PE Crime
Cross-National Variation in Violent Crime Rates: Race,r-KTheory, and Income J. Philippe Rushton University of Western Ontario Glayde Whitney Florida State University Rushton’s theory ofr-Krace differences was examined in relation to the rate of murder, rape, and serious assault per 100,000 population and Gross Domestic Product per Person for 74 countries from the 1993–1996 International Crime Statis- tics published by INTERPOL and the 1999CIA World Fact Book. Each country was assigned to one of the three macro-races East Asian, European, and African. The results corroborated earlier findings that violent crime is lowest in East Asian coun- tries, intermediate in European countries, and highest in African and in Black Carib- bean countries. The median number of violent crimes per 100,000 population were: 7 East Asian countries—34; 45 European countries—42; and 22 African and Black Caribbean countries—149, respectively. The median Gross Domestic Product per Person was highest in East Asian countries ($12,600), intermediate in European countries ($7,400), and lowest in African and Black Caribbean countries ($1,900). Across the three population groups there was an “ecological correlation” of−.96 between crime and wealth (wealthier countries hadlesscrime). Finer-grained analy- ses, however, found that while wealth was negatively related to crime across Euro- pean or East Asian countries, it waspositivelyrelated to crime for the African and Black Caribbean countries (i.e., the wealthier an African or Black Caribbean coun- try, the greater its rate of violent crime). Future research needs to examine genetic factors in addition to cultural factors as well as their interactions. KEY WORDS:r-Ktheory; race differences; criminal behavior. Please address correspondence to J. Philippe Rushton, Department of Psychology, Univer- sity of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2 Canada; e-mail [email protected]. Population and Environment, Vol. 23, No. 6, July 20022002 Human Sciences P…