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Violent victimization among males and economic conditions: The vulnerability of race and ethnic Minorities
Abstract
Research Summary
In this article, we use data from the 1973 to 2005 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to estimate previously unknown trends in serious nonfatal violent victimization for Latino, non-Latino Black, and non-Latino White males in the United States. Past research has shown that Blacks and Latinos have been more susceptible than Whites to financial hardship during economic downturns and that economic disadvantage is an important correlate of violence in cross-sectional analyses. If significant declines in the national economy contribute to increases in violence, then crime trends disaggregated by race and ethnicity should show greater changes among minorities during periods of economic downturn. Although rates of violence have declined for all groups, we find that trends for Latino and Black males are similar and closely follow changes in consumer sentiment. In contrast, trends for White males display fewer fluctuations coinciding with changes in economic conditions. Continued disaggregation shows that these patterns appear primarily in stranger violence and not in violence by known offenders. The patterns also suggest that the association between changing economic conditions and male victimization trends might have weakened in recent years.
Policy Implications
The findings raise concerns about the potential impact of recent economic changes on the risk for serious victimization, particularly among Blacks and Latinos. In light of the possible recent weakening of the relationship between economic changes and crime, future research should assess whether criminal justice policies and other factors moderate the relationship between economic conditions and victimization and use group-specific measures of violence so that important variability across race and ethnicity is not masked. These analyses also should be expanded to consider the potential effects on violence of government policies designed to alleviate poverty and unemployment.
... For example, during the Great Recession of 2008, minorities were forced to work fewer hours, take more unpaid leave, and switch from full-time to part-time work more often than their White counterparts (Taylor, Kochhar, & Fry, 2011). Indeed, empirical work has shown that threats to resources promote antiminority attitudes, stereotypes, policy support, and violence (e.g., Bianchi, Hall, & Lee, 2018;Esses, Jackson, & Armstrong, 1998;Hovland & Sears, 1940;Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Riek, Mania, & Gaertner, 2006)-a pattern of prejudice and discrimination that appears to reinforce socioeconomic disparities and perpetuate inequality. ...
... Minorities are often derogated and disenfranchised when resources become scarce-a pattern that leads to heightened discrimination and perpetuated disparities (Bianchi et al., 2018;Esses et al., 1998;Hovland & Sears, 1940;Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Riek et al., 2006). We asked whether this pattern of devaluation under scarcity is reflected in the visual perception of faces, such that minority group member faces are less readily encoded under scarcity, and whether this tendency is associated with economic discrimination. ...
... It is well-documented that minorities suffer disproportionately when resources are scarce (Bianchi et al., 2018;Esses et al., 1998;Hovland & Sears, 1940;Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Quillian, 1995;Riek et al., 2006;Taylor et al., 2011), yet the sociocognitive mechanisms through which scarcity gives rise to behavioral discrimination have remained obscure. To this end, recent research has identified processes such as biased race categorization (e.g., of mixed-race faces as Black) and representation (of faces as darker and more Afrocentric), as well as moderating factors (e.g., egalitarian motivations, social dominance orientation), that begin to explain the psychology of scarcity-induced discrimination (Ho, Sidanius, Cuddy, & Banaji, 2013;Krosch & Amodio, 2014;Krosch et al., 2017;Rodeheffer et al., 2012). ...
When economic resources are scarce, racial minorities are often devalued and disenfranchised. We proposed that this pattern extends to visual processing, such that the encoding of minority group faces is disrupted under scarcity-an effect that may facilitate discrimination and contribute to racial disparities. Specifically, we used EEG and fMRI to test whether scarce economic conditions induce deficits in neural encoding of Black faces, and we examined whether this effect is associated with discriminatory resource allocation in behavior. In Study 1, framing resources as scarce (vs. neutral) selectively impaired the neural encoding of Black (vs. White) faces, as indexed by a delayed face-related N170 ERP response, and the degree of this encoding deficit predicted anti-Black allocation decisions. In Study 2, we replicated and extended this effect using fMRI: Resources framed as scarce (vs. neutral) reduced face-sensitive fusiform activity to Black (vs. White) faces. Furthermore, scarcity-decreased fusiform activity to Black faces corresponded with decreased valuation-related striatum activity to predict anti-Black allocation decisions. These findings suggest that impaired visual processing and devaluation occur selectively for minorities under scarcity-an implicit effect that may promote discrimination and contribute to rising disparities observed during economic stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... Racial and ethnic differences in violent victimization are well documented. Rates of violent victimization among non-Latino Blacks (hereafter referred to as Blacks) exceed Latino and non-Latino White rates (hereafter referred to as Whites), and Latino rates surpass White rates (e.g., Hawkins 1995;LaFree et al., 2010;Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010;Light and Ulmer, 2016;Peterson and Krivo, 1999;Phillips 2002;Sampson and Lauritsen, 1994). Most of the research on race and ethnic differences in rates focuses on homicide victimization and reveals large disparities in risk across these three population groups. ...
