Racial Invariance or Asian Advantage: Comparing the Macro-Level Predictors of Violence Across Asian, White, and Black Populations

Research shows that structural disadvantage is a key source of violent crime rates across racial/ethnic groups, a finding that has become more commonly known as “racial invariance.” However, this literature has focused primarily on white, black and Latino comparisons, with little attention to Asian populations. This omission is problematic considering that (1) Asians are the fastest growing minority group in the U.S. and (2) the sources of Asian crime could differ from those of white and black populations. Drawing on the racial invariance hypothesis, the current study uses 2010 city-level data to compare the structural predictors of violent crime arrest rates (homicide, robbery, rape, and aggravated assault) for white, black, and Asian populations. Findings reveal that disadvantage contributes to violence for all three racial/ethnic groups, but the magnitude of these effects and effects of other structural predictors differ. Findings from the current study offer implications for the racial invariance debate.