Race, crime, and getting high: The Longitudinal Study of Violence Against Women asked 455 male college students about criminal activities and drug use. Illegal acts ranged from minor items like lying about one's age to more serious crimes like attacking students or carrying weapons. I was interested by the racial pattern:
Mean crime index
Whites 1.73
Blacks 2.09
SD .67
According to conventional wisdom, the only reason why blacks have higher rates of crime is because many are from the lower class. (Many people where I work assume that criminal justice system bias produces the disparity. The self-report data presented here show these guys are full of it.) The social status of black and white students at the same college is similar, but black criminality is half a standard deviation higher.
To be more specific, look at the graph to see the huge difference on the question of hitting other students in the last year.
Mean alcohol and marijuana use index
Whites 4.43
Blacks 3.33
SD 2.37
By contrast, you can see that white college students drink and smoke pot more than their black counterparts. The difference is a little less than one-half of a standard deviation. The stereotype of the drunk frat boy is confirmed.
Mean crime index
Whites 1.73
Blacks 2.09
SD .67
According to conventional wisdom, the only reason why blacks have higher rates of crime is because many are from the lower class. (Many people where I work assume that criminal justice system bias produces the disparity. The self-report data presented here show these guys are full of it.) The social status of black and white students at the same college is similar, but black criminality is half a standard deviation higher.
To be more specific, look at the graph to see the huge difference on the question of hitting other students in the last year.
Mean alcohol and marijuana use index
Whites 4.43
Blacks 3.33
SD 2.37
By contrast, you can see that white college students drink and smoke pot more than their black counterparts. The difference is a little less than one-half of a standard deviation. The stereotype of the drunk frat boy is confirmed.
The utter stupidity of this post made me de-subscribe from your RSS feed. Are you seriously claiming that that once you're matched for social class, you've controlled out all social and cultural differences? Any analysis that includes the phrase "the guys are full of it" (referring to black people) isn't scientific, it's diatribe.
ReplyDeleteActually I would assume that many black college students are still from a much lower class than their white counterparts. Many black students are first generational college students, from relatively poorer backgrounds than their white classmates. Is there anything in the study which controls for income?
ReplyDeleteAnon: No, there are no controls for income.
ReplyDelete