The late J. Philippe Rushton and Glayde Whitney wrote for the magazine Population & Environment (Vol. 23, No. 6):
Crime statistics within Britain, Canada, and the United States show that people of East Asian ancestry are disproportionately under-represented while those of African ancestry are disproportionately over-represented rel-ative to those of European ancestry. For example, in Canada, a government commission found that Blacks were five times more likely to be in jail than Whites and ten times more likely than Asians (Ontario, 1996). In Britain,the Home Office (1999) found that Blacks, who were 2% of the general population, made up 15% of the prison population. (No figures were re-ported for East Asians such as the Chinese, but Asians from the Indian sub-continent were 3% of the general population and 2% of the prison population.) In the U.S., Wilson and Herrnstein (1985) and Taylor and Whitney(1999) analyzed the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics and National Crime Victimization Surveys from the U.S. Department of Justice (e.g., 1997, 1998)and found that since record keeping began at the turn of the century, and throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, African Americans consistently committed proportionately more violent crime than did European Americans, while Asian Americans consistently committed proportionately fewer.
Victim surveys tell a similar story. The proportional differences in arrest statistics cannot therefore be attributed to police prejudice. Finer grained analyses within the United States also find race a factor. Whitney (1995) found that the best predictor of local murder rate is the percent of the population that is African American. Across 170 cities, Whitney (1995) found a correlation of r = 0.69 between the rate of murder and the percent of the population that was African American. Similarly, across the 50 states, Whitney (1995) found a correlation of r = 0.77 between the rate of murder and the percent African American. In a follow-up study, Hama (1999) found a correlation of r = 0.76 across the 50 states between violent crime (an aggregate of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault), and the percentage of the population that was African American. Lynn (2002a, 2002b) has examined the application of Rushton’s r-K theory to racial differences in sexual behavior and psychopathic personality.
Thus, Lynn (2002a) analyzed the annual surveys of the National Opinion Research Center for 1990–1996 and found that, compared to Whites, Blacks reported more sexual partners and a greater frequency of sexual intercourse. Similarly, Lynn (2002b) reviewed the literature on psychopathy and found that East Asians averaged the lowest rate, Blacks highest, and Whites intermediate. The attributes included: being diagnosed with child-hood conduct disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) being suspended or excluded from school, scoring low on tests of moral understanding, failing to live up to financial obligations such as paying back student loans, poor work commitment, recklessness (e.g., having traffic accidents), maintaining monogamous relationships, being responsible parents, engaging in domestic violence, and needing hospitalization for in-juries sustained through altercations.
Two fundamentally different models have been put forth to explain why the races differ in average rate of crime and other socially valued out-comes: (1) the “discrimination” model, and (2) the “distributional” model(Herrnstein, 1990). The discrimination model focuses on social and institutional practices that discriminate against members of one group (or favor members of another), thus tilting the “playing field.” The crucial assumption of this model is that in the absence of such discrimination, crime rates would be about equal for all populations. Factors hypothesized under this model include relative poverty, anti-Black bias by police, a lack of access to legitimate channels of upward mobility, and inadequate family socialization due to the legacy of slavery.
On the other end of the model, criminologists as early as the 1920s explained the under-representation of East Asians in U.S. crime statistics by hypothesizing the East Asian “ghetto.” This “ghetto” was seen as a response to external prejudice that protected members from the disruptive tendencies of the outside society. It was also claimed that bias against East Asian migration (“yellow peril”) resulted in only the wealthiest or hardest-working East Asians gaining entry into White-majority countries.The alternative distributional model explains the overlapping of the populations and their differing averages in terms of differential population characteristics—for example, Rushton’s (2000) r-K life-history theory, or Sowell’s (1994) theory of socialization through subtle cultural traditions.Other factors hypothesized to underlie the distribution model include deep-rooted cultural values and family structures endemic to populations, as well as biological variables including body type, percent of age of cohort, hormonal levels, exposure to toxic chemicals such as lead which may have different effects based on constitutional differences in metabolism, and personality and temperament. Thus according to the distributional model, the population differences are expected to occur more universally.
The two models may each be partially correct (Ellis & Walsh, 1999). To test whether the race differences in crime found within Britain, Canada, and the U.S. occurred more universally, Wilson and Herrnstein (1985)and Rushton (1990, 1995) collated data from INTERPOL Yearbooks (1980to 1990) and found that Pacific Rim countries reported less violent crime (an aggregate of murder, rape, and serious assault) than did European countries.
Rushton’s theory of r-K race differences was examined in relation to the rate of murder, rape, and serious assault per 100,000 population and Gross Domestic Product per Person for 74 countries from the 1993–1996 International Crime Statistics published by INTERPOL and the 1999 CIA World Fact Book. Each country was assigned to one of the three macro-races East Asian, European, and African. The results corroborated earlier findings that violent crime is lowest in East Asian countries, intermediate in European countries, and highest in African and in Black Carib-bean countries. The median number of violent crimes per 100,000 population were:7 East Asian countries—34; 45 European countries—42; and 22 African and Black Caribbean countries—149, respectively. The median Gross Domestic Product per Person was highest in East Asian countries ($12,600), intermediate in European countries ($7,400), and lowest in African and Black Caribbean countries ($1,900).
