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ObjectiveTo survey the contemporary literature in the social and biological sciences relevant to race that examines both the reality and the usefulness of the concept. Race is considered a major correlate of criminal behavior, and thus a fresh look at the concept is of obvious importance to criminologists and sociologists.MethodSocial, genetic, medical, and criminology databases were keyword searched for articles on race that either addressed its existence/nonexistence or usefulness as a concept.ResultsWe find that biologist and social constructionists talk past one another and never venture beyond the comfort of their own positions. Genetic studies using very few chromosomal loci find that genetic polymorphisms divide human populations into clusters with almost 100 percent accuracy and that they correspond to the traditional anthropological categories.ConclusionThere is much to gain by recognizing that these categories differ genetically, and that we can dispense with the term race in favor of some other term such as population or ethnic group and nothing would be lost except a word.

Scholars implicitly assume that the conceptual models of fear of crime found in the Western literature are also applicable to populations that have different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. To investigate whether such an assumption is legitimate, the current study analyzed survey data from samples of Korean immigrants in the Detroit metropolitan area and native Koreans in Seoul, South Korea. The result indicated a higher level of fear among native Koreans than Korean immigrants. The presented subgroup analyses revealed that perceived incivility, confidence in the police, and ethnic attachment were significant predictors of fear of crime among Korean immigrants, while gender, vicarious victimization, and perceived crime increase in the neighborhood were significant among native Koreans. Based on these findings, we offer implications for future research.