... When more commonly occurring forms of serious nonlethal violent victimization (here defined as rape and sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault) 1 are considered, racial and ethnic differences in risk are much smaller (Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010). According to 2010 data from the UCR and the NCVS, there were roughly 1.2 to 1.4 million serious violent victimizations, respectively, which suggests that there were approximately eighty-five to ninety-five serious non-lethal victimizations for every homicide occurrence. ...
... for more information about NCS and NCVS data files. 7. Details about NCVS measures of race and ethnicity over time are available in Lauritsen and Heimer (2010). 8. ...
Latino and Black males are more likely to suffer serious violent victimization compared to White males, and it is likely that economic disadvantage and other individual level differences play a key role in these disparities. This study of self-reported data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (1973–2010) is the first effort to assess three important issues: 1) the extent to which the relationship between serious violent victimization and race and ethnicity can be accounted for by age, location of residence, poverty status, and employment; 2) whether these factors have similar influences among Black, White, and Latino males; and 3) whether the net risk for violence associated with race and ethnicity has diminished over time. Our results show that disparities between Black and White male violent victimization decrease approximately 70% once age, location of residence, poverty status, and employment are taken into account, and that differences between Latinos and White males are fully accounted for by these factors. Poverty status is the only factor that varies in the strength of its association with violence across groups. We also find little evidence to suggest that the association between race, ethnicity and victimization risk changed significantly from 1973 to 2010, once other factors are considered. Despite notable declines in violence over this time period, Black and White disparities in male victimization persist over the past four decades; however, the relationship between poverty status and violence has increased some for Black and White males.
... Prior to the availability of data from the recession of 2007, a body of evidence had been emerging that showed that changes in macroeconomic conditions are associated with crime and violence (e.g., Arvanites & DeFina, 2006;Baumer, 2008;Gould, Weinberg, & Mustard, 2002;Lauritsen, Gorislavsky, & Heimer, 2013;Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Messner, Raffalovich, & McMillan, 2001;Raphael & Winter-Ebmer, 2001;Rosenfeld, 2009;Rosenfeld & Fornango, 2007). Clearly, the recent declines in violence found in the UCR and the NCVS suggest that the relationship between economic conditions and violence cannot be simple or direct. ...
... These analyses showed that homicide increases were most dramatic and concentrated among young, Black males, a finding that was subsequently determined to be likely the result of the arming of young men involved in crack cocaine markets. In addition, examinations of nonlethal violence rates disaggregated by victim subgroup characteristics found that the economic downturns of the 1970s and 1980s were associated with higher rates of serious violent victimization among minority males, in part because minority subgroups were more likely to be affected by such changes in the economy than were non-Latino White males (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Lauritsen et al., 2013). These relationships between year-to-year changes in the economy and violence were found to be masked in the national violence rates because such rates were dominated by the experiences of the majority group. ...
... However, even where the magnitude of the coefficient is as large as it is in the earlier period (e.g., between unemployment and stranger violence for White males), the sign is in the opposite direction. Figure 3 displays the trends in stranger violence for Latino, Black, and White males, extending the trends presented in previous research by Lauritsen and Heimer (2010) to include data for the years 2006 to 2011. Inclusion of data for these six additional years does not change the basic patterns shown in previous research that the 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 aggregate rates of male serious violence mask important subgroup differences in period fluctuations, particularly during the economic downturns of the early 1980s and early 1990s. ...
