http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/ethnicity_crime.htm

Becker suggests that there is really no such thing as a deviant act. It only becomes deviant when others perceive it as such. Possible effects of labelling ethnic minorities can lead to assumptions being made about certain classes or ethnic backgrounds. The underachievement of Afro-Caribbean boys in school could lead to teachers naturally assuming that any such individual in his or her class would be pre-disposed to deviance. Such a belief may affect their treatment of such children, which in turn would back up the idea of the “self-fulfilling prophecy”. If a child is labelled as deviant, they will behave to fit their label. This means that although a child does not think of themselves as more aggressive and more criminal, when treated as such, they tend to behave in that manner.

http://www.asanet.org/images/press/docs/pdf/ASARaceCrime.pdf

It is important to emphasize that the discrimination experienced by African Americans and other minorities has deep roots in U.S. history. These experiences reveal an important part of the story of discrimination and racial prejudice in America. The focus of much historical analysis has been on the experiences of African Americans under slavery, Jim Crow laws, Black Codes, and other forms of legal discrimination (including decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding slavery), as well as oppressive and brutal treatment by legal authorities. In the late nineteenth and