Abstract

Official statistics document that the majority of all crime committed in the U.S. is intra-racial. Only crimes involving victims and offenders of Black racial identity have been assigned an explicitly racialized label. Drawing on work from multiple disciplines, this paper traces the historical origins of racialized crime statistics. It examines how official statistics are manipulated, through racial disproportionality analysis, to mask the amount of crime committed by Whites and to support a view that Black crime is more prevalent and dangerous than other criminal offending. We trace the origin of the term “Black on Black crime” to unsuccessful efforts by Black leaders to protect the Black community from victimization or gain equitable treatment for Black defendants. We argue that the use of the term should be abandoned, in part, because of its current use in public discourse to legitimize police and civilian violence against Blacks. Recommendations for addressing and eliminating the use of this racially charged term in public discourse, policy, and criminal justice practice are provided.

摘要

官方统计数据表明，在美国犯下的所有罪行中，大多数是种族内部的。只有涉及黑人种族身份的受害者和罪犯的犯罪才被贴上了明确的种族标签。本文借鉴了多个学科的工作，追溯了种族犯罪统计的历史渊源。它研究了如何通过种族不成比例分析来操纵官方统计数据，以掩盖白人犯罪的数量，并支持黑人犯罪比其他刑事犯罪更为普遍和危险的观点。我们将“黑人对黑人犯罪”一词的起源追溯到黑人领导人为保护黑人社区免受伤害或为黑人被告获得公平待遇而未成功的努力。我们认为应该部分放弃使用该术语，因为它目前在公共话语中用于使警察和平民对黑人的暴力合法化。提供了解决和消除在公共话语、政策和刑事司法实践中使用这一带有种族色彩的术语的建议。