To more fully understand how economic conditions and the latest economic downturn might be associated with rates of violence, this research examines a variety of economic indicators and their relationships to subgroup rates of violence overall and by victim-offender relationship. We find that the recent recession of 2007 to 2009 has not produced significant increases in victimization for any of the groups or violence types analyzed here. We also find that several economic indicators are associated with violence during the 1973 to 2000 period, yet these same factors fail to be significantly correlated with the trends from 2001 to 2011. This suggests that historical conditions unique to the more recent period are moderating the relationships between trends in the macroeconomy and violence, and that future research should focus on developing and modeling indicators of various potential moderating influences. We also caution, however, that this recent change in the association between the economy and the violence is based on the data from a relatively few number of years and may not continue into the future.
... Los resultados de este tipo de encuestas ponen de relieve la conciencia de vulnerabilidad de sectores de la población como son las mujeres (Snedker, 2012), los jóvenes (Foley et al., 2013), las minorías desfavorecidas (Lauritsen y Heimer, 2010) o las personas con peor salud (Cossman y Rader, 2011) frente a la delincuencia y la criminalidad común. Pero también nos muestran la preocupación general por sufrir otros menos frecuentes, pero siempre posibles, como los atentados terroristas. ...
... Al igual que sucedía respecto al crimen, la sensación de vulnerabilidad de diferentes grupos sociales (Cossman y Rader, 2011;Foley et al., 2013;Lauritsen y Heimer, 2010;Snedker, 2012) resultaría clave para comprender algunas dinámicas de la inseguridad ante situaciones excepcionales. En nuestros casos, las personas mayores se sienten más vulnerables frente a una pandemia mientras que las más jóvenes sienten que tienen mucho más que perder en un escenario bélico que no se asemeja a nada que hayan vivido previamente. ...
El presente trabajo analiza la sensación de inseguridad de la sociedad española ante dos fenómenos tan dispares como son una pandemia global y una guerra en un país vecino de la Unión Europea, localizada pero con capacidad de desencadenar un conflicto de consecuencias destructivas aún no comprobadas por la humanidad. Exponemos que el sentimiento de inseguridad frente a situaciones excepcionales es diferenciable del que la población experimenta frente a la delincuencia y a la criminalidad, sobre lo cual establecemos una base teórica. Igualmente, abordamos la relación entre inseguridad y miedo, en ocasiones considerados indistintamente. Mediante el uso del método estadístico y valiéndonos de datos de encuesta del CIS, identificamos las variables de la población relacionadas con su sensación de inseguridad, siendo importante la edad para ambos casos junto a otros factores circunstanciales. Asimismo, hemos identificado una relación relevante entre la inseguridad frente al COVID-19 y la demanda de medidas de control y de aislamiento más exigentes así como entre la inseguridad frente a la guerra en Ucrania y el deseo de una mayor inversión en defensa y de la creación de un ejército europeo. Los resultados obtenidos nos sirven para establecer líneas de trabajo para futuras investigaciones sociales sobre inseguridad pública.
... For instance, as adolescents get older, they are more likely to date, have less parental supervision, and engage in other risk behaviors (e.g., binge drinking), which could increase risk of interpersonal violence experiences (Dir, Coskunpinar, & Cyders, 2014). Racial and sexual minorities may disproportionately experience interpersonal violence because of exposure to higher levels of stressful external stimuli such as experiencing discrimination or poverty (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Meyer, 2003). For instance, research finds that experiencing stigma contributes to mental health problems and substance misuse, which relates to elevated risk of interpersonal violence experiences (Decker, Littleton, & Edwards, 2018;Edwards et al., 2015). ...
... For instance, research finds that experiencing stigma contributes to mental health problems and substance misuse, which relates to elevated risk of interpersonal violence experiences (Decker, Littleton, & Edwards, 2018;Edwards et al., 2015). Research also finds that lower socioeconomic status is related to higher rates of interpersonal violence among adolescents (Spriggs, Halpern, Herring, & Schoenbach, 2009), which likely contributes to the higher exposure of racial/ ethnic minority members to violence (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010). ...
