Blacks and white-collar crime

Charlie Rangel thinks it's odd that black politicians are disproportionately put in front of ethics panels. (He had Maxine Waters in mind as well as himself).  Charlie is implying that he is an angel and white officials hate black people, but the fact is that blacks engage in white-collar crime at disproportionate rates. Even though they are only 13 percent of the U.S. population and are underrepresented in high status positions, the latest FBI data show that one-third of those arrested for embezzlement or fraud are black.

Immigrants and white-collar crime: Steve Sailer has a new piece on his adventures as a juror in a case of an immigrant short-changing the State of California a lot of money in used car sales taxes. His experience suggests that white-collar crime might be common among immigrants since many of them bring to the U.S. a distrust of non-family, and loyalties are limited to relatives.

So, what does the General Social Survey say about this? Almost 2,500 people were asked if it is wrong to cheat on your taxes. Here are the answers by whether or not you were born in the United States:


Percent agreeing about cheating on taxes

Immigrants
It's not wrong 2.6
It's a bit wrong 9.5
It's wrong 56.6
It's seriously wrong 31.2

Those born here
It's not wrong 4.2
It's a bit wrong 11.4
It's wrong 53.3
It's seriously wrong 31.0

No differences here. Now, attitudes are not behavior, and it is possible that immigrants don't trust survey people (like they don't supposedly trust other strangers) and are more likely to give the "correct" response, but we can say, at the very least, that they know how they're supposed to answer.