More on race, crime, and intelligence

Nathaniel Weyl, writing in 1973:

The hypothesis which I should like to explore in these pages is that the criminality of races and subraces tends to vary inversely with their intelligence.

This thesis would seem a priori plausible on two grounds. The first is that a variety of studies have shown that the average l.Q.s of criminals and prison inmates are significantly lower than those of the populations from which they are drawn. The second is that most crimes seem to be committed by people who are deficient in such positive psychic qualities as foresight and selfcontrol.

The hypothesis would not, however, apply to all types of crime. Such offenses as embezzlement, forgery, fraud, and even operating numbers games, are differentially attractive to people of above-average intelligence. These mentally exacting felonies yield a small proportion of total arrests, convictions, and sentences. Those who engage in them are not typical criminals.

Besides containing additional data showing the relationship between criminality and intelligence, this article also touches on some other issues raised in the comments of the previous post:

Professor Bonger presents statistics on criminal convictions of Jews, as compared with non-Jews, per 100,000 inhabitants over 14 years oki for Germany (1882-1891, 1892-1901. 1909- 1910, 1915 and 1916), Austria (1885-1900). Hungary (1904. 1906- 1909). Poland (1924-1925) and the Netherlands (1901-1909. 1910-1915, 1919 and 1931-1933). The German data for 1909-1910 are probably as representative as any for the pre-First World War period. They show that Jews committed proportionately two and a half times as many frauds and forgeries as Gentiles. Their conviction rate for "insult" was about 40 per cent higher and they participated about equally with non-Jews in proportion to population in embezzlement and receiving stolen goods. The Jewish rate for theft. however, was 71.1 per 100.000 as against 178.3 for all other components of the population. Their conviction rate was about 40 per cent of the Gentile rate for felonious assault, about half that rate for rape, less than a third for murder and about a fifth for malicious mischief.

More excerpts within:

[. . .] Netherlands crime statistics are subdivided among Catholics, Protestants and Jews. In convictions for all crimes per 100,000 population older than 10 years. Catholics consistently lead. Thus, in 1901-1909. the Catholic rate was 54.8, the Protestant 40.0 and the Jewish 25.5. By 1931-1933, convictions for crime had increased about five-fold and the formerly law-abiding Jewish community had moved into second place. These figures were: Catholic 302. Jewish 299, Protestant 259. Professor Bonger's explanation for this marked rise in Jewish criminality is that "' when the economic crisis in the Netherlands struck them harder than other groups, their economic criminality increased more rapidly than did that of the others."' This theory is somewhat vitiated by the fact that Jewish convictions for crimes of violence also increased markedly between 1901-1909 and 1931-1933.

The higher crime rates among Catholics than Protestants would be expected on the basis of the theory that the intelligence of Catholic populations has been weakened over the centuries by the impact of clerical celibacy on the gene pool.

Bonger gives interesting comparisons of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter rates per million inhabitants for various European countries during the 1880s and during the 1927-1932 period. In the earlier period. Italy led with 70 homicides per million, followed by Spain with 65 and Hungary with 56. The lowest ranking countries were those of Northwest Europe: Netherlands 3.1. Germany 3.4, England 3.9, Scotland 4.4.

In the later period, the highest murder rates were in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Esthonia. Italy and Hungary occupied middle ground. Statistics were not given for Spain. The least homicidal nations were England and Wales, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland in that order.

Whether the apparent shift of the homicidal center from the Mediterranean to the Slavic world during the 40-year period was due to improved crime reporting or to more substantial causal factors is an open question.

In both tabulations, we have essentially an inverse correlation with the geography of intelligence. In a 1963 study, Dr Stefan T. Possony and 1 attempted to show that creativity and intellect tended to decline progressively as one moves either southward or eastward from Northwest Europe."

Bonger's data show higher crime rates in Catholic than in comparable Protestant countries. In the two periods, the rates for the Netherlands were 3 and 5, those for Belgium were 9 and 7. Similarly, Irish homicide rates were substantially above those of England and Scotland.

[. . .] Professor Bonger readily conceded that the Mediterranean peoples are more prone to crimes of violence than either the Nordics or the Alpines. A detailed analysis of crime statistics by different regions of Germany and the Netherlands suggested, but not conclusively, that Alpines have a tendency to commit more crimes of violence than Nordics.