Research has identified interpersonal violence (a broad term that includes stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and physical dating violence) as a major problem among adolescents. Research suggests that there are different patterns, or classes, of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration, but little of this work has focused on adolescents. In the current study, we conducted latent class analysis using a sample of 2,921 adolescent girls and boys in high school from northern New England to assess varying patterns of interpersonal violence victimization and perpetration over the past 2 months, specifically stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and dating violence. Four classes of violence victimization and perpetration were identified: (a) No Victimization or Perpetration class (n = 1,898, 65.0%), (b) Low Victimization and Perpetration class (n = 343, 11.7%), (c) Harassment Victimization Only class (n = 560, 19.2%), and (d) High Victimization and Low Perpetration class (n = 120, 4.1%). Several differences in classes emerged as a function of demographic and behavioral health variables. For example, the High Victimization and Low Perpetration class had the highest proportion of girls and youth with sexual minority status. Furthermore, youth in the High Victimization and Low
... As a result of improved data being available, the advent and widespread use of multivariate analytical tools, and increasingly sophisticated ethnographic methods, we now have a better understanding of racial differences in criminal involvement than the Commission had in the mid-1960s. Beginning a decade after The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967) was published, criminologists used different data sources to show that African Americans do indeed have higher rates of involvement in some violent crimes (Hindelang, 1978;Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010;Parker, 2008;Sampson and Lauritsen, 1997). But this pattern does not consistently hold in published findings when property crimes were examined (Sampson and Lauritsen, 1997). ...
... They also recognized the need for better crime data and recommended that the nation should embark on regular victimization studies, which was realized in 1974 when the National Crime Survey, later the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), began being collected annually. Through NCVS data, it is affirmed that African Americans are disproportionally the perpetrators of violent crime and that they are also overrepresented among victims of violent crime (Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010). Other data that criminologists have relied on in the 50 years since the publication of The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967) have shown us that arrest rates overstate racial differences in both property and drug crime violations (Blumstein and Beck, 2014). ...
Fifty years ago, the U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under President Johnson did not frequently mention race and ethnicity in its discussion of and recommendations for the criminal justice system, but it did have a lot to say about race and crime. Through the use of arrest rates to measure racial differentials in criminal involvement, the Commission concluded that Blacks commit more crime as a consequence of Black people living in greater numbers in criminogenic “slum” conditions. To address racial differences, the Commission favored the Great Society programs of Johnson's War on Poverty. Contemporary criminologists continue to debate the racial distribution of crime, the causes of crimes, and the best policies to reduce crime and racial differentials. The Commission did not anticipate the current debate among scholars regarding how much racial disproportionality exists in the criminal justice system and its causes and consequences. The policies that led to mass incarceration have been significant drivers of continued criminal justice racial disparity. Those policies are inconsistent with the recommendation in The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society (1967), upending the pursuit of a more fair and just system.
... According to the 2007-2010 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), young Latino adults in new settlement areas have a violent victimization rate that is almost double that of young Latino adults in traditional settlement areas (Xie and Planty 2014). Yet, the elevated risk of violent victimization for young Latino adults in newer areas of settlement is poorly understood. 2 Previously, few researchers knew about the higher risk of violent victimization for Latinos associated with newer settlement areas because many of the critical studies of Latino victimization were either limited to large Latino gateway cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami (e.g., Block 1985;Martinez et al. 2004;Sorenson and Telles 1991), or were based on national data that did not distinguish between areas with different settlement histories (e.g., Dugan and Apel 2003;Lauritsen and Heimer 2010;Phillips 2002;Rennison 2002;Xie 2010). Other recent research has focused on crime in the total population in newly emerging immigrant areas, but was unable to separate victimization of Latinos from that of other groups (e.g. , Ferraro 2016;Ramey 2013). ...
... Alternatively, official crime statistics from police departments may contain Latino identifiers for arrested offenders (and sometimes also for offenders and victims), even though the data necessarily limit the types of crimes one can study (and also the study's geographic coverage) because in most states, police-based crime data do not supply this information (see discussion by Painter- Davis and Harris 2016). 3 As a third data source, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is increasingly being used for study of Latino victimization (e.g., Dugan and Apel 2003;Hart and Rennison 2011;Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). In neighborhoods of higher Latino and immigrant concentration, there is evidence from ethnographic studies that immigrants sometimes distrust police authorities because of former experiences with crime and justice system in their home countries (Menjívar and Bejarano 2004). ...
Objectives
We used multilevel data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to identify factors that account for differences in risk of violent victimization among young Latino adults in new and traditional settlement areas.
Methods
Area-identified NCVS data (2008–2012) were linked with census tract data from the decennial census and American Community Survey to study individual and community contributions to the risk of violent victimization. We analyzed total violence and violence specific to offense types and victim-offender relationship. The analyses were performed adjusting for the complex survey design.
