Victimization, Latina/o

Data

Homicide estimates come from 2004 death certificate data from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS). The Supplemental Homicide Reports of the Uniform Crime Reports are not suitable to estimate homicide against Hispanics, because many jurisdictions do not gather data on whether the victim was of Hispanic origin.

Nonfatal violent victimization estimates come from National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data. The NCVS offers a nationally representative sample of noninstitutionalized persons in the United States age 12 or older. The NCVS is a good source for examining nonfatal victimization because it offers a large, nationally representative sample of Hispanic victims; a range of victim, offender, and incident characteristics; and information on violence regardless of whether it was reported to the police. Nonfatal estimates are based on 2004 data from the NCVS.

“Hispanic” refers to self-identified Mexican Americans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and people from Central or Spanish South American countries or some “other” Spanish origin. Nonfatal violence refers to threatened, attempted and completed rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated and simple assault. Fatal violence refers to homicide.

Homicide

In 2004, 1,319 Hispanics were victims of homicide. These homicides included 1,041 Hispanic males and 278 Hispanic females. Stated differently, in 2004, an estimated 4.2 homicides per 100,000 Hispanics occurred (6.6 per 100,000 males and 1.8 per 100,000 females). The Hispanic homicide rate is lower than the non-Hispanic rate. Non-Hispanics were characterized by a rate of 6.6 homicides per 100,000 non-Hispanic persons (10.5 per 100,000 males and 3.0 per 100,000 females). The pattern by gender is similar, with males evidencing a higher rate than females.

Nonfatal Violent Victimization

While Hispanics age 12 or older comprise 13% of the population, they experienced 12% of all violent crime in the United States. Hispanics were victims of about 621,718 violent crimes, leading to a rate of 19.8 violent victimizations per 1,000 Hispanic persons. Specifically, Hispanics sustained 17,316 rapes and sexual assaults (0.6 per 1,000), 71,707 robberies (2.3 per 1,000), 113,187 aggravated assaults (3.6 per 1,000), and 419,507 simple assaults (13.4 per 1,000).