most 14 per cent of the total population, were involved in 59 per cent of the arrests for murder in 1967. This does not mean that Negroes in fact committed 59 per cent of all murders. Negroes are arrested more frequently and on less evidence than whites and are more often victims of mass or sweep arrests (Clark, 1971, p. 51).
Clark's analysis is that racism, poverty, and injustice feeds the dehumanization of blacks and that is consistent with the high crime statistics among blacks. He specifically cites "the slow destruction of human dignity caused by white racism" (p. 51) as being responsible for "the dimension of violent crime reported among Negroes" (p. 50). What makes this analysis noteworthy for the present research is that it criticizes the tendency of law enforcement to target racial minorities.
However, in its zeal to explain the racism that is at the root of aggregate crime statistics, it fails to capture the dynamics that arise from exigent circumstances and that function with respect to the impact of crime on victims and property. That would involve analyzing crime statistics from a different standpoint. As a 1971 document, this analysis also fails to anticipate the significant social changes, including the emergence of the discourse and programs of cultural and racial diversity, that grew up between 1971 and the present day. New York City in particular is a magnet for immigrants from all over the world; indeed, 36% of all New Yorkers are immigrants, and that percentage is increasing (Bloomberg, 2003).
The demographic makeup of New York City was radically transformed over the course of the 1990s. According to a research report put out by the Urban Research Center at NYU, Hispanics supplanted blacks as the single largest nonwhite racial group in the five boroughs. In the mid-1990s, New York City had an estimated 1.926 million Hispanics, up from 1.783 million counted by the 1990 Census. The black population of the area...