WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half of the nation’s murder victims in 2005 were black, and the number of black men who were slain is on the rise.

A majority of the black murder victims were relatively young? between 17 and 29, the Justice Department said in a study released Thursday.

The department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics report offers a snapshot of racial disparities among violent crime victims. Black people represented an estimated 13 percent of the U.S. population in 2005, the latest data available, but were the victims of 49 percent of all murders and 15 percent of rapes, assaults and other nonfatal violent crimes nationwide.

Most of the black murder victims — 93 percent?were killed by other black people, the study found.
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Additionally, more than half of black murder victims — 51 percent?were in their late teens and twenties.
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…it concluded that violent crime victims were more often black than any other race except American Indians.
Among the study’s other findings:

• Never-married black people were more likely than all other blacks to be victims of violence.
• Poorer black people were at a greater risk of violence than households with higher annual incomes.
• Black people living in cities were more likely to be violent crime victims than people living in suburban or rural areas.