By VOTP News STL Staff
September 19, 2026
For years, Black Americans have heard the same statistic repeated whenever conversations about race and crime come up in America: Black people make up roughly 13% of the population, yet somehow that number is constantly placed beside crime statistics as if it tells the entire story. It has become one of those numbers people throw into debates with almost no discussion about what is actually being measured, how those numbers were calculated, whether they represent arrests or convictions, or whether the people being counted were ever proven guilty in the first place.
That conversation came back up after a graphic began circulating showing what it described as 2024 fraud arrest rates by race. According to the graphic, Black adults had a fraud arrest rate of roughly 60.2 per 100,000 people, compared with about 21.8 per 100,000 White people. If that is the only information someone sees, the conclusion is almost already written for them. Black people appear to be committing fraud at nearly three times the rate of White people. The problem is that once you look behind the rate and examine the actual number of arrests, the picture becomes much more complicated.
According to 2024 FBI arrest data, there were 42,673 White adults arrested for fraud compared with 25,897 Black adults. In other words, in the raw arrest totals, there were 16,776 more White adults arrested for fraud than Black adults. White adults represented about 60% of recorded adult fraud arrests in that dataset, while Black adults represented roughly 36%. Those figures do not prove that White people commit more fraud, just as a higher population adjusted rate does not prove that Black people are naturally more inclined to commit fraud. What they show is how dramatically a conversation can change depending on which number somebody decides to put in the headline.
This is where the use of per capita statistics becomes worth questioning. Per capita calculations are a legitimate statistical method when researchers are trying to compare populations of different sizes, but the problem begins when those calculations are used without showing the raw totals beside them. If one group has a smaller population, the same number of arrests will produce a much larger rate. That does not make the rate mathematically false, but it can create a completely different public perception if the audience is never told how many actual arrests occurred. When race is involved, that difference in presentation matters because the statistic can quickly move from describing law enforcement activity to implying something about an entire group of people.
There is another problem with the fraud graphic itself. The FBI data being discussed involved adult arrests, while some of the population figures being used to calculate the rates appear to come from broader Census population totals that include children. The Census Bureau also treats race and ethnicity differently. For example, Hispanic or Latino is an ethnicity and can include people who are White, Black, Asian or another race. When datasets use different definitions, those categories cannot simply be placed side by side without explanation and treated as though they are perfectly interchangeable.
The 2024 American Community Survey estimated about 41.1 million Americans as Black or African American alone out of roughly 340.1 million people, or about 12.1% under that particular Census measure. Other Census products produce somewhat different percentages depending on the population estimate and racial definition being used. That alone is a reminder that even the familiar phrase “the 13%” is shorthand, not a permanent number carved into stone.
There is also a much bigger distinction that often disappears when crime statistics are discussed online: an arrest is not the same thing as a conviction. Being arrested means law enforcement took someone into custody or recorded an arrest in connection with an alleged offense. It does not mean that person was convicted, and it certainly does not prove that an entire racial group commits more crime. Arrest statistics can also reflect differences in policing, neighborhood surveillance, enforcement priorities, reporting practices and where law enforcement resources are concentrated.
That distinction becomes even more important when we look at people who were not simply arrested, but convicted and later proven to have been wrongfully convicted. According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 147 people were exonerated in the United States in 2024. Of those 147 people, 87 were Black. The Registry reported that 115 of the 147 people exonerated that year were people of color, while official misconduct was documented in at least 104 of those cases. Those 147 people collectively lost more than 1,980 years of their lives to wrongful imprisonment.
The racial disparity becomes even more difficult to ignore when looking beyond one year. A 2022 report from the National Registry of Exonerations examined 3,200 individual exonerations recorded since 1989 and found that 53% of those exonerees were Black, while 33% were White. The Registry noted that Black Americans represented about 13.6% of the population at the time of its analysis but more than half of the people who had been exonerated. The report also found significant racial disparities in wrongful convictions involving murder, sexual assault and drug offenses.
The numbers surrounding official misconduct are just as important. In murder cases that later resulted in exoneration, the Registry found official misconduct in 78% of cases involving Black exonerees compared with 64% of cases involving White exonerees. In drug cases, official misconduct was identified in 47% of Black exonerations compared with 22% of White exonerations. The Registry has also documented large group exonerations involving fabricated drug cases, planted evidence, falsified reports and other misconduct by law enforcement officers.
None of this means every arrest of a Black person is wrongful, and none of it means every arrest of a White person is legitimate. It means the criminal justice system is complicated enough that reducing race and crime to one percentage without discussing arrests, convictions, wrongful convictions, enforcement patterns and official misconduct produces an incomplete picture.
That is why the phrase “13%” deserves more scrutiny than it usually receives. When someone says Black Americans are 13% of the population and then immediately follows that statement with a crime statistic, the audience should ask what number is being used, where it came from and what it actually represents. Is it an arrest total? Is it an arrest rate? Is it a conviction? Is it based on total population or adult population? Are the racial categories consistent across datasets? Were the cases ever adjudicated? How many were later overturned? Those are not excuses. Those are the questions responsible people are supposed to ask before turning numbers into conclusions about millions of human beings.
The uncomfortable truth is that statistics can be accurate and still be presented in a way that creates a distorted narrative. In 2024, more White adults were arrested for fraud in raw numbers than Black adults. At the same time, the Black population adjusted arrest rate was higher. Both statements can exist at the same time. The responsible conversation includes both of them instead of choosing whichever number best supports an argument someone already wanted to make.
And when people repeatedly point toward that familiar “13%,” there is another statistic worth remembering. Black Americans accounted for 53% of the 3,200 exonerations examined by the National Registry of Exonerations in its 2022 racial analysis. That does not erase crime statistics, but it should permanently end the idea that an arrest or conviction number can be discussed as though the justice system has never made serious mistakes, treated groups differently or convicted innocent people.
If America is going to continue having conversations about race and crime, then the conversation should include the entire dataset, not just the piece that makes the best meme.
Sources
- FBI Crime Data Explorer
- FBI 2024 Crime in the United States arrest table reproduction
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 American Community Survey, Table B02001
- National Registry of Exonerations, 2024 Annual Report
- National Registry of Exonerations, Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States
- National Registry of Exonerations, Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent
