Asian Americans Underperform in Crime with One Big Exception
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 02 Apr, 2025

Our report card on Asian American crime reveals surprising underperformance even in fields in which Asians might be expected to excel.

I'm generally cool with the Asian American image.  I can live with being seen as smart, successful and polite.  But I must admit to one respect in which I chafe at the "model minority" image — the implied lack of street cred.

Let's be honest, people are more likely to believe that Chet Hanks is actually Jamaican than take us Asians seriously in a tracksuit and grill.  That does limit our style options somewhat.

Growing up, a white friend once revealed that he would tell his parents he was at my house whenever he was actually up to no good.  It was part and parcel with all the stereotypes about test scores, respect for authority and even a woeful level of trustworthiness in making sure jobs get done correctly.

Still I’ve secretly harbored the suspicion that we Asians are incapable of being serious badasses. So I set out to discover what crimes we commit, commit often and commit well.  Maybe another type of American might have ventured into the urban streets for some first-hand research.  Not me; I did it the Asian way: by combing through data. 

The 2020 Census counted 24 million Asian-Americans in this country (including mixed-race individuals) or about 7.4% of the US population.  Some estimates are lower, but we can confidently say that we’re over 6%.  

The FBI’s 2019 data, however, offered me nothing to bolster my secret suspicion.   Asian-Americans account for only 1.3% of all arrests, a fifth of the arrests we could claim in a totally fair universe!  To put that in terms Asian parents would register: we are massively underperforming. 

So I did what any Asian would do — narrowed my data focus to specific types of crimes that might exploit our stereotypical strengths.  In other words, “smart crimes”.  Surely we use our prowess with numbers to skim corporate bank accounts or use our business savvy to profit from a little insider trading? 

But, no. For the crimes of, say, forgery and counterfeiting, fraud, and embezzlement, we Asian-Americans barely claw our way up to 1.8%, about a third what our numbers entitle us.  

Murder, theft, violent crime? All below 2%. I was really stretching now.  Disorderly conduct and offense against family and children? We don’t commit even one measly percent of such crimes.

Spiritually parched from my fruitless quest, I expanded to crimes that don’t hold even a glimmer of glamour for me.

In the category described as “prostitution and commercialized vice” Asians come close to holding our own with 6.1% of all arrests.  

But apparently it’s in gambling that our criminal potential finds fulfilment.  With 6 to 7% of the population, we Asians are involved in 11.2% of gambling arrests, punching at nearly twice our weight.

My first thought was, “Of course the only crimes we commit are so innocuous that they’re actually legal in some states.”  Upon reflection I began to understand that even these two types of crimes were deeply linked to Asian stereotypes.

Prostitution is, first and foremost, a business that relies totally on access to illegal migrant women with little control over their finances or safety.  Bringing such women over to the US, often against their will, and extracting their sexual labor is a shameful endeavor, but one that requires the business acumen, a presumed Asian strength, to deal with various elements of society — kidnappers, scammers, smugglers and corrupt law enforcement officials.  

And of course the marketing side of the prostitution business too exploits the submissive geisha stereotype imposed on Asian women by GIs coming back from wartorn Asian nations with memories of brothels staffed by women without other options in societies struggling with ruined economies.

The sad plight of sex-trafficked women came to America’s attention in 2020 with the shootings of eight massage parlor workers, six of whom were Asian women.  Those shootings at three locations in Atlanta and Cherokee County, GA were established as hate crimes committed by a 21-year-old white man suffering from sex addiction.  He felt compelled to take revenge on women working at places where he had paid for sex.

Then there’s gambling, the high-performance standout in the world of Asian American crime.  Gambling might be seen as a mirror image of the stereotype of Asians who keep ego and personal feelings sublimated to the need to exhibit productivity and socially acceptable behavior.

Crazy Rich Asians, the 2018 Asian-American blockbuster, opens with the Chinese-American protagonist, a game-theory professor, explaining poker to her students. The film’s climax centers around a game of mahjong, a cultural staple in China and other parts of Asia that is commonly associated with gambling. 

These scenes serve to illustrate how deeply gambling is ingrained in Asian culture as necessary social pressure vents, both for the ‘crazy rich’ and the working class.  During Lunar New Year festivities, for example, it can be considered bad form in Chinese culture to not gamble. Casinos are aware of this susceptibility and target ads to Asian communities and send buses to Asian neighborhoods to provide free transport for seniors.  Such practices not only encourage gambling but also visits to non-legal gambling dens that are sometimes raided, resulting in arrests.

Of course the low Asian American crime rates can be laid at the feet of those Asian mothers who push kids relentlessly to enter respected professions.  I have wondered if they ever feel even a momentary pang of regret at what their success fixation is doing to our capacity to channel our inner Lil Wayne or Al Capone. Nah…