/lit/ - Literature

>>3460498
Many people believe that a bad social environment is a major contributor to crime. They believe that if people of all races had the same education, income, and social status, there would be no race differences in crime rates. Academic research, however, shows that these differences persist even after controlling for social variables.

In fact, the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic accounts for crime rates more than four times better than the next best measure: lack of education. Furthermore, even controlling for all three measures of social disadvantage hardly changes the correlation between racial mix and crime rates. The correlation between violent crime and the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic is 0.78 even when poverty, education, and unemployment are controlled, versus 0.81 when they are not. In layman's terms, the statistical results suggest that even if whites were just as disadvantaged as blacks and Hispanics the association between race and violent crime would still be almost as great. It may seem harsh to state it so plainly, but the single best indicator of an area's violent crime rate is its racial/ethnic mix.

>>3345640