STRUCTURAL CONDITIONS AND RACIAL HOMICIDE PATTERNS: A LOOK AT THE MULTIPLE DISADVANTAGES IN URBAN AREAS* (original) (raw)
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Homicide, Structural Factors, and the Racial Invariance Assumption*
Criminology, 1999
Structural theories in criminology generally assume that the effects of structural conditions on homicide are the same for all race-groups. However, previous homicide research testing this assumption contains methodological shortcomings and has produced inconsistent findings. Therefore, the validity of the "racial invariance assumption" remains highly questionable. Using 1990 data for 125 U.S. cities, this study addresses some of the limitations of previous research in an effort to provide a more definitive examination of race differences in the effects of important structural factors on homicide rates. Contrary to the expectations of the structural perspective, the results from this study reveal substantial and statistically significant race differences. Specifically, the associations between homicide and several measures of socioeconomic deprivation (e.g., poverty, unemployment, income inequality, female-headed households, deprivation index) are found to be stronger among whites than blacks. A primary implication of these results is that the current versions of many structural theories need revision in order to account for observed race differences in the effects of structural factors and to explain fully the black-white gap in homicide rates.
2001
The purpose of this research is to estimate the differential impact of structural conditions on race-and relationship-specific homicide rates for U.S. cities in 1990. The structural conditions commonly employed in race-specific homicide research are examined, such as job accessibility, economic deprivation, racial segregation, and racial inequality. Furthermore, four relationship categories of homicide-acquaintance, family, stranger, and intimate-are disaggregated by racial group. The detailed relationship-specific homicide rates are compared to a baseline homicide rate to determine whether structural factors associated with urban disadvantage similarly influence homicide rates across relationship types. The results indicate that differences emerge in the impact of structural conditions on homicides disaggregated by race-and relationship-specific categories. Theoretical explanations consistent with criminology and race-relations literature are discussed, as well as the potential benefits and implications for studies that pursue more meaningful and detailed classifications in homicide offending.
Economic Segregation, Race, and Homicide*
Social Science Quarterly, 2006
Objective. Prior research assessing the association between structured inequality and homicides has produced inconsistent findings, particularly in regard to establishing an association between economic disadvantage and black homicide rates. In this study, we employ a measure of the spatial distribution of income, Jargowksy's (1996) economic segregation measure, to assess overall and race-specific homicide rates. Methods. Using cross-sectional Census data and Supplemental Homicide Report data across 166 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, the present analysis uses negative binomial regression models to examine the association between economic segregation and homicide rates. Results. We find that both economic segregation and absolute deprivation (i.e., the overall extent of economic disadvantage) are robust predictors of black, white, and overall homicide rates. However, an alternative measure of economic segregation, a measure capturing poverty concentration, was not found to be a significant predictor of black homicide rates. Conclusion. We suggest that further studies should consider the extent of isolation across the income continuum, instead of focusing solely on poverty concentration.
Social Science Research, 2013
Researchers tend to capture the multiple disadvantages facing urban areas by using an allencompassing disadvantage index, which combines poverty, joblessness and other economic predictors into a single index. While the use of this index is important for conceptual and methodological reasons, questions remain about whether these city characteristics differ in magnitude and significance when influencing race-specific homicide rates and whether or not there effects exhibit stability or vary over time? This article examines how discrete measures of disadvantage differ in their importance for race-specific groups over three critical time points : 1980, 1990, and 2000. After accounting for problems associated with statistical inferences, cross sectional, Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) analyses reveal that family disruption and poverty status were among the strongest predictors of race-specific homicide rates. Wald tests for the equality of coefficients confirmed significant differences in the influence of many discrete measures of disadvantage for white and black males, but the number of differences declined from 1980 and into the 2000s. That is, along with the crime drop, our research reveals increasing racial parity in structural predictors over time.
Race, economic inequality, and violent crime
Journal of Criminal Justice, 2006
The current study used data drawn from the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the census to investigate the relationship between indicators of interracial and intraracial economic inequality and violent crime rates, including White-on-Black, White-on-White, Black-on-White, and Black-on-Black offenses. Multivariate regression results for ninety-one cities showed that while total inequality and intraracial inequality had no significant association with offending rates, interracial inequality was a strong predictor of the overall violent crime rate and the Black-on-Black crime rate. Overall, these results were interpreted as consistent with J.R. relative deprivation thesis, with secondary support for P.M. macrostructural theory of intergroup relations. The findings also helped to clarify the unresolved theoretical issue regarding which reference group was most important in triggering relative deprivation among Blacks. It appeared that prior studies were unable to find support for the relative deprivation thesis for Black crime rates because of data and methodological limitations.
Social context and geographic patterns of homicide among US black and white males
American Journal of Public Health, 2000
Objectives. The recently published Atlas of United States Mortality depicted striking regional differences in homicide rates for Black and White males in the United States. This study examined these rates to gain an understanding of the contribution of social context to geographic variability in homicide. Methods. Homicide rates were calculated by health service area for the years 1988 to 1992. The contributions of age, geographic location, urbanization, and sociostructural characteristics were evaluated by means of a weighted linear mixed effects model. Results. Regional differences in urbanization explained much of the geographic variation in homicide rates, but sociostructural factors also had a significant impact. The results suggest that these effects operate similarly for White and Black males, although differences were found in the magnitudes of the effects for the 2 groups. Conclusions. Results point to a strong association between homicide and urbanization and socioeconomic conditions in all regions of the country for both Black and White males. These f indings shed light on the potential correlates of high homicide rates in the United States in the near future.
Counterbalancing Disadvantage - Residential Integration and Urban Black Homicide
Previous research has cited both racial and class segregation as important correlates of black homicide rates. We extend this line of inquiry by considering an interaction effect of racial and class integration on city-level variation in black homicide rates. Specifically, we contrast the effects contact between disadvantaged blacks and three distinct groups-more affluent blacks, disadvantaged non-blacks, and more affluent non-blacks-has on black homicide rates. Analyses of black homicide victimization and socioeconomic data for 159 central cities in the year 2000 indicate that higher levels of residential exposure between disadvantaged blacks and more affluent blacks does little to reduce rates of violence among blacks. Likewise, greater contact between disadvantaged blacks and disadvantaged non-blacks also fails to suppress rates of black violence. In contrast, when disadvantaged blacks have higher levels of exposure to more affluent non-blacks, homicide rates among blacks are consistently lower. Implications of these findings for theory and research on urban disadvantage and serious violent crime are discussed.
Justice Research and Policy, 2007
In the 1980s, some scholars suggested black violent offenders had a "propensity" to select white victims. Subsequent research demonstrated, however, that violent offenders tend to victimize intraracially. One weakness of this research was its reliance on national-level data. Using national-level estimates to calculate expected values of interracial offending implicitly assumes people have access to each other across the nation. Segregation patterns suggest otherwise. This study examines whether the propensity of violent offenders to select victims intraracially holds up if expected values are calculated locally. Findings indicate that violent offenders do tend to select victims intraracially at the local level, but that the intraracial character of violent offending varies by crime, offender race, and locale. For most cities in the analysis, assault is predominantly intraracial across offense/offender categories. For a few cities, however, criminal assault is less intraracial than expected (with white offenders victimizing interracially more than random selection would predict).