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Tuesday, Sep 15, 2026

Does 2% of the population cause 80% of crime?

Matthew Yim, Oklahoma Watch
no

Available data show that small subsets of offenders account for large shares of some crimes, but these shares vary by measure and crime type and cannot be extrapolated to all crimes. No authoritative U.S.-wide finding shows that 2% of the total population commits 80% of all crime.

One Swedish study involving all people born from 1958-1980 found that about 1% of the study population were persistent offenders who accounted for 63.2% of all violent crime convictions. 

A study in the United States found street gangs, 15% – 20% of the study population, to be responsible for up to 85% of the violent crime in the areas in which they operated. 

When it comes to white-collar crimes, offenders are disproportionately white males, according to an FBI study. 

Federal crime statistics, which rely on voluntary reporting, underrepresent occurrences by nearly half in the case of violent urban crime reporting.

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