“I haven’t seen a single one of the libs standing up for Laken Reilly, murdered by an illegal alien, yet here everyone is outraged at Good and Pretti’s deaths by ICE!”
This meme made it’s rounds right after the Good and Pretti deaths here in Minneapolis. The premise is a false one – that liberals somehow ignore Laken Reilly’s death at the hands of an immigrant by speaking out against ICE.
In my opinion, any single violent death is too many. I don’t care who the perp is. Feed the murderer / rapist / assaulter to a wood chipper.
I believe that no one is born a criminal. Even those born with brain injuries or abnormalities in areas that control impulsivity and violence aren’t natural born killers.
In today’s post, I want to look at the statistics of crime in the US. Who commits violent crime? What do their backgrounds have in common? Most importantly, what lines of thinking exist to help alleviate the violent crime rate in this beautiful country?
Are we creating criminals, or they born that way?
Expounding on My Obsession with True Crime
I know a fair amount about criminology, forensics, profiling, etc. because I, like many millennial women, have a weird fascination with True Crime and Cults. There’s nothing like listening to a gripping tale of a serial killer’s life and times or a cult leader’s beginning to put me out at night.
Many, many serial killers have lots in common. For those who murder women, they most often have a domineering mother, or an absent father. With the case of the domineering mother (Kemper, Gein, Ridgeway, Lucas, etc.) they act out their frustrations with their mothers on any women who happens to remind them of her. Or any woman in general. With the case of absent father, they decide that their life would have been totally different if their father had been around. Bundy never knew his biological father, and when he learned who his real mother was, he spiraled due to his father’s abandonment.
For serial killer men who kill the same sex, it’s usually a sexual attraction coexisting with a revulsion or some other need for control. Dahmer is the most commonly known gay serial killer, and he killed men because he feared them leaving him, so he found a way to keep them forever. Gacy loved men, but lived as a “straight male”. He killed for a complex variety of reasons, like feelings of inadequacy and a need for control.
Another thing many of them have in common is an early, profoundly damaging head injury. The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez, had a dresser fall on him as a child and spent time in a coma because of it. Fish, Berkowitz, and Lucas, Gacy, Heidnik, Nilson…the list of men who go on to kill en masse after a childhood head injury goes on and on.
Of course, serial killers are different from your run of the mill killer, rapist, arsonist, etc. One stalks, plans, and executes, while most criminals react to a situation with violence. Let’s start by examining the statistics of who commits crimes.
Violent Crimes by the Numbers
Here are some charts created using data from the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer. This shows the average percentage of each group commits each type of crime, with Murder, Assault, Rape, and Robbery being the chosen violent crimes.
Age
Sex
Race
Ethnicity
Summary
Here is a table that compiles all the metrics into the “average” offender’s age, sex, race, and ethnicity.
Black males between 20-29 years old are the most likely to commit murder. White males between 20-29 years old are the most likely to commit assault. White males between 20-29 are the most likely to commit rape, and black males of unknown age are the most likely to commit robbery.
If you’ve caught the issue with these results, congratulations! You missed your calling as a data analyst! Unless, of course, you didn’t. In which case, good on you.
Adjusting these per percentage of the population, based on U.S. Census Data, we get very different results. Let’s show the same metrics, but adjusted for the percentage of each population that commits a crime. For example, if the likelihood is 0.11%, that means that, say, a white man is 0.11% likely to engage in the crime. The higher the percentage, the more likely a person in that demographic is to commit the crime.
Age
Sex
Race
Ethnicity
Summary
Adjusting for sex and age does little change, but adjusting for race and ethnicity does show black people and people of Hispanic or Latino backgrounds are more likely to commit the offenses (save for homicide with Non-Hispanic and Hispanic populations).
Apart from aggravated assault among black people, I think it’s important to point out just how little the differences are between races and ethnicities. In most cases, the difference is a fraction of a percentage point, which shows only a tiny difference statistically.
For example, if 100,000 black people and 100,000 white people are looked at, roughly 370 black people and 160 white people are likely to have or go on to commit a rape.
The exception being aggravated assault, where about 3130 black people out of 100K are likely to have or to go on to commit an assault, where 1440 white people are in the same amount of people. This is something I would consider far more statistically significant than the fractional percentages seen in most cases.
