# City crime rates by racial composition? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 23, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/city-crime-rates-by-racial-composition/409152 "2007-06-23T20:17:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Omphaloskeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bcef8e/32.png) [@Omphaloskeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omphaloskeptic)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2007, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/city-crime-rates-by-racial-composition/409152/21 "2007-06-25T19:41:25Z")
[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net] Well, it seems rather obvious that these cancel each other out. If everybody is desperately poor, nobody has anything worth stealing – why bother with crime when it doesn’t pay? [/QUOTE] This may be obvious to you, but it doesn’t appear to be obvious to criminals. Property crime victimization rates don’t rise with income the way your theory would predict. [Here (pdf)](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/////pub/pdf/cvus/current/cv0520.pdf) (more [here](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/////abstract/cvus/household_burglary272.htm)) are some tables of property crime rates versus income. Household burglary rates at lower income levels actually fall as income rises (they rise again at middle-to-upper income levels). Theft appears to have a similar bimodal distribution, though the overall levels are higher and the pattern is less clear. (Also, if **Neon Mower** ’s statistics are correct, your theory wouldn’t explain Mississippi.) ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/city-crime-rates-by-racial-composition/409152/22 "2007-06-25T20:29:52Z")
[QUOTE=Lynwood Slim] Side comment: if you take out black and hispanic homicides, the U.S. homicide rate is about that of Finland. [/QUOTE] I second **Operation Ripper** ’s “goddamn”. It kind of puts a bizarre spin on our culture of violence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/city-crime-rates-by-racial-composition/409152.md?page=1)