Across the three population groups there was an “ecological correlation” of −.96 between crime and wealth (wealthier countries had less crime). Finer-grained analyses, however, found that while wealth was negatively related to crime across European or East Asian countries, it was positively related to crime for the African and Black Caribbean countries (i.e., the wealthier an African or Black Caribbean country, the greater its rate of violent crime). Future research needs to examine genetic factors in addition to cultural factors as well as their interactions.
J. P. Rushton (2000) has proposed an evolutionary life-history theory to account for racial differences in a host of demographic, populational, and environmental variables. The theory proposes a gene-based Negroid-Caucasoid-Mongoloid gradient of r/K reproductive strategies. Drawn from sociobiology (Wilson, 1975), the r-K continuum defines a genetically-coordinated group of traits that evolved together to meet the trials of life—survival, growth, and reproduction. At one end of this scale, r-strategies are characterized by high fertility, low-investment parenting, fast maturation,and low intelligence and learning ability. K-strategies, on the other hand,are characterized by low fertility, high-investment parenting, slow maturation, and high intelligence and competitive ability.
Typically, the K-strategy requires more complex nervous systems and bigger brains. It has been hypothesized that r-selected species are more adapted to non-competitive environments of resource abundance whereas K-selected species are adapted to more competitive environments of resource scarcity. Because the components of life-history (differential fertility, rates of maturation, sexual behavior, and parenting) are critical determinants of demography, r/K theory could have important implications for understanding human variation. Rushton extended r/K theory to human race differences and found it predicts a wide spectrum of characteristics including fertility, infant mortality, rates of physical maturation, IQ scores, brain size, dizygotic twinning,crime, sexual potency, sexual precocity, number of sexual partners, and hormone levels. Mongoloids tend toward the K end of the r-K gradient. On average, they devote resources to producing fewer children, invest more heavily in them, and provide them with greater parental care. Negroids, on average, lie more toward the r end of the gradient. They tend to devote resources to producing greater numbers of children, invest less heavily in them, and provide less parental care. Caucasoids tend toward being inter-mediate, though closer on the r-K gradient to Mongoloids than to Negroids.
One test of Rushton’s gene-based theory is whether the racial differences in British, Canadian, and U.S. crime statistics are generalizable inter-nationally (Neapolitan, 1998; Rushton, 1990, 1995; Lynn, 2002b). Do East Asian populations from China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam (sometimes called Orientals, or more technically, Mongoloids) generally average lower rates of violent crime (e.g., murder, rape, and serious assault) than do European populations (Whites, Caucasoids)? In turn, do Europeans and their descendants generally average lower rates of violent crime than Africans and their descendants (Blacks, Negroids)? The answers may shed light on the extent to which observed racial differences are the result of local conditions within Britain, Canada, and the United States (e.g., anti-Black racism;selective migration from Pacific Rim countries) versus conditions endemic to the populations (e.g., cultural values, family structures, genetic and bio-logical factors). Crime statistics within Britain, Canada, and the United States show that people of East Asian ancestry are disproportionately under-represented while those of African ancestry are disproportionately over-represented relative to those of European ancestry. For example, in Canada, a government commission found that Blacks were five times more likely to be in jail than Whites and ten times more likely than Asians (Ontario, 1996). In Britain,the Home Office (1999) found that Blacks, who were 2% of the general population, made up 15% of the prison population. (No figures were re-ported for East Asians such as the Chinese, but Asians from the Indian sub-continent were 3% of the general population and 2% of the prison population.)
In the U.S., Wilson and Herrnstein (1985) and Taylor and Whitney(1999) analyzed the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics and National Crime Victimization Surveys from the U.S. Department of Justice (e.g., 1997, 1998)and found that since record keeping began at the turn of the century, and throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, African Americans consistently committed proportionately more violent crime than did European Americans, while Asian Americans consistently committed proportionately fewer. Victim surveys tell a similar story. The proportional differences in arrest statistics cannot therefore be attributed to police prejudice.Finer grained analyses within the United States also find race a factor. Whitney (1995) found that the best predictor of local murder rate is the percent of the population that is African American. Across 170 cities, Whitney (1995) found a correlation of r = 0.69 between the rate of murder and the percent of the population that was African American. Similarly, across the 50 states, Whitney (1995) found a correlation of r = 0.77 between the rate of murder and the percent African American. In a follow-up study, Hama (1999) found a correlation of r = 0.76 across the 50 states between violent crime (an aggregate of murder, non-negligent manslaughter, rape,robbery, and aggravated assault), and the percentage of the population that was African American.
