The Department of Justice has released Murder data by race for 2015.
The DOJ only has three racial categories for murder offenders. Many counties, and some entire states use the “white” category for all Latinos and everyone else who is not black, East Asian, South Pacific Islander, or American Indian.
In Federal Homicide Data, blacks are the only race who have their own category.
The category “other” includes Asians, Pacific Islanders, Hawaiian Natives, Alaskan Natives, and American Indians.
The category “white” includes all Latinos, and generally also includes North Africans, Arabs, Turks, Iranians, Gypsies, Central Asians and many others.
In 2014, the DOJ began attempting to list information about Latino homicide victims and offenders. The DOJ now gives a percentage that was classified in some way as “Hispanic or Latinos” among reporting agencies that listed this information.
Among reporting agencies that listed murder offenders as either “Hispanic or Latino,” about 22% were listed as “Hispanic or Latino.” Among victims classified by a reporting agency as “Hispanic or Latino,” where the race of the offender is known, about 19% were murdered by a black offender and 1% by an “other” offender.
The DOJ reports 13,455 murder victims in 2015;
About 53% of the victims were black
About 49% of known offenders were black
Only 44% of murder victims with a known offender are black
About 62% of known offenders age 19 or less were black
All other races made up about 47% of victims and 56% of victims with a known offender
Blacks who commit murder do so at a lower average age than the other two racial categories. After age 30, black offenders fall below 50% and continue to fall as a percentage as the age gets higher.
The black murder rate is being skewed by the high rate of black victims without a known offender. Since black victims are under-represented among victims with a known offender, the actual percentage of black offenders is probably significantly higher than 49%. If we compensate for the fact that black murder victims are less likely to have a known offender, then the actual percentage of murders committed by a black offender could easily be 56%.*
In cases where the race of the offender is known;
About 82% of black offenders killed other blacks
About 18% of black offenders killed members of other races
If blacks committed 49% of all murders, then about 9% of total murders were committed by blacks against a member of another race.
Among black murder victims where the race of the offender is known
About 91% were killed by other blacks
About .5% were killed by “other”
About 8.5% were killed by “white”
About 8% were killed by people classified as “Hispanic of Latino” among agencies that had such a classification
Based on the “Hispanic or Latino” estimate, European-descended white people most likely accounted for about 1% of offenders who murdered a black person in 2015. While some of the people listed as “Hispanic or Latino” may also be listed as black, we know that most are counted as white. In fact, Pennsylvania is counting black men from Spanish-speaking countries as “white” offenders.
Blacks made up about 13% of the US population in 2015. Blacks committed murder at well over 7 times the rate of all other Americas.
*A more realistic percentage of murders committed by blacks in 2015 could be more like 56%. Black victims make up a total of 44% of all victims with known offenders. However, blacks made up 53% of total victims. If we increase the number of black victims with a known offender to 53% and assume that 91% were killed by a black perpetrator, the adjusted overall black offender rate rises from 49% to 56%.
