The (mis)measure of race and ethnicity in crime data

Abstract

The measurement of crime in the United States is one that has constantly evolved since national efforts began in 1930. However, the measurements of victim and offender characteristics, specifically race and ethnicity, have not developed at the same pace, nor as rapidly for crime data as it has for other fields. This paper examines two primary criminal justice data sources, the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and compares them for context to the United States Census. Analysis shows that the Census has continually expanded racial and ethnic categories while the crime data instruments have mostly refined them only by name. The paper concludes with suggestions for revision of the crime data collection instruments, specifically NIBRS, and a discussion of research and policy implications.

Keywords:

• Census
• crime reports
• ethnicity
• NIBRS
• race
• UCR

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the late Paul E. Tracy for his teaching, mentorship, and encouragement on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The wave of Chinese immigrants was the first non-European group to inhabit America since the end of the slave trade. The inquiry was limited to California due to the geographic concentration of the immigrants in that state.

2 Also termed “American Indians” or “Indians” throughout American history.

3 The 1924 Indian Citizenship Acts made eligible all Native Americans for taxation and enumeration purposes.

4 For example, from the 1790 to the 2020 Census, the following terms have been used to describe members of the same racial groups – at times not necessarily mutually exclusively: slaves, colored, black, mulatto, black slaves, mulatto slaves, quadroon, octoroon, negro, and African American. For context, in the same time period – all Censuses – only the term white has been used to represent that group.

5 This is a particularly important development as NIBRS includes victim characteristics supplied by the victim him/herself. Furthermore, some offender information (race ethnicity) is also supplied by the victim, and in cases of apprehension the offender may supply the data.

6 The American Community Survey (ACS) replaced the sample questionnaires.

7 This approach was challenged before the 2010 Census, but no changes were made as a result of newly discovered problems of misreporting (Alberti, 2006).

8 28 U.S.C. § 534 provided that August 1930 data be collected the following month, and so forth.

9 This was due in large part to the inaccuracies of population data that, at the time, was only collected every 10 years by the Census Bureau (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1958).

10 The options have since changed slightly (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013).

11 The terminology of this designation has changed recently (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013). Specifically, the ethnicity data element in NIBRS lists values of “Hispanic or Latino”, “Not Hispanic or Latino”, and “Unknown”. Furthermore, only in recent years has the ethnicity data element been available for the offender.

12 See Bates et al., 2006; Terry & Fond, 2003.

13 Only 53.4% of arrest records contained information regarding Hispanic ethnicity initially (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philip D. McCormack

Philip D. McCormack, Ph.D. is an associate professor of criminal justice at Saint Anselm College. His research interests focus on methodology, specifically crime data collection, crime clearance, and intimate partner violence.

Kaitlyn Clarke

Kaitlyn Clarke, Ph.D. is an associate professor of criminal justice at Saint Anselm College. Her research interests include sociological and criminological theory, criminal justice systems, and wrongful convictions.

Scott Walfield

Scott Walfield, Ph.D. is an associate professor of criminal justice and criminology at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. His research interests include quantitative methods, crime clearance, and sex offender management and policy.

Francesca Spina

Francesca Spina, Ph.D. is an associate professor of criminal justice at Springfield College. Her research interests include race and justice, environmental justice, offender rehabilitation and reentry, and criminal justice policy reform. She has published and presented nationally on these topics.