Highlights- Updated in September 2025
This article is available as a podcast on YouTube.
The article answers readers’ questions as to who is arrested and who is victimized by race and ethnic background.
This report uses crimes reported to law enforcement via the FBI and surveys conducted by the USDOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Because most crimes are not reported to law enforcement, but they are documented by the NCVS, numbers and results will be different.
This report uses both numbers and rates.
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Author
Leonard Adam Sipes, Jr.
Former Senior Specialist for Crime Prevention and Statistics for the Department of Justice’s clearinghouse. Former Director of Information Services, National Crime Prevention Council. Former Adjunct Associate Professor of Criminology and Public Affairs-University of Maryland, University College. Former police officer. Retired federal senior spokesperson.
Former advisor to presidential and gubernatorial campaigns. Former advisor to the “McGruff-Take a Bite Out of Crime” national media campaign. Produced successful state anti-crime media campaigns.
Thirty-five years of directing award-winning (50+) public relations for national and state criminal justice agencies. Interviewed thousands of times by every national news outlet, often with a focus on crime statistics and research. Created the first state and federal podcasting series. Produced a unique and emulated style of government proactive public relations.
Certificate of Advanced Study-The Johns Hopkins University.
Author of ”Success With The Media: Everything You Need To Survive Reporters and Your Organization,” available at Amazon and additional bookstores.
Crime in America.Net-“Trusted Crime Data, Made Clear.”
Quoted by The Associated Press, USA Today, A&E Television, the nationally syndicated Armstrong Williams Television Show (30 times), Department of Justice documents, US Supreme Court briefs, C-SPAN, the National Institute of Health, college and university online libraries, multiple books and journal articles, The Huffington Post, JAMA, The National Institute of Corrections, The Office of Juvenile Justice And Delinquency Prevention, The Bureau of Justice Assistance, Gartner Consulting, The Maryland Crime Victims Resource Center, The Marshall Project, The Heritage Foundation via Congressional testimony, Law Enforcement Today, Law Officer.Com, Blue Magazine, Corections.Com, Prison Legal News, The Hill (newspaper of Congress), the Journal of Offender Monitoring, Inside Edition Television, Yomiuri Shimbun (Asia’s largest newspaper), LeFigaro (France’s oldest newspaper), Oxygen and allied publications, Forbes, Newsweek, The Economist, The Toronto Sun, Homeland Security Digital Library, The ABA Journal, The Daily Express (UK) The Harvard Political Review, The Millennial Source, The Federalist Society, Lifewire, The Beccaria Portal On Crime (Europe), The European Journal of Criminology, American Focus and many additional publications.
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A comprehensive overview of crime for recent years is available at Violent and Property Crime Rates In The U.S.
Background: Most Crimes Are Not Reported
The focus of FBI reports is arrests, and most crimes are not reported to law enforcement, and the majority of reported crimes do not end in arrests. Per the National Crime Victimization Survey from the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice, only 42 percent of violent crimes are reported to law enforcement during this reporting period.
Thirty-two percent of property crimes are reported. The great majority of what we call crime are property-related events, which means that most crime is not recorded by the FBI.
74 percent of violent victimizations against juveniles were not reported to the police. Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics suggests that a very small percentage of cybercrimes are reported to law enforcement.
Nevertheless, the numbers below from the FBI are some of the best indicators we have regarding the total number of “reported” crimes and the characteristics of those crimes.
Article
The article answers readers’ questions as to who is arrested and who is victimized by race and ethnic background.
We start with data from the FBI and supplement it with charts and observations from the Bureau of Justice Statistics through the latest National Crime Victimization Survey. Both are agencies within the US Department of Justice.
The first chart below is from a non-preliminary full-year report from the FBI using 2022 data.
There are a variety of charts available on the FBI website regarding who is arrested, but only one combines both race and ethnicity.
Please note that arrests (and crimes solved) are at historic lows for adults and juveniles. Adult arrests plummeted after the protests regarding the police use of force and the pandemic, but they had been declining for years before those events.
Demographics
Per the US Census, Whites make up 59 percent of the US population. Hispanics constitute 19 percent, African Americans comprise 13 percent, and Asians comprise 6 percent. See the link for the other categories.
Identifying Offenders
Please note that identification of race or Hispanic origin via the National Crime Victimization Survey (from the Bureau of Justice Statistics-USDOJ) is a judgment call by crime victims, and those questioned about their victimizations can be wrong, especially in stranger-to-stranger crimes (yet it’s interesting that most violent crimes involve non-strangers).
