Bureau of Justice victimization reports show that 89 percent of interracial crimes involved black perpetrators and white victims. Crime is a major problem and lies at the heart of other major problems faced by blacks. High crime translates into low rates of businesses formation in black neighborhoods. That translates into fewer resident employment and shopping opportunities. Unsafe schools compromise black education and create incentives for the best teachers and students to go elsewhere.
Crime drives upwardly mobile residents out, and the neighborhood loses stabilizing influences.
D.C. Nationally, for at least two decades, the black suburban migration rate has been higher than that of whites. As middle-class people and businesses leave, cities lose their tax base. Experts love to blame crime on poverty. After 1960, violent crime rates shot up. By 1993, the murder rate was 9.5 per 100,000, falling to 8.2 in 1995.