersonal violence
in the United States.
- Self-report studies have suggested that racial
differences in rates of involvement in violence
are smaller than those indicated by the UCR. Further,
these differences may be less pronounced for adolescent
involvement in nonlethal aggression than for adolescent
involvement in homicide. Such studies have also
reported that as black and white adolescents age
into early adulthood, the black-white gap widens
rather than narrows.
Conclusions:
- In the United States today, African Americans,
Native Americans, and Hispanics are much more likely
to be victims and perpetrators of lethal violence
than are people of European or Asian ancestry.
- Substantial evidence also exists to support the
accuracy of the belief that higher rates of lethal
aggression are found among the economically marginal
than among the more economically privileged sectors
of all ethnic and racial groups.
- The available evidence is inconclusive with regard
to whether substantial and significant race and
class differences exist in the rate of involvement
in nonlethal forms of violence.
- Class, race, and ethnic bias still exists in the
way that violence is conceptualized by researchers
and the public and in the way that the criminal
law is formulated and enforced.
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