AFRICAN-AMERICAN COLLECTIVE ACTION AND CRIME, 1955-91

Connections between collective action and common mime are often politi cally sensitive: regimes may benefit to the extent that they can dismi ss collective action as the work of criminals; criminals may benefit t o the extent that they can justify their actions as politically motiva ted. Although there is widespread disagreement about the exact relatio nship between collective action and crime, the dominant sociological v iew in recent years has been that the incidences of the two are unrela ted. Our analysis of annual changes in African American civil rights-r elated collective action and African American and white arrest rates ( robbery, homicide, burglary), 1955-91, reveals a more complex relation ship: collective action and crime rates are positively related until t he mid-1970s for both African American and whites but unrelated, or ne gatively related, afterward.