Results
Young Latino adults in new settlement areas have higher victimization rates than their counterparts in traditional areas for total violence and for the majority of violence types studied. Holding constant individual and other contextual factors, Latino population density is a key neighborhood characteristic that explains the observed area differences in victimization, yielding evidence for the hypothesis that co-ethnic support in a community helps protect young Latino adults and contributes to differences in victimization across areas. Also there is evidence that the protective role of Latino population density is stronger for violence involving non-strangers than it is for violence involving strangers. Moreover, we find that the concentration of Latino immigrants, which indicates the neighborhood potential for immigrant revitalization, is another neighborhood factor that protects young Latino adults in both new and traditional settlement areas. However, there is some but limited evidence that the neighborhood-revitalizing role of immigration might be smaller in some contexts (such as some new areas outside central cities), possibly because those areas are heterogeneous in their ability to promote the integration of immigrants.
Conclusions
Our analysis of the NCVS shows the importance of neighborhood factors for the risk of violence among young Latino adults. It provides evidence consistent with co-ethnic support and immigrant revitalization theories. The findings also suggest that the effects of those neighborhood factors may be contingent upon violence type and the context in which they occur. These findings help us understand the difference in the safety of young Latino adults in new and traditional areas.
... Although much attention has been paid to macro-level changes in crime and teen childbearing in both the popular press and scholarly literatures, the apparent co-occurrence of these declines has been relatively neglected in extant studies. Much remains unknown about the underlying social conditions that are driving the decline of both demographic trends (Baumer and Wolff 2014a;Lauritsen and Heimer 2010;McCall et al. 2010;Santelli and Melnikas 2010). And perhaps more importantly, we do not know if the same distal factors that are responsible for the drop in the crime rate are similarly implicated in falling rates of teen births. ...
... After a period of volatility during the 1980s, rates of homicide, robbery, and motor vehicle theft exhibited substantial declines beginning in the early 1990s (Baumer and Wolff 2014a). These patterns appear to hold for both Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and National Crime Victimization Survey data and exhibit little variation when disaggregated by gender or race/ ethnicity (Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). Given the salience of violent crime as captured by the homicide rate, the typical estimate of the crime decline's initiation has focused on the early 1990s. ...
Objectives
The previous 25 years have witnessed remarkable upheavals in the social landscape of the United States. Two of the most notable trends have been dramatic declines in levels of crime as well as teen childbearing. Much remains unknown about the underlying conditions that might be driving these changes. More importantly, we do not know if the same distal factors that are responsible for the drop in crime rates are similarly implicated in falling rates of teen births. We examine four overarching potential explanations: fluctuations in economic opportunity, shifting population demographics, differences in state-level public policies, and changes in expectations regarding health and mortality.
Methods
We combine state and year-specific data from existing secondary sources to model trajectories of violent crime and teen fertility over a 20-year period from 1990 to 2010 using simultaneous fixed-effects regression models.
Results
We find that 4 of the 20 predictors examined—growth in the service sector of the labor market, increasing racial diversity especially among Hispanics, escalating levels of migration, and the expansion of family planning services to low-income women—offer the most convincing explanations for why rates of violent crime and teen births have been steadily decreasing over time. Moreover, we are able to account for almost a quarter of the joint declines in violent crime and teen births.
Conclusions
Our conclusions underscore the far reaching effects that aggregate level demographic conditions and policies are likely to have on important social trends that might, at first glance, seem unrelated. Furthermore, the effects of policy efforts designed to target outcomes in one area are likely to spill over into other domains.
... Unknown 1 For a brief period, it appeared as though something of a research consensus finally had developed regarding the impact of economic change on acquisitive crime rates in the United States. Regardless of whether economic conditions were measured by unemployment, economic output, wages, or consumer sentiment, several recent studies told essentially the same story: as the economy soured, robbery and property crime rates turned up; as economic conditions improved, crime rates dropped (Arvanites and Defina 2006;Gould et al. 2002;Grogger 1998;Lauritsen and Heimer 2010;Raphael and Winter-Ebmer 2001;Rosenfeld and Fornango 2007). The same relationship between economic change and property crime that had been established for the US also was found to exist in a sample of European nations (Rosenfeld and Messner 2009). ...
