In the United States, the relationship between race and crime has been a topic of public controversy and scholarly debate for more than a century. The crime rate varies between racial groups. Most homicides in the United States are intraracial—the perpetrator and victim are of the same race. Although academic research indicates that a portion of the over-representation of some racial minorities in the criminal justice system may be due to socioeconomic factors, as well as racial and ethnic discrimination by police and the judicial system, even after attempts to correct for this, certain minorities are far overrepresented as perpetrators in virtually all types of crime.