CRIMINOLOGY(e.g. Chinese and Japanese Americans), but even
this pattern is more complex. Chinese Americans
whose families have been in the United States for
generations seem to have lower crime rates than
white Americans, but more recent Chinese immi-
grants have higher rates than white Americans.
The category ‘‘Asian Americans’’ is too diverse to
make generalizations about the larger group’s per-
petration of crime. The same is true of Latinos and
Latinas. African Americans have disproportion-
ately high crime rates, but Africans and people of
Caribbean island descent have lower crime rates
than black Americans. To simply describe the
correlations between broad racial categories and
crime misses an important sociological point: The
criminality associated with each group appears to
be more a product of their experience in America
than simply their membership in that racial/eth-
nic category. This point is buttressed by patterns
of race, ethnicity, and crime in other countries.
Visible minorities and immigrants are more likely
to have higher crime rates and to be more fre-
quently arrested in countries where they are sub-
ordinated (see Tonry 1997 for a collection of
studies of race, ethnicity, crime, and criminal jus-
tice in several countries).
For decades, in fact probably for centuries,
researchers assumed that people from the lower
classes committed more crime than those of high-
er status. In fact, most sociological theories used to
explain common crime are based on this assump-
tion. In the mid-1970s several criminologists ar-
gued that there really is not a substantial correla-
tion between social class and crime (Tittle, Villemez,
and Smith 1978). Many criminologists today be-
lieve that if we are simply considering the likeli-
hood of breaking the law then there probably is
not much difference by social class. But if the
criminal domain being studied is serious violent
offenses, then there probably is a negative associa-
tion between social class and crime. Still, the corre-
lation between social class and violent crime is not
as strong as most people would assume (Hindelang,
Hirschi, and Weis 1981).
Where crime occurs. A very sociological way
of describing crime is to examine the crime pat-
terns that exist for different types of areas. The
social ‘‘ecological’’ literature that does this usually
focuses on states, metropolitan areas, cities, and
neighborhoods. When this occurs, we find that
those areas with relatively large numbers of resi-
dents who are poor, African American, immi-
grants, young, and living in crowded conditions
have higher crime rates. One must be very careful
when interpreting these patterns. Because an area
with relatively large numbers of people with these
characteristics has a high crime rate, we cannot
conclude that they are necessarily the people com-
mitting the crimes. For example, high poverty
areas have high crime rates. The high crime rates
found in poor neighborhoods however, could be
produced by their victimization by the nonpoor.
The interesting thing about these correlations, as
well as patterns of individual crime correlations,
are not the observed patterns themselves but rath-
er the questions that arise from these observations.Victims of crime. One of the more interesting
things that we have learned from victimization
studies is how similar the victims of crimes are to
the offenders. Victims of crime tend to be young,
male, and minority group members. In fact, the
prototypical victim of violent crime in America is a
young, African-American male. The poor and those
with limited education are disproportionately the
victims of crime as well. These patterns are obvi-
ously inconsistent with popular images of crime
and victimization, but they are quite predictable
when we examine what we know about crime.CRIMINOLOGY THEORIESThree theoretical traditions in sociology dominat-
ed the study of crime from the early and mid-
twentieth century. Contemporary versions of these
theories continue to be used today. The ‘‘Chicago
School’’ tradition, or social disorganization theory,
was the earliest of the three. The other two are
differential association strain theories or anomie theory
(including subculture theories).Sociologists working in the Chicago School
tradition have focused on how rapid or dramatic
social change causes increases in crime. Just as
Durkheim, Marx, Toennies, and other European
sociologists thought that the rapid changes pro-
duced by industrialization and urbanization pro-
duced crime and disorder, so too did the Chicago
School theorists. The location of the University of
Chicago provided an excellent opportunity for