Research shows that structural disadvantage is a key source of violent crime rates across racial/ethnic groups, a finding that has become more commonly known as “racial invariance.” However, this literature has focused primarily on white, black and Latino comparisons, with little attention to Asian populations. This omission is problematic considering that (1) Asians are the fastest growing minority group in the U.S. and (2) the sources of Asian crime could differ from those of white and black populations. Drawing on the racial invariance hypothesis, the current study uses 2010 city-level data to compare the structural predictors of violent crime arrest rates (homicide, robbery, rape, and aggravated assault) for white, black, and Asian populations. Findings reveal that disadvantage contributes to violence for all three racial/ethnic groups, but the magnitude of these effects and effects of other structural predictors differ. Findings from the current study offer implications for the racial invariance debate.

研究表明，结构性劣势是跨种族/族裔群体暴力犯罪率的主要来源，这一发现已被更普遍地称为“种族不变性”。然而，这些文献主要关注白人、黑人和拉丁裔的比较，很少关注亚洲人群。考虑到 (1) 亚洲人是美国增长最快的少数群体，以及 (2) 亚洲犯罪的来源可能与白人和黑人的犯罪来源不同，这种遗漏是有问题的。本研究利用种族不变性假设，使用 2010 年城市级数据来比较白人、黑人和亚洲人口的暴力犯罪逮捕率（凶杀、抢劫、强奸和严重袭击）的结构预测因素。调查结果表明，劣势会导致所有三个种族/族裔群体的暴力行为，但这些影响的大小和其他结构预测因素的影响不同。当前研究的结果为种族不变性辩论提供了启示。