Profile of a Criminal & Proposed Solutions
Clearly the correct number of crimes in each category we’d all like to see is a big, fat goose egg. Zero.
My next question is, what do the people who commit these types of crimes have in common? Does a black rapist have a different background than a white? What do their backgrounds have in common? Statistics for this section come from the last available study of Expanded Crime Data from the FBI – the year was 2019.
Some things are common among all criminals. From an article by Dr. Jarrod Sadulski entitled “Why People Commit Crimes: Reasons behind Criminal Behavior“, an anecdotal study performed by the author found that 90% of criminals came from single-parent homes, where the father was absent. Quote, “If parents do not raise their children, the streets will”.
Other factors enumerated by the author include drug addiction, seeing crime in the home growing up, and untreated mental illness.
The summary of this article concludes, “There is not a single answer to why people commit crimes, but people engage in criminal activity for various personal, social and other reasons. Based on my personal experience in the field, it is clear that family instability, peer pressure, substance abuse and perceived low consequences are all factors that lead to criminal activity”.
I’ll address these at the end.
Murder
When it comes to murder, most often the offender knows the victim personally. It’s not typically a random event, though there are exceptions..like the Night Stalker.
Here is a chart showing the percentage of homicides by offender-victim relationship. I took out the “unknown”, where it’s not known what the relationship was. This still includes stranger violence.
Watch out for those acquittances, I guess?? Simplifying it by known vs. unknown:
We can see that people most often commit homicide against someone that is previously known to them, especially someone vaguely but not deeply known. Things like gang violence come to mind.
Next, we’ll look at the extenuating circumstances that led up to homicide.
Here’s a chart showing the most common lead-up “reasons” to a homicide, by relationship:
Top 5 causes by relationship:
In every single case, the most likely cause is an argument. Do we have an anger management problem in this country?
Based on nothing but these metrics, the largest impact in the murder rate would come from reducing the stress and anger level of both the offender and the victim. Why does an argument need to escalate to murder? What could we do to intervene?
Aggrevated Assault
According to the CDE, the percentage for each type of relationship for aggravated assault looks like this:
Simplified to Known vs. Unknown (with relationship status unknown removed):
You’re 2x more likely to be assaulted by someone you know than someone you don’t.
Assault is clearly a case of anger, outburst and poor impulse control. I look at this similar to how I look at murder as par as perp traits.
Rape
This information comes from RAINN.
RAINN quotes different statistics than I found for my original numbers. RAINN says that 57% of rape perps are white, 27% black, 6% other and 1% mixed group.
When it comes to relationship between victim and offender, 60% are committed by someone known to the victim. When it comes to minors, 93% are committed by someone known.
RAINN also finds that 37% of perps have prior felony convictions – in 10% of cases, the perp had 5 or more felonies. How do these guys KEEP getting out?!
Oh, it’s because, per RAINN, 52% will be released while awaiting trial. They post bail, are released on temporary parole, or whatever. Regardless of why, they get out before their conviction to repeat their crimes. 7% of these will be re-arrested before they go to trial for another offense.
Rapists have a high recidivism rate. 51% are released prisoners are rearrested within 3 years. 60% within 5 years and 56% within 4.
The personality type of a sexual violence perp was studied by Yanwar Arief, et. al, in 2025. Their findings were:
“Participants exhibited high levels of neuroticism and low levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness. Common traits included egocentrism, manipulation, and antisocial behavior. Offenses typically involved exploiting trust within familial or close social relationships and occurred in private settings. Key contributing factors were low self-control, elevated sexual drive, and opportunistic decision-making”
So, monsters commit rape. No surprise there.
How do we reduce these occurrences? In my opinion, KEEP THESE SICK F*CKS IN PRISON FOREVER.
Statistically, they’re more likely to commit another crime if released than not. Either we need a serious re-education program, or we need to keep them in. Slight sarcastically but slightly seriously, maybe we should feel them to the woodchipper. Especially the ones who victimize kids.
Robbery
Robbery is a case where the offender is more likely to NOT be known to the victim:
I’ve known a few people who’ve been robbed. Most robberies take place in the streets, allies, highways, and otherwise public spaces outside the victim’s home. Some do take place in homes, as well. The main drivers are the need for money; not just a little need. The offender perceives it as a dire need, often fueled by the need to get their next fix or pay the piper before they get their kneecaps busted.
