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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - X. The Negro Community - 44. Non-Institutional Aspects of the Negro Community - 2. Crime
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978 An American Dilemma
the crime and vice among Negroes in cities, and sometimes even in smaller
towns, exists because the white man brings his own crime, vice and disre-
spect for law to the Negroes.®
The intense competition between Negroes and the relatively unfixed
moral standards serve to encourage crimes inflicted by Negroes on other
Negroes. With so few opportunities available to them Negroes are willing
to take greater risks to obtain some of them. With uncertain sex mores and
a great deal of family disorganization, Negroes are more likely to act with
motives of sexual jealousy. The over-crowdedness of the home and the
lack of recreational facilities augment the effect of all these disorganizing
and crime-breeding influences.
We know that Negroes are not biologically more criminal than whites.
We do not know definitely that Negroes are culturally more criminal,
although we do know that they come up against law-enforcement
agencies more often. We suspect that the “true”* crime rate—^when extrane-
ous influences are held constant—is higher among Negroes. This is true
at least for such crimes as involve personal violence, petty robbery, and
sexual delinquency—^because of the caste system and the slavery tradition.
The great bulk of the crime among Negroes has the same causes as that
among whites. It is only the differences between the two rates for which
we have had to seek special explanation. There are the same variations in
of Negro and white civic groups, special investigating committees, and other means of
arousing the public to the high Negro delinquency rate. The Negro rate had always been
considerably higher than the white rate, and now it seemed that the Negro rate was increasing
while the white rate was steady and even declining. According to a Report of the Sub-
Committee on Crime and Delinquency of the City-Wide Citizens^ Committee on Harlem, there
were **five times as many Negro juvenile delinquents arraigned in Children’s Court as white
delinquents in proportion to their respective numbers in the population, and 1941 saw an
increase of 23 per cent in Negro juvenile delinquency in the city.” ([August, 1942] p. 2. The
Negro rate had risen steadily before 1941, too, because of continuing immigration from the
South [IM., p. 3].) This public agitation apparently had some effect, for the Negro
delinquency rate fell while the white rate rose following the entrance of the United States
into the War. {Ibid., p. 3.) Newspaper interest in Negro delinquency has continued and
efforts to diminish it have not slackened. New job opportunities for Negroes, as a con-
sequence of the war boom, may also be a factor in lowering the juvenile delinquency rate.
* In their positions as servants to whites, Negroes see further into the seamy side of the
white man’s life.
“Many of the moral Negroes have a very low opinion of white sexual and family stand-
ards. In their positions as butlers, maids, waiters, and bellhops, they have had exceptional
opportunity to view the seamy intimacies of high life. Since servants are supposed not to see
or hear, their presence is no deterrent, and they tell among themselves lurid tales of drunken-
ness and promiscuity^ some of which are undoubtedly true. There is a saying among male
Negroes of the better class that all white girls arc loose and many diseased. But caste resent-
ment enters into their judgment just as race prejudice is likely to color similar generaliza-
tiont about Negro morality by white men.” (Robert A. Warner, Haven Negroes
[1940], p. ai«J
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