... Grogger (1998) and Gould et al. (2002) found an inverse relationship between wages and youth crime in the US, and some studies even showed the expected positive effect of unemployment on acquisitive crime trends (e.g., Gould et al. 2002;Raphael and Winter-Ebmer 2001). The new consensus in findings concerning the relationship between economic conditions and acquisitive crime is matched by equal convergence in results showing little or no relationship with homicide and other violent crimes (for an exception, see Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). ...
Objectives
Inflation is conspicuous by its absence from recent research on crime and the economy. We argue that price inflation increases the rate of crimes committed for monetary gain by fueling demand for cheap stolen goods.
Methods
The study includes inflation along with indicators of unemployment, GDP, income, consumer sentiment, and controls in error correction models of acquisitive crime covering the period from 1960 to 2012. Both short- and long-run effects of the predictors are estimated.
Results
Among the economic indicators, only inflation has consistent and robust short- and long-run effects on year-over-year change in the offense types under consideration. Low inflation helps to explain why acquisitive crime did not increase during the 2008–2009 recession. Imprisonment rates also have robust long-run effects on change in acquisitive crime rates.
Conclusions
Incorporating inflation into studies of crime and the economy can help to reduce the theoretical and empirical uncertainty that has long characterized this important research area in criminology.
... 2 Unlike the rates available in most printed reports, we estimate the NCS and NCVS rates to include series victimizations (high-frequency repeated incidents in which the victim is unable to recall the details of each event), counting them as one incident. Adjustment weights are used to account for the change in NCVS methodology that occurred in 1992, making the NCS rates for 1973-1992 comparable to the NCVS 1993-2012 rates (see, e.g., Kindermann et al. 1997;Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). We also use the NCVS data to estimate crime rates for incidents that victims say were reported to the police. ...
... We also note that recent crime trends research suggests that the relationships between factors such as consumer pessimism and violence appear to change beginning in the early 2000s (e.g.,Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). Existing research has not yet accounted for such changes, but these changing relationships suggest that other factors associated with the more recent period may be moderating these relationships (e.g., perhaps through improvements in policing, other macro-social changes, or a combination of such factors). ...
Objectives
This study uses UCR and NCVS crime data to assess which data source appears to be more valid for analyses of long-term trends in crime. The relationships between UCR and NCVS trends in violence and six factors from prior research are estimated to illustrate the impact of data choice on findings about potential sources of changes in crime over time.
Methods
Crime-specific data from the UCR and NCVS for the period 1973–2012 are compared to each other using a variety of correlational techniques to assess correspondence in the trends, and to UCR homicide data which have been shown to be externally valid in comparison with other mortality records. Log-level trend correlations are used to describe the associations between trends in violence, homicide and the potential explanatory factors.
Results
Although long-term trends in robbery, burglary and motor vehicle theft in the UCR and NCVS are similar, this is not the case for rape, aggravated assault, or a summary measure of serious violence. NCVS trends in serious violence are more highly correlated with homicide data than are UCR trends suggesting that the NCVS is a more valid indicator of long-term trends in violence for crimes other than robbery. This is largely due to differences during the early part of the time series for aggravated assault and rape when the UCR data exhibited consistent increases in the rates in contrast to general declines in the NCVS. Choice of data does affect conclusions about the relationships between hypothesized explanatory factors and serious violence. Most notably, the reported association between trends in levels of gasoline lead exposure and serious violence is likely to be an artifact associated with the reliance on UCR data, as it is not found when NCVS or homicide trend data are used.
Conclusions
The weight of the evidence suggests that NCVS data represent more valid indicators of the trends in rape, aggravated assault and serious violence from 1973 to the mid-1980s. Studies of national trends in serious violence that include the 1973 to mid-1980s period should rely on NCVS and homicide data for analyses of the covariates of violent crime trends.
... However, most examinations involving intersectionality at the macro level focus on the commission and consequences of male, as opposed to female, offending (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Spohn & Holleran, 2000;Steffensmeier, Ulmer, & Kramer, 1998). For example, Steffensmeier et al. (1998) examined the intersection of race, gender, and age in judicial decision-making and found that sentencing decisions are the most punitive for individuals who occupy multiple marginalized social locations, namely young black males. ...