Robbery seems to be a crime of opportunity, where the offender perceives as “easy mark” and acts accordingly.
Next I’ll look at overall strategies to reduce crime rates.
Overall Strategies
The Nevada Sentencing Commission put out a great study that details strategies to reduce crime that actually work. These are what they found effectively reduces crime:
- Employment and Stable Income
- Lower wages = more crime, higher wages = less
- Greater social mobility reduced crime
- Guaranteed income programs reduced crime
- Access to educational attainment, which improves the likelihood of future employment stability, can prevent criminal legal system involvement for young people
- Workforce development and employment opportunities such as summer job programs can reduce youth involvement in violence by 35%-45%.1
- Access to post-incarceration employment reduced recidivism
- Jobs must be “good” jobs, with fair wages, fuill time, and something in the field the person worked in pre-incarceration (if any)
- Welfare programs reduced crime(!!!)
- Safe, Stable Housing
- A study on housing subsidized by the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) found that more affordable housing in low-income neighborhoods reduced crime rates.
- Another study in Orange County found that increasing the availability of affordable housing reduced crime, especially violent crime.
- A recent study explored the impacts of housing programs for unhoused people in LA, whose experiences of homelessness put them at higher risk of criminal legal contact, and found that access to housing:
- Lowered emergency room visits by 80%;
- Reduced the number of jail days by 130%;
- Reduced probability of committing crime by 80%;
- And increased the probability of employment by 24%.
- Access to Healthcare, Mental Health Services, and Substance Use Treatment
- Investing in community-based mental health and substance use treatment services is estimated to yield a $12 return for every $1 spent, as it prevents future crime, reduces incarceration, and lowers health care expenses.
- A study in Chicago found that low-income adolescents who participated in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) programs were less likely to be arrested for both violent and non-violent crimes.
- The availability of substance use treatment services reduces violent and financially-motivated crimes.
- One study highlighted the impact of nonprofit substance use services on crime: each additional nonprofit that focused on substance use treatment per 100,000 residents led to a 23% decline in the murder rate, a 15% decline in the violent crime rate, and an 11% decline in the property crime rate.
Their concusion?
“After years of “reform” efforts focusing on a harmful and largely ineffective
arrest-and-incarcerate model, we must commit to innovative strategies that invest in the things more likely to foster safety: income, housing, and access to care. A budget is not just a statement of values—it’s a determination of what tools we choose to try and construct safer, healthier, more prosperous communities. If we are to stand a chance of fulfilling our promise as a nation, we must follow the data and invest in the things we know can work as opposed to continuing our addiction to incarceration”
My Conclusion
It really seems that investing more into our society will cost us far less in the end. Providing access to Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8 and other welfare programs that give those in poverty a leg up, as well as ensuring that everyone has the social mobility needed to go from a poor kid to a comfortable middle class adult is the best strategy to reduce crime overall.
It’s no wonder that the races with higher poverty rates have a higher crime rate, considering the main driver for the most typical violent crimes (assault and robbery) are primarily economic or to fuel a drug addiction.
It seems the current cuts we are seeing are creating an effective blueprint to improve crime, not reduce it. So, that’s not good.
Oh, and rapists deserve the woodchipper or a cell for a lifetime.
Thanks for reading!
Oh, wow. My first thought is the quote, wrongly attributed to Judge Parker of the Texas Rangers, “It isn’t the severity of the punishment (that deters) but the certainty of it.” Meaning we need more law enforcement, better tools, and fewer excuses in the courts. I’ve always thought that the Miranda ruling should be adjudicated like this: We have a trial and the guilty are sentenced appropriately. THEN we have another trial and if the cops did something wrong, we punish them appropriately.
Second quote I like is yours. “90% of criminals came from single-parent homes, where the father was absent.” And I would add to that, failing schools that deprive them of upward mobility. Government controls the public schools and the welfare and tax systems. Seems we have all the “preventive” tools we need but are using them counterproductively.
I think the “90% of criminals came from single-parent homes, where the father was absent.” is more indicative of where that situation leaves a family financially than anything else. Not saying they are stealing because they are hungry, but that the reward feels like its worth the risk when you have little to risk.
I agree 100% with you. I am a product of a single mother household where the mother made fair money when I was young, then next to nothing while she went to school. Growing up with a single parent with and without funds is a vastly different scenario!