Lynn (2002a, 2002b) has examined the application of Rushton’s r-Ktheory to racial differences in sexual behavior and psychopathic personality. Thus, Lynn (2002a) analyzed the annual surveys of the National Opinion Research Center for 1990–1996 and found that, compared to Whites,Blacks reported more sexual partners and a greater frequency of sexual intercourse. Similarly, Lynn (2002b) reviewed the literature on psychopathy and found that East Asians averaged the lowest rate, Blacks highest, and Whites intermediate. The attributes included: being diagnosed with child-hood conduct disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), being suspended or excluded from school, scoring low on tests of moral understanding, failing to live up to financial obligations such as paying back student loans, poor work commitment, recklessness (e.g., having traffic accidents), maintaining monogamous relationships, being responsible parents, engaging in domestic violence, and needing hospitalization for in-juries sustained through altercations.
Two fundamentally different models have been put forth to explain why the races differ in average rate of crime and other socially valued out-comes: (1) the “discrimination” model, and (2) the “distributional” model (Herrnstein, 1990). The discrimination model focuses on social and institutional practices that discriminate against members of one group (or favor members of another), thus tilting the “playing field.” The crucial assumption of this model is that in the absence of such discrimination, crime rates would be about equal for all populations. Factors hypothesized under this model include relative poverty, anti-Black bias by police, a lack of access to legitimate channels of upward mobility, and inadequate family socialization due to the legacy of slavery. On the other end of the model, criminologists as early as the 1920s explained the under-representation of East Asians in U.S. crime statistics by hypothesizing the East Asian “ghetto.” This“ghetto” was seen as a response to external prejudice that protected members from the disruptive tendencies of the outside society. It was also claimed that bias against East Asian migration (“yellow peril”) resulted in only the wealthiest or hardest-working East Asians gaining entry into White-majority countries. The alternative distributional model explains the overlapping of the populations and their differing averages in terms of differential population characteristics—for example, Rushton’s (2000) r-K life-history theory, or Sowell’s (1994) theory of socialization through subtle cultural traditions. Other factors hypothesized to underlie the distribution model include deep-rooted cultural values and family structures endemic to populations, as well as biological variables including body type, percent of age of cohort, hormonal levels, exposure to toxic chemicals such as lead which may have different effects based on constitutional differences in metabolism, and personality and temperament. Thus according to the distributional model, the population differences are expected to occur more universally. The two models may each be partially correct (Ellis & Walsh, 1999).To test whether the race differences in crime found within Britain, Can-ada, and the U.S. occurred more universally, Wilson and Herrnstein (1985) and Rushton (1990, 1995) collated data from INTERPOL Yearbooks (1980to 1990) and found that Pacific Rim countries reported less violent crime(an aggregate of murder, rape, and serious assault) than did European countries and much less than did African and Caribbean countries. Summing the crimes, and averaging across years, Rushton (1990, 1995) found statistically significant differences per 100,000 population of: 44 (Pacific Rim), 74 (European), and 143 (Afro-Caribbean) total crimes, respectively. These results did not depend on the selection of countries because when only ethnically more homogeneous sets were chosen, for example, by limiting countries to those from northeast Asia, central Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa, the proportionate differences remained the same—or became even greater.Nor did the pattern alter for other sets of countries. For example, in the Caribbean data set, six mainly White/Amerindian countries averaged 72per 100,000 whereas eight mainly Black countries averaged 449 violent crimes per 100,000 population (Rushton, 1995)…
These data speak to one of the most important issues facing the field of criminology in showing there are significant differences in murder, rape,and serious assaults in East Asian, European, and African countries that parallel those found within Britain, Canada, and the United States. More-over, the crime differences cannot simply be attributed to “poverty” for such an explanation does not fit the finer-grained analyses found within African countries where violent crime increased with GDP. This could be because only wealthier nations have the infrastructure to gather and report crime statistics comparable to those for East Asia and Europe. It is also possible that there are some gene-culture interactions when opportunities become available for engaging in behavior not otherwise affordable. In Africa, for example, there is a link between wealth and AIDS: wealthier males turn their resources into sexual partners (Rushton & Bogaert, 1989). Lynn (2002a; 2002b) recently noted the relation between race differences in sexual behavior and psychopathic personality and Rushton’s r-K theory. He therefore called for a paradigm shift in the analysis of a number of population and environment issues. Most notably, while HIV/AIDS is a serious public health problem for all racial groups, it is especially so for Africans and people of African descent (currently almost 9 out of every 100 Africans are infected with HIV/AIDS; the rate is 2.2% in the Black Carib-bean; in the U.S. about 2% of African Americans are living with HIV/AIDS compared to 0.4% of European Americans and less than 0.1% of East Asian Americans (UNAIDS/WHO, 2001). Since there is little cultural contact be-tween the various African descended populations, the explanation is most likely a genetic one.Taken together, these results support the distributional model rather than the discrimination model of why the races differ in average rate of crime and other socially valued outcomes. However, we do not suggest that racial differences are 100% genetic, but rather that they are due to genes, cultures, and their interactions. Genetic factors involve brain size and intelligence (Jensen, 1998; Rushton & Ankney, 2000), and hormone levels like testosterone (Ellis & Nyborg, 1992). Cultural factors involve socialization practices, including of deep-rooted values transmitted by families (Sowell, 1994).
