Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/219

 CRIME AMONG THE NEGROES OF CHICAGO 20$

prisoners is eight times as great as that of the white. This would seem to indicate that in the north central states there is a greater difference in the proportion of crime among the whites and negroes than in any other part of the United States.

A study of the Eleventh Census tables shows that the ratio of negro prisoners to the negro population is greatest in the northern and western states ; also that the greatest difference in the proportion of crime between the whites and negroes is in the northern and western states ; this seems to indicate that in these states the negro is more given to crime than in the southern states. When we come to notice the criminality of the negroes of Chicago, we shall see whether or not this is true.

INCREASE OF CRIME FROM SOUTH TOWARD THE NORTH.

Another fact that is shown by the Eleventh Census reports on crime is that, taking the states from the south toward the north, there is a gradual increase in the proportion of negro prisoners to the negro population. It appears from this that from the south toward the north there is a corresponding increase of crime among the negroes.

Taking Mississippi in the south central states for one start- ing-point, and South Carolina in the south Atlantic states for another, and going toward the north from these two points, we have in each case a gradual increase in the ratio of negro pris- oners to the negro population as we go from state to state. It is further seen that this gradual increase of crime has followed certain natural and well-defined lines of travel. This increase is along the two natural highways from the south toward the north, viz., the Mississippi valley and the Atlantic seaboard.

THE NEGRO POPULATION OF CHICAGO.

Chicago, situated on Lake Michigan at the intersection of the great inland arteries of trade and travel, is one of the foremost industrial and commercial centers of the world. It is the second- largest city in the United States, and had, according to the school census of 1896, a population of 1,616,635. The negro population has during the last thirty-six years increased in the city in about