A book published at the end of the nineteenth century wrongly portrayed Black people as prone to violence and criminal behavior.

Around the same time that Plessy v. Ferguson was decided, statistician Frederick Hoffman published “Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro.” He argued that recent census numbers proved African Americans were headed for extinction. Specifically, he wrote, “[a]ll the facts brought together in this work prove that the colored population is gradually parting with the virtues and the moderate degree of economic efficiency developed under the regimé of slavery” (Hoffman, 1897, p. 328). Not only did he believe that slavery had benefitted the Black community but he further asserted that the cause of their looming extinction was due to “a low standard of sexual morality” (p. 328). 

Hoffman used arrest data to argue that higher Black arrest rates indicated African Americans were naturally drawn toward criminal behavior.

Rather than understanding the higher arrest rates to be reflections of racist laws, Hoffman blamed blacks for their incarcerations.

Hoffman’s book influenced and biased the development of criminology in the twentieth and twenty first centuries.

Hoffman represented one of many sources that used biased data to influence 20th century criminology against Black people, thereby deepening systemic racism in America but especially within the law enforcement community (Kendi, 2017; Wolf, 2006).