... Previous studies have established the importance of economic disadvantage and marginalization to gender-specific homicide rates (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Parker, 2004;Steffensmeier & Haynie, 2000a, 2000b), yet less is known about the homicide offending of African-American and white females specifically. Taking into account an intersectional framework, we attempt to examine the role economic disadvantage plays in race-specific female homicide offending, while also accounting for important policy changes surrounding domestic violence or shifts in formal social control that might differentially influence these groups. ...
Intersectionality implies that multiple socially constructed categories (race, gender, and class) interact, but also operate at many levels when contributing to inequality. This paper provides an illustration of the intersection of race, gender, and disadvantage in the study of race-specific female homicide rates. In this research, we are interested in how race- and gender-specific forms of disadvantage differentially influence rates of homicide offending by white and African-American women in cross-sectional and change models. We account for the availability of domestic violence resources and crime control policies, in addition to the structural forces that have been found to influence female offending specifically. Methodological techniques are used to amend caveats in the data, such as the rare nature of female homicide offending. Our findings reveal similarities in the way economic marginalization and divorce influence female homicides across racial groups but a number of differences in the role of crime control policies and availability of domestic violence resources on race-specific female homicides cross-sectionally and over time. Overall, our study produced results which advocate the intersectional framework.
... The data assembled for our study cannot discern between these potential explanations. Although we account for changes in respondent employment status and annual household income, these measures may not be sufficiently precise to capture changes in economic hardships that could increase violent victimizations among minorities (e.g., Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010). Additionally, while the NCVS contains a time-varying measure of respondent marital status, this indicator is unlikely to capture dynamic family separations that frequently occur amid removals facilitated by 287(g) and Secure Communities (Capps et al., 2015). ...
Research Summary: Our understanding of how immigration enforcement impacts crime has been informed exclusively by data from police crime statistics. This study complements existing research by using longitudinal multilevel data from the National Crime Victimization Survey for 2005-2014 to simultaneously assess the impact of the three predominant immigration policies that have been implemented in local communities. The results indicate that the activation of Secure Communities and 287(g) task force agreements significantly increased violent victimization risk among Latinos, whereas they showed no evident impact on victimization risk among non-Latino Whites and Blacks. The activation of 287(g) jail enforcement agreements and anti-detainer policies had no significant impact on violent victimization risk during the period.
Policy Implications: Contrary to their stated purpose of enhancing public safety, our results show that the Secure Communities program and 287(g) task force agreements did not reduce crime, but instead eroded security in U.S. communities by increasing the likelihood that Latinos experienced violent victimization. These results support the Federal government’s ending of 287(g) task force agreements and its more recent move to end the Secure Communities program. Additionally, the results of our study add to the evidence challenging claims that anti-detainer policies pose a threat to violence risk.
... Then minimizing or, possibly, eliminating the additional discrimination and disparate impact posed by algorithmic solutions is fundamental (goal 1). However, empirical evidence has also revealed that these same groups are also disproportionately damaged by crime, and especially violent crime (Friedman et al., 2011;Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Peterson & Krivo, 1999). Ignoring this aspect largely oversimplifies the interdependencies and overlap between victims and offenders (Jennings et al., 2010(Jennings et al., , 2012Muftić et al., 2015) and would underestimate the role that many times victimization plays in triggering offending behaviors (Turanovic & Pratt, 2013;Turanovic et al., 2015). ...
Machine Learning for Criminology and Crime Research: At the Crossroads reviews the roots of the intersection between machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and research on crime; examines the current state of the art in this area of scholarly inquiry; and discusses future perspectives that may emerge from this relationship.
As machine learning and AI approaches become increasingly pervasive, it is critical for criminology and crime research to reflect on the ways in which these paradigms could reshape the study of crime. In response, this book seeks to stimulate this discussion. The opening part is framed through a historical lens, with the first chapter dedicated to the origins of the relationship between AI and research on crime, refuting the "novelty narrative" that often surrounds this debate. The second presents a compact overview of the history of AI, further providing a nontechnical primer on machine learning. The following chapter reviews some of the most important trends in computational criminology and quantitatively characterizing publication patterns at the intersection of AI and criminology, through a network science approach. This book also looks to the future, proposing two goals and four pathways to increase the positive societal impact of algorithmic systems in research on crime. The sixth chapter provides a survey of the methods emerging from the integration of machine learning and causal inference, showcasing their promise for answering a range of critical questions.