I think of the quote, “What do you have to lose?”. For someone with literally nothing, the answer is nothing. The risk/reward ratio always favors the reward!
The notion that people steal to eat is false. They steal because they lack the moral standards AND because the consequences are negligible. Fixing the first (fatherless homes) is preventative, fixing the second (law enforcement) is reparative at best, and in between is the real solution, education for all. Our public schools are a disaster.
I absolutely agree with this. If the person is still guilty despite not having read their Miranda rights, they’re guilty. The cops should be punished fairly but separately.
I also agree that reform is needed in many preventative programs. What we have is something, but maybe it’s not the most bang for our buck?
Hannah.
I agree with both you & Jerry that law enforcement should be punished fairly but separately when they do not do their jobs correctly. I would also like to suggest something else in addition to this.
It has long been a problem in this country that prosecutorial misconduct has been a driving force behind far too many wrongful convictions within the justice system; especially for minorities. In fact, studies by the National Registry of Exonerations & organizations like the Innocence Project indicate that prosecutorial misconduct is a contributing factor in 30% to 54% of all documented exonerations in the United States.
I propose that, when such misconduct has been revealed to have resulted in wrongful convictions & subsequent punishment has been rendered that the offending prosecutors, upon conviction, receive punishment in the exact manner & duration that the wrongly convicted person has endured (up to & including the death penalty).
In cases where prosecutors WILLFULLY and KNOWINGLY acted to wrongfully convict, absolutely. Accountability for those in power is lacking, and a precedent of absolute intolerance needs to be set and enforced.
Again, I have to thank you for your work in bringing this data to us. This is something I have pondered, but never spent the time to research. That said, I am not really surprised by the information as my theory is that people commit “crime” simply as an offshoot of their individual risk/reward mechanism.
People consider the risk (feelings of guilt and/or shame, imprisonment, ostracization etc…) vs. the reward they will receive for their action. It doesn’t surprise me that the data suggests that younger people are more prone to commit crime as they have less experience evaluation risks in general (experience being the great teacher). I also suspect that any ethnicity bias in the data could be more appropriately attributed to the economic status of the individual. (I.E. A married black man with two kids and a $100K/yr job is infinitely less likely to rob a liquor store for $200 than a single white homeless man.)
If I were to restate your conclusion based on my theory, it would simply be to narrow the risk/reward gap, make is so that default answer is almost always “it ain’t worth the risk”. There will always be outliers. The existence of casinos defy logic but for some people greed, lust, envy, etc… overwhelm any logical risk/reward evaluation.
Early in my comment, I put the word crime in quotation marks because I’m going to go down a rabbit hole: Is our definition of crime largely a human construct? How do other animals police themselves? Do wild horses steal, rape and murder each other?
This, absolutely. If you have nothing to lose, you have nothing to stop you from literally risking it all. Hell, jail is three square meals a day and a dry bed. That’s a step up for some people.
I think crime is tied to a human’s innate ethos. What sets us apart from animals is our sentience, conscience and intellect. Some animals show signs of sentience, like octopi and dolphins. Many species of monkey will seek revenge against thieves. Reference: Chimpanzees are vengeful but not spiteful | PNAS
Horses are prey animals and, despite having a social hierarchy, have little concept of self and ownership. Wild horses (which I know way too much about because I was one of those weird horse girls), have a harem structure. The dominant stallion collects mares, steals them from other stallions’ herds, and cuts younger males out of their herd to avoid conflict. When he gets old or injured, a new stallion WILL challenge him and take over the herd. Fillies, once weaned, often go join other herds to naturally avoid inbreeding. Without the moral / ethical constraints we humans are beholden to, nothing is taboo. There can be no concept of consent Mares who don’t want to breed DO kick the ever-loving shit out of stallions, let me tell you. The other mares, though, won’t punish the stallion for his actions. “Murder” is just part of doing business and happens quite often in violent stallion fights. They don’t, however, seek revenge or retribution that way creates closer to the sentience scale do.
Fascinating topic. I would definitely smoke a pretend pipe, sit around a fireplace and play armchair philosopher on this one all day long!
Once again I find myself NOT included in subsequent comments, that I need to “subscribe” as a separate action. Any way that choice could be made obvious when I first MAKE a comment, as was the case before?
I hope this is working now! I changed it to default subscribing to subsequent comments.