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(1944) [MARC] Author: Gunnar Myrdal
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Note: Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.

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Chapter 44. Non-institutional Aspects 967
At all times the stereotyped notion has prevailed that Negroes have a
criminal tendency, which manifests itself in acts ranging all the way from
petty thievery by household servants to razor-slashing homicide.
The statistical studies of Negro crime have not been consistent in their
findings, and each has evoked much criticism in scientific circles. The census
of 1890 contained a criticism of its own crime statistics:
The increase in the number of prisoners during the last 40 years has been more
apparent than real, owing to the very imperfect enumeration of the prison population
prior to 1880. Whatever it has been, it is not what it might be supposed to be, if we
had no other means of judging of it than by the figures contained in the census
volumes.^®
Since that time, there have been many pertinent criticisms of Negro crime
Btatistics.^^ Johnson and Kiser express the attitude of all honest students
of Negro crime toward these statistics:
The statistical data upon which we are forced to base our knowledge of Negro
crime measure only the extent and the nature of the Negro’s contact with the law
and is of value for that purpose. However, our information relates to apparent
crime only and not to the actual amount of crime committed by any one group or by
the population in general. There is no consistent and measurable relation between
apparent and real criminality and, as a result, it is not possible to estimate from avail-
able criminal data the amount and proportion of Negro crime or the extent to which
it is increasing or decreasing.^^
This attitude, as well as the conflict of conclusions, is not difficult to under-
stand when one realizes the nature of the statistics on Negro crimes and
the character of the legal process which defines a given act as a crime. Crime
statistics are generally inadequate, despite a tremendous improvement
within the last decade, and Negro crime statistics are further complicated
by discrimination in the application of the law and by certain unique
traditions. It may be stated categorically that there are no statistics on
crimes fer se: there are only statistics on ^^crimes known to the police,” on
arrests, on convictions, on prisoners. Honest studies based on different sets
of statistics will give different findings. Crime is not uniformly defined
from state to state and from time to time. Statistics on one area at one
time will show different conclusions from statistics on another area at
another time. Finally, the conclusions of a given study are largely deter-
mined by the "factors” one takes into account in analyzing the statistics.
It is necessary to consider all the weaknesses of the statistics on Negro
crime because these statistics have been used to buttress stereotypes of Negro
criminality and to justify discriminatory practices. Even capable and honest
scientists like Walter Willcox have used the available statistics to "prove”
Negro criminality.^* But Willcox did this in 18995 competent scientists
are no longer so uncritical of their data. Incompetent popularizers, how-

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