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Black teens' murder rates found rising

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Murder rates, while holding steady among white U.S. teenagers, have climbed steadily among black teenagers since 2000, a study indicates.

A report co-authored by Northeastern University Criminal Justice Professor James Alan Fox also indicated the racial gap among teenage murder rates is growing, The New York Times reported Monday.

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The report indicated the main racial difference was among juveniles between 14 and 17 years old. In 2000, 539 white and 851 black juveniles in that age group committed murder, while in 2007, the number for whites, 547, had barely changed while that for blacks was 1,142, up 34 percent.

Experts told the Times much of the increase was the result of gang activity in mid-sized and large cities and the fact that gangs are using guns more often in their crimes.

"The aggregate national murder rate since 2000 has been impressively flat -- not to say there haven't been fluctuations in individual cities," Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University, told the newspaper. "But when you see a spike in a city, it very often involves young black males shooting other young black males."

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