Interracial Crime: Criminal Justice Data and Victimization

Criminal Justice Data and Victimization
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Criminal Justice Data and Victimization
Crime in most locations is usually intra-racial. However, in multicultural societies such as the United States, interracial crime also occurs. According to Stacey (2019), interracial crime is unique, and it is important for law enforcement to understand the issue. Such an approach would help the law enforcement agencies to develop effective strategies to prevent it and maintain peace, law, and order in society. This paper will compare the data between Las Vegas metropolitan and Henderson police departments. It will describe the composition of staff by racial and ethnic background, the arrests made in the last ten years, and examine differences between arrests due to aggravated assault on both police departments. A comparison of such information is important as it can reveal various details regarding the disparity of criminal offenders and victims.
In Las Vegas, the metropolitan police department consists of more than 47,000 civilian and police officer employees. The civilians are those involved in mainly administration work such as clerks and accountants, among others who do not perform active law enforcement duties. In terms of gender, the department is made up of 66 percent male and 33 percent female staff (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department 2019). The racial demographics indicate that the department is predominantly white, with 60 percent of the workforce identifying as such, and 18 percent being Hispanic, and 10 percent being black. The demographics reflect the racial makeup of the city since it is made up of mostly white people.
In contrast, the Henderson police department has a staff of 600 civilian and police officers. Similar to Las Vegas metropolitan police department, civilian workers are not involved in active law enforcement duties but rather the administrative aspects of the institution. The department is made up of 80 percent white, 6 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent black employees (Henderson Police Department, 2016). While the demographics reflect the city’s population in terms of race, minorities are not adequately represented in the police department. Nevertheless, the institution indicates that it is committed to ensuring racial diversity, and their hiring practices do not discriminate against individuals based on their race.
In the last 10 years, the state of Nevada has recorded 53,275 arrests in cases involving aggravated assault. Those arrested have been predominantly white and black people following in second place. In addition, 80 percent of cases involve male perpetrators, while 20 percent involve females. Such numbers have also been observed in both Las Vegas metropolitan and Henderson police departments. In this case, approximately 70 percent of the cases involv...