Correlation Data on Homicide and Race

Over at HBD Chick's place I posted some data on homicide rates by region.  These data are for murders per million residents, as per Wikipedia:

All the countries in Southern Africa – 373 (2004), 320 (2010)
All the countries in East Africa – 208 (2004), 230 (2010)
All the countries in Central America - 293 (2004), 250 (2010)
All the countries in West and Central Europe - 15 (2004), 12 (2010)

[Example of a particularly nice European country: France - 8 (2006)]

Data by US State came from an anti-death penalty site:

New Hampshire – 10 (2010), 8 (2009)
North Dakota – 15 (2010), 19 (2009)
West Virginia – 33 (2010), 46 (2009)
California – 49 (2010), 53 (2009)
Louisiana – 112 (2010), 118 (2009)
USA nationwide - 48 (2010)

So while the American totals are dramatically worse than West/Central Europe, it's impressive how much it varies from state to state.  Almost looks like it varies with IQ, doesn't it?

Of course psychometrics enthusiasts wouldn't find that too surprising, but neither would race realists find it too surprising if it was correlated with race.  The above data make it look like states that are racially equivalent to Europe are approximately as dangerous as Europe, with respect to murder/homicide.  Since there are no US states with as a high a percentage of blacks as most African countries, we shouldn't be surprised that there are no states topping 200 murders per million inhabitants (and indeed only Louisiana tops 100, but of course DC is at about 234).

More direct data, from victimization reports, indicates quite the same thing (though as Queen Latifah proved recently, noöne will call you out if you ignore victimization data and concentrated on arrest data, which are allegedly tainted by racism).

HBD Chick recommended I do a post on this, so I decided to do a little research and put 2010 data on homicides by state together with data from the census of the same year on race and ethnicity by state.  I used the state-by-state homicide data from the above site, while I found data on race and ethnicity at this US Census Bureau page.

Here are the data:

State	Homicide	White	Black	Hispanic
Alabama	62.5	68.5	26.2	3.9
Alaska	37.5	66.7	3.3	5.5
Arizona	61	73	4.1	29.6
Arkansas	54.5	77	15.4	6.4
California	51	57.6	6.2	37.6
Colorado	28	81.3	4	20.7
Connecticut	33	77.6	10.1	13.4
Delaware	49.5	68.9	21.4	8.2
Florida	53.5	75	16	22.5
Georgia	58	59.7	30.5	8.8
Hawaii	18	24.7	1.6	8.9
Idaho	14.5	89.1	0.6	11.2
Illinois	57.5	71.5	14.5	15.8
Indiana	47	84.3	9.1	6
Iowa	13	91.3	2.9	5
Kansas	39.5	83.8	5.9	10.5
Kentucky	43	87.8	7.8	3.1
Louisiana	115	62.6	32	4.2
Maine	19	95.2	1.2	1.3
Maryland	75.5	58.2	29.4	8.2
Massachusetts	29	80.4	6.6	9.6
Michigan	59.5	78.9	14.2	4.4
Minnesota	16	85.3	5.2	4.7
Mississippi	68	59.1	37	2.7
Missouri	67.5	82.8	11.6	3.5
Montana	29.5	89.4	0.4	2.9
Nebraska	26.5	86.1	9.2	7
Nevada	59	66.2	8.1	26.5
New Hampshire	9	93.9	1.1	2.8
New Jersey	39.5	68.6	13.7	17.7
New Mexico	84	68.4	2.1	46.3
New York	42.5	65.7	15.9	17.6
North Carolina	51	68.5	21.5	8.4
North Dakota	17	90	1.2	2
Ohio	43.5	82.7	12.2	3.1
Oklahoma	57.5	72.2	7.4	8.9
Oregon	23.5	83.6	1.8	11.7
Pennsylvania	52.5	81.9	10.8	5.7
Rhode Island	29	81.4	5.7	12.4
South Carolina	64	66.2	27.9	5.1
South Dakota	32.5	85.9	1.3	2.7
Tennessee	65	77.6	16.7	4.6
Texas	52	70.4	11.8	37.6
Utah	16.5	86.1	1.1	13
Vermont	12	95.3	1	1.5
Virginia	46.5	68.6	19.4	7.9
Washington	26	77.3	3.6	11.2
West Virginia	39.5	93.9	3.4	1.2
Wisconsin	26.5	86.2	6.3	5.9
Wyoming	17	90.7	0.8	8.9
DC	234	38.5	50.7	9.1

The first column of numbers is the 2009-2010 average homicides per million residents.  After that are statistics from the 2010 census for two racial groups (whites and black) and one ethnic group (Hispanics).


Here are some correlation coëfficients:
Between homicide rate and fraction of whites ... - 0.584
Between homicide rate and fraction of blacks ... 0.784
Between homicide rate and fraction of Hispanics ... 0.136
Between homicide rate and sum of blacks & Hispanics fractions ... 0.716
Between homicide rate and sum of blacks & adjusted Hispanics fractions ... 0.816.


I wasn't satisfied with just correlating homicide and number of blacks, but adding in Hispanics detracts from the correlation (basically because Hispanics aren't nearly as homicidal as blacks).  So I decided to try to sum blacks plus a fraction of Hispanics, with the fraction chosen to maximize the correlation.  The fraction I eventually chose was 0.3125.  (The latter is certainly not a formal multiple regression, but I've forgotten how to do that so for the time being it will have to suffice.)


In conclusion, the magnitudes of these correlations tend to support the thesis that blacks and Hispanics really are more prone to violent crime than whites, and that arrests of innocent blacks and Hispanics by racist police officers are not responsible for differing arrest rates.  


(Coming up: I found a different site with the interesting "White persons not Hispanic" statistic, which I add into the data mix for comments below.  I hypothesize that homicide and WNH will be even more strongly negatively correlated than homicide and whites.  Rates for Europe broken out by country are available here.)