20 Astonishing Violent Crime Demographics

Violent crime is something many wouldn’t wish on their closest enemy. It is one of the scariest components of a community-based society because one never knows when it may happen to them. As the violent crime demographics show, the number of violent victimizations is going to surprise and horrify you.

In the United States, there are over 5 million instances of violent crime reported to law enforcement every year.

By understanding the demographics of violent crime, we can begin to find ways to make society safer. Otherwise the temptation to stop letting the kids play in the front yard unsupervised may continue to grow exponentially.

Interracial Crime and Violence

• Hispanics are more likely to attack Whites/Caucasians than any other group, including their own.
• Blacks/African-Americans were the attackers in 84.9% of the violent crimes involving them and Whites/Caucasians.
• The total number of White/Caucasian on Black/African-American violent crimes reported in 2012-2013: 99,403.
• Blacks/African-Americans are 27x more likely to attack a White/Caucasian person and 8x more likely to attack an Hispanic person than have it happen to them in reverse.
• Whites/Caucasians choose their own racial demographic as the target of violent crime 82.4% of the time.
• About 2 out of every 3 violent crimes in the United States targets a White/Caucasian person.
• Only 40.1% of victims who are attacked by a Black/African-American offender is of the same racial demographic.
• One in every 15 black men is in jail, as opposed to one in 36 Hispanics and one in 106 whites.

A lot has been said about the effects of black-on-black violence, but the reality is that most violent crime is actually white-on-white violence. This doesn’t mean that whites are the most likely to commit a violent crime, however, as Hispanics are 26% more likely to be an offender. There has been a 2.5x reduction in the white rate of violent crime over the past decade, but this is likely because up until now, Hispanics were grouped together with Caucasians in the data. The bottom line is this: interracial violence may not be as big a problem as same-race violence, but it is still an issue.

How Significant Is Violent Crime Today?

• In 2014, 1.1% of all persons age 12 or older, 3 million people in total, experienced at least one violent victimization.
• An estimated 0.5%, or 1.2 million people, experienced at least one serious violent victimization in 2014
• 8% of all households, or 10.4 million households, in the US experienced one or more property victimizations.
• Only 46% of violent crime incidents are believed to be reported to law enforcement officials.
• In the US, 1 out of every 50 people in the next 12 months is going to be the victim of a violent victimization in some form.
• More than 15 million violent property victimizations are estimated to have occurred in 2014.
• About 12% of victims of serious violence and 28% of intimate partner violence victims received assistance from a victim service agency.

The most disturbing aspect of this demographic information isn’t the fact that more than half of all violent crime goes unreported. It’s the fact that a large majority of people don’t receive help when they have become a victim. Only 1 in 10 victims of serious violence receive any sort of support from an assistance agency. Considering the fact that violent crime can lead to PTSD and other serious health consequences, this is something that must be improved right away.

How Has Violent Crime Improved Since 2005?

• In 2014, the rates of total violent crime across all demographics in the United States has declined by 29% since 2005.
• Over that same period of time, the number of simple assaults reported to law enforcement have declined by 35%.
• The rates for sexual assault across all demographics, however, has remained the same over the past decade at around 8 per 1,000 people.
• Overall figures show that more than 1.6 million fewer violent crime incidents were reported in 2014 compared to the annual figures in 2005.

Although the 2014 data on violent crime is encouraging, when compared to 2013 data it also shows how often this data fluctuates. In 2013 compared to 2015, there were only 800,000 fewer incidents. That rate doubled the next year. There are more sexual assaults reported, but with population growth the actual risk has stayed the same. It is these hidden facts that make it so important to understand what the violent crime demographics are so we can limit future risks effectively.