Hate crime rampant against Native Americans
BY JEFF ARMSTRONG
Native Americans are by far the most likely population to suffer violent crime in the United States and are virtually alone among all races in that their assailants are overwhelmingly of a different race, according to a 1999 National Crime Victimization Survey by the US Justice Department.
About 12% of Natives are victims of violent assaults annually, including more than 15% of those aged 12 and older and 25% of those aged 18-24 - a rate of victimisation 2.5 times the national average and highest of all races in every age and income group. Indigenous urban residents are more than twice as likely as rural Natives to suffer violent crime, but the latter rate of 8.9% is still more than double that of similarly situated blacks and whites.
More than two thirds of indigenous victims surveyed said the perpetrator was non-Native, 58% describing the attacker as white. Among other races, 66% of whites and 76% of blacks reported the assailant as a member of their own respective racial group.
Racial factors are even more pronounced when it comes to rape and sexual assault. Nearly 9 of every 10 Native rape victims said their assailants were non-Native, the overwhelming majority (82%) of which were identified as white. The overall rate of sexual assaults of Native females in the US is 3.5 times the national average.
Although Natives were murdered at about their proportion of the population nationally, Minnesota had the highest ratio of homicides in relation to population. The state accounted for 5.8% of Natives murdered in the U.S., while making up just 2.5% of the Native American population.
In homicides nationally, Natives were again much more likely to be victims of other races. Three of four murders in the course of a violent felony against an indigenous person were committed by non-Natives, while nearly 40% of argument homicides involved non-Native assailants. About 13% of Native murders nationally occurred in a brawl involving alcohol or drugs, more than 2.5 times the US average.
Notwithstanding their status as victims of violent crimes, Natives were also far more likely to be incarcerated for non-violent offenses than non-Natives. More than one third of all unconvicted indigenous inmates in the US were held on public order charges such as DUI or disorderly conduct. Making up just 0.9% of the U.S. population, Natives accounted for 2.9% of local jail inmates and 1.5% of federal prisoners. Furthermore, 10% of those held on DUI charges and 4% of such convicted inmates were indigenous, the latter figure nearly five times their percentage of the population and nearly double their arrest rate for the crime. Nearly half of Natives under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system served their sentence in jail or prison, while more than two thirds of convicted non-Natives were released on probation or parole.
Natives were also the most likely racial group to resist their assailant and to receive injuries in the course of the assault. Nearly 60% confronted their attacker, 18% using physical force. 32% of indigenous assault victims suffered physical injuries, with blacks close behind at 31%.
The survey, conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is the most comprehensive federal crime study to date of indigenous peoples, based on interviews with some 7,000 Native families and existing crime statistics from 1992-1997.
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