Interestingly enough, the factual findings of Dr Bonger confirm the view that Jews and Nordics are probably less inclined to crimes of violence than the other racial groups of Europe; that criminality tends to rise as one proceeds eastward or southward on the Continent; that Catholic peoples have higher crimes rates than Protestant, and that there appears to a be a general tendency for crime rates to correlate inversely with intelligence. This last generalization admits of many exceptions. Thus, the Finns and Esthonians seem to combine a strong propensity to commit crimes of violence with good intelligence. The Jewish tendency towards such financial crimes as fraud, forgery and embezzlement has already been noted.

The low crime rates among Nordics may correlate with Dr Richard Lynn's findings, published recently in THE MANKIND QUARTERLY. that Nordics are less subject to anxiety than other Western racial groups.

CRIME AND THE AMERICAN NEGRO

"The principal thing," Lombrosa'" wrote almost 70 years ago. "is always . . . the stifling of the primitive, wild Instincts. Even if he (the Negro) is dressed in the European way and has accepted the customs of modern culture, all too often there remains in him the lack of respect for the life of his fellow men, the disregard for life which all wild people have in common. To them, a murder appears as an ordinary occurrence, even a glorious occurrence when it is inspired by feelings of vengeance. This mentality is furthered in the Negro by his scorn of his white fellow-citizens and by bestial sexual impulses."

This statement would have been regarded as an absurdity by all educated Westerners 20 years ago. Today, in the lurid light of the Black Panthers and the degeneration of American cities into jungles that are also infernos, one is not so sure.

Certainly, ever since his emancipation from slavery, the American Negro has accounted for a disproportionate share of the crimes committed in the United States, in 1969, the FBI reported that 62 per cent of the persons arrested for murder, 50 per cent of those arrested for forcible rape, 56 per cent of those arrested for major crimes of violence and 34 per cent of those arrested for major crimes against property were Negroes.'^ Since Negroes comprise only 11 per cent of the American population, the Black arrest rate for murder and other major crimes of violence was more than five times the national average, that for forcible rape over four times the average, and that for major crimes against properly over three times the average,

During the generation between the Second World War and 1970, the United States embarked on the most ambitious and massive program which any nation has ever undertaken on behalf of its racial minorities. A pertinent question—one seldom asked —is whether this vast uplift and eleemosynary operation has been accompanied by a decrease or an increase in the Negro's proportionate contribution to crime. If the sociological theories which impute Negro criminality to oppression, discrimination and indignity are valid, a decline in the Negro crime rate should have occurred. If, on the contrary, Negro crimes rates during this period rose even more rapidly than the 70 per cent, increase in all serious crimes, then this would seem a prima facie refutation of all theories tying Negro crime to white oppression.

The facts are that during the quarter of a century since the end of the Second World War Negro crime has risen considerably more rapidly than crimes by Whites.

In 1945. 45 per cent of those arrested for murder were Negroes. By 1969, the black percentage had risen to 62 per cent. During this same period, the Negro share of arrests for major crimes of violence increased from 43 per cent to 56 per cent of the total.

The most obvious characteristic which Negroes and criminals have in common is below-average intelligence. The American Negro has an average I.Q. approximately one standard deviation below the white average. Four times as many Blacks as Whites fail the armed services mental tests. While approximately twothirds of the American white population ranks as average .superior or very superior in these mental-test scores, only about u fifth of the Negroes fall into these categories. In other words, based on armed forces examinations, about four-fifths of the American Negro population is mentally subnormal or massively retarded. Moreover, the great educational and economic advances of the Negro in pasl decades have not changed this picture to his advantage. In fact, there is some evidence that a further decline in Negro intelligence may be occurring and that the I.Q. gap between Whites and Blacks widened significantly between 1950 and 1967.

Despite the fact that the evidence on this point has been expunged from most modern criminology texts, the relationship between crime and intelligence has been known for decades. In general, there is a high negative correlation between the two variables. [. . .]

If criminal activity is concentrated among people with belowaverage intelligence and, if the American Negro population is characterized by this condition, then it would seem that the "riddle" of excessive Black criminality can be solved without reference to elaborate environmentalist theories.

In more general terms, criminality seems to be greatest among those races, peoples and classes who are least intelligent and least creative. It is least among the bright and gifted peoples. One of the causes of the frightening and continuous rise in the American crime rate may be the tendency to seek to dissuade potential criminals from anti-social conduct by reason, persuasion and appeasement in cases where their intelligence levels are so low that the threat of retribution is the only efficacious deterrent.

[WEYL, N., "Race, Nationality and Crime," The Mankind Quarterly, 14(1):41-48. July-Sept., 1973]