Thursday, November 27, 2008

Crime Rates For Hispanics, Polynesians and Amerindians

In the comments section, an anonymous commenter notes:
Hispanics, Amerindians, and Polynesians are all Asians or have Asiatic roots (and thus presumably lower testosterone) and still their crime rate is higher than Whites...this suggests that there is a social element to crime rates as well, probably related to the status of these groups as 'persecuted minorities.'
I respond:

I have already discussed this in some of my other posts. It is true that elevated rates of crime among Asian-derived groups are somewhat mysterious.

However, no one knows what the testosterone levels of any of these groups are, nor do we have much information about personality styles, although Richard Lynn claims that numerous studies show that Amerindians have elevated rates of sociopathy.

However, they all have relatively low IQ's (Hispanics = 92*, Amerindians = 90*, Polynesians = 89*) and in modern industrial capitalism, lower-IQ groups resort to mass crime, probably due to failure to achieve the successes that society tells them they deserve and the resulting extreme frustration.

This failure is probably to a great degree due to lowered IQ levels. Lower IQ groups generally do not do well in modern urban societies.

Hispanics have high crime rates in all of the capitalist nations of the Americas. The more Amerindian blood, the higher the crime. Pure Amerindians also seem to commit a lot of crime in Latin American urban areas. These people evolved in tribal societies and lately in small villages. Modern urban capitalism is just something they can't cope with. They didn't evolve with it, culturally or otherwise.

I doubt of Amerindians are persecuted much at all in most of the US (although there is a lot of anti-Indian racism in North Dakota at least). In this part of the country, AMERICAN (not Mesoamerican) Indians are highly regarded, and many Whites around here want to be Indians (Indian wannabes).

There are lots of California Indians living in these foothills here, and racism against them seems to be about zero, although there would seem to be grounds for some because their levels of pathology are unbelievably high and some of them live in nearly unimaginable filth and squalor, apparently deliberately. Most of their problems is this part of the country are self-inflicted.

Some tribes around here became very wealthy with casino money.

One tribe was giving out $7000/month checks to members, but they didn't seem to act much better. Most of the young ones blew every nickel of the money on dope, alcohol, gambling and whatnot, did not invest in or improve housing stock (you drive by there and see 20-30 Indians of all ages lounging about with chickens running everywhere in a trashed-out front yard).

However, a few of them did save and invest the money. I know one fellow who is a millionaire who invests in many business ventures.

In this part of California, there is no discrimination against Hispanics at all. My city is majority Hispanic. They run the whole place. The only racism in that town is against White people. Hispanics are in charge in large swathes of this state. From my POV, they experience little or no discrimination or racism as a dominant group.

There is little to no discrimination or racism against Samoans or Tongans here either.

I can't speak of Hawaii.

I really don't think that any of these groups qualify as persecuted minorities, at least not in California. Other than lower IQ's, I don't have a good explanation for elevated crime rates though.

American Samoa has very high crime, while Western Samoa next door, with a traditional Polynesian lifestyle, is nearly crime-free. Clearly, Polynesian crime is predicated to a large degree on culture.

I understand that Mexico, especially in smaller villages, did not use to have a lot of crime. This has certainly changed recently.

It is extremely difficult to generalize about Amerindian behaviors. The Amerindian behavioral phenotype, like the Polynesian one, seems to be quite plastic and is capable of expressing itself in many different ways depending on the environment.

It's well-known that there are Amerindian tribes, especially in the Amazon, who are so pacifistic that it's almost comical. I can think of at least one in Venezuela. Curiously, they live near the Yanonamo, long thought to have the highest homicide rate on Earth. I doubt if their genes are much different.

With a relatively plastic behavioral phenotype, Amerindians are possibly highly susceptible to culture. In a pro-violence culture they can become ridiculously violent and criminal. In a culture that promotes pacifism and non-violence, they can become so peaceful that that it is almost a caricature. These are tribal people who evolved culturally to strictly abide by tribal cultural norms.

I suspect Polynesians also may have a plastic behavioral phenotype. The differences in the two Samoas suggest that Polynesian criminal behavior is heavily mediated by culture.

This is discussed in greater depth in the previous post, The Moriori and the Dangers of Pacifism.

Crime is about a Hell of a lot more than testosterone.

Criminology is traditionally a black hole for theory.

*Three points were added to each score due to the recent renorming of US IQ scores.

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