Research reports suggest that crime victims can misidentify their offenders on a variety of variables. Witnesses often focus on weapons, not the identity of the perpetrator; cross-racial eyewitness identifications can be suspect. This is validated by the “other” or “unknown” designations in a chart from the Bureau of Justice Statistics below.
5,781,000 Arrests Per the FBI
The bulk of those arrested (using rounded numbers) are Whites, 3,927,500, Blacks, 1,624,000, and Hispanics, 1,023,000.
Whites were arrested 196,000 times for crimes of violence, Blacks were arrested 134,500 times, and Hispanics were arrested 76,500 times.
Whites were arrested 414,500 times for property crimes, Blacks 191,000, and Hispanics 94,000.
African Americans are the primary group arrested for murders, robberies, and weapons violations.
Whites lead all other categories.
Hispanics came in second for sex offenses (not rapes), gambling, and driving while intoxicated.
Other categories for demographics are below.
Chart (click to enlarge)
Bureau Of Justice Statistics Reports on Race and Ethnicity-National Crime Victimization Survey: Identifying Victims and Offenders
The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the US Department of Justice released charts and observations as to violent criminal victimization by race of victims and offenders through the 2022 National Crime Victimization Survey.
Victims And Offenders-Bureau Of Justice Statistics Multi-Year Study
Chart (click to enlarge). Victims are in the left category, and their offenders follow. Multi-year overviews are often more accurate than single-year studies.
Source: Violent Criminal Victimization By Race Or Hispanic Origin
Violent Victimization By Race and Ethnic Background-Does Not Include Offender Information
The data below from the Bureau of Justice Statistics provides the rates of criminal victimization per their 2022 final report.
Offender’s Percentage Share Of Crime Based on Population
Per Criminal Victimization from the National Crime Victimization Survey:
The proportion of violent incidents involving white offenders (53%), based on victims’ perceptions of the offenders, was lower than the share of white persons in the population (61%).
The share of Asian offenders and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander offenders (2%) was less than the share of Asian persons and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander persons in the population (7%).
The share of violent incidents involving Hispanic offenders (14%) was less than the population percentage of Hispanic persons (18%).
The share of violent incidents involving black offenders (25%) was greater than the population percentage of black persons (12%).
Source: Violent Crime Victims By Race And Ethnicity-Who’s Victimized Most?
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See more articles on crime and justice at Crime in America.
Most Dangerous Cities/States/Countries at Most Dangerous Cities.
US Crime Rates at Nationwide Crime Rates.
National Offender Recidivism Rates at Offender Recidivism.
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I appreciate these static stats. It brings clarity to crime and gives a true representation of who is doing what.
These stats are cool, but if they are being used to target a certain racial group, do not bother. Certain people of any race are quite capable of being violent and committing crimes.
Shedding light on who’s doing what isn’t “targeting” or “racist”, or anything other than facts.
Show the percentages. If there’s 13% population of African americans what percentage of, say, car jackings are done by them as opposed to percentage of whites that do car jackings.
Hi: What the USDJ puts out regarding race and crime was included in the article. There is, however, arrest data from the FBI but I do not believe it includes carjacking. Len.
Who cares? I am sure that, on a percentage basis, it is higher for Black Americans. Fair enough, but people of all races can be criminals. No one group has some genetic penchant for crime.
True. If your emphasis is African Americans, the majority of arrests, prosecutions, incarcerations or parole and probation populations are not Black.
I use federal data to answer reader questions. Len.
Perhaps the silver lining is that the race who is most prone to violence also targets their own race most in their crimes. Take this demographics with caution as they are not accurate. There is an alarming trend we see where victims will characterize their perpetrator as “white” when their mugshot reveals they are not. Employees within the law enforcement community also fudge reports in an attempt to take away the obvious stigma their race is bringing upon itself.
The race most prone to violence in this chart is white people. Not only do they attack other whites at about the same rate as black people (55% to 60%, though their unknown number is much higher, and assuming about 55% of that unknown number is also white people, they likely lead this category too), but they attack other races at a SUBSTANTIALLY higher rate than any other race.
Mugshots can’t reveal heritage. There are very dark white people in Italy and very light black people in South Africa. Even if this was true (haven’t heard about it ever), it’s likely true with other races as well. I’m white but people have mistaken me for Mexican frequently, for instance.
If you look at a map of every recorded battle ever, it also will show that most of the violence of the world has occurred in Europe and America. White people are by far the craziest most violent race and it’s not even a competition. Face reality. But also understand race is meaningless. No one ever accomplished anything great solely with their ‘race’. Learn to pride in skills and merits. This is silly caveman hitler talk bullshit