With its transdisciplinary approach, Machine Learning for Criminology and Crime Research is important reading for scholars and students in criminology, criminal justice, sociology, and economics, as well as AI, data sciences and statistics, and computer science.
... Yet, the association with perceived risk did not extend to other demographic subgroups known to have elevated fear of crime and victimization (Russo et al. 2011;Vieno et al. 2013). Unlike other demographic correlates tested in this study, there is a strong link between poverty and concentrated poverty (Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). Those living in poverty are highly likely to reside with or near others in similar economic circumstances. ...
This study explored interconnections among perceived risk of an active shooter event occurring in the community, indicators of community vulnerability, and individual demographic traits. Individual-level data were obtained using an online survey of 668 adult Pennsylvania residents, selected to be representative of Pennsylvania demographics. Four subthemes of the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) were used as proxy indicators of community vulnerability. Results indicated that higher levels of perceived risk were associated with lower income. There was limited evidence that Blacks and females had higher perceived risk than Whites and males, respectively. Community vulnerability was positively associated with perceived risk, most notably higher levels of community vulnerability related to minority population. Those with higher education had lower perceived risk than those with lower levels of education. Results support the minority threat hypothesis but differ somewhat from studies examining fear of crime more generally.
... Victimization surveys have shown that ethnic minorities are at increased risk for property crimes, (serious) violence, and sexual victimization (e.g., Averdijk et al., 2012;Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2014;Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010). These findings are likely in part driven by the mediating effects of exposure and proximity to risky social settings (Berg, 2014). ...
This chapter reviews what is known about victim selection-that is, the question of why offenders select some people, but not others, to be victims of crime. It first addresses theoretical perspectives on victim selection, namely the structural-choice model of victim selection, social interactionism, and target congruence. It then describes three data sources that have been used in prior research to study victim selection: police reports, victimization surveys, and offender interviews. Subsequently, empirical findings on victim selection are reviewed and organized into nine subsections: victims' demographic characteristics, psychological characteristics, physical characteristics, behavior, biological characteristics, prior victimization, relationship to the offender, behavior during the offense, and the role of randomness. The final section discusses research gaps and potential future directions in the field, including an emphasis on theoretical explanations and mediators, cross-cultural studies, methodological innovation and diversity, interactions between victim and offender characteristics, and generality across crime types and subpopulations.
... A key element in achieving this objective is the recognition that race and ethnicity are central concepts in crime and the administration of justice. Research shows a consistent pattern of racial inequalities in crime, victimization, and criminal justice outcomes (Bridges and Steen, 1998;Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010;Martinez 2002;Miller 2008;Peterson and Krivo, 2010;Sampson et al., 2005;Tonry 2011;Western 2006). In many ways, the national conversation about criminal justice reform is a national conversation about racial disparities in the criminal justice system and their impact on citizens' perceptions of the legitimacy of the justice system. ...
In recent years, we have witnessed various efforts by the federal government to advance our justice system and improve public safety. Collaborations across justice and service agencies and research on what works in criminal justice policy have been central in criminal justice reform activities. Within the juvenile justice arena, reducing rates of victimization and delinquency, as well as implementing strategies to reduce racial and ethnic disparities remain priorities. In this essay, I discuss how research on neuroscience and brain development, and racial and ethnic disparities in justice system outcomes has informed juvenile justice policy and procedural protections for youth. I also review how school policies and practices can perpetuate racial and ethnic disparities in justice outcomes. Throughout the essay, I discuss the federal government’s role in supporting research to advance policies and practices designed to reduce these harms. I highlight the implications of these activities and ways in which data and research can continue to play a key role in realizing equal opportunity and justice for all youth, especially as they are the most vulnerable members of society.
... This was a tough one because, with few exceptions, prior researchers had not reported significant effects of changing macroeconomic conditions on violent crime (for an exception, see Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010). I surmised that consumer sentiment, and perhaps other economic indicators, might influence the change in violent crime rates over time through their effect on acquisitive crime rates. ...
The study of crime trends has proceeded along two paths: 1) normal science investigations of slow-moving and tractable changes in crime rates and explanatory conditions and 2) research encounters with unexpected and abrupt changes in crime rates resulting from exogenous shocks. I draw from my research on the relationship between crime rates and changing macroeconomic conditions to illustrate the pains and pleasures of studying crime trends with the tools of normal science. I describe my exploratory investigations of the recent homicide rise in the United States to underