What explains the black–white homicide gap?
The common theories are incomplete at best.
Written by Noah Carl.
The brutal and racially motivated murder of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee, has brought the issue of black crime back into the public eye. As numerous commentators have been reminding us, black Americans account for a disproportionate share of the country’s violence.1 When it comes to murder, their age-adjusted victimisation rate is about eight times that for white people. (Because homicides are overwhelmingly intra-racial, victimisation rates are a good proxy for offending rates.2) And this disparity has been remarkably consistent over time: as far back as the 1920s, the black homicide rate was at least seven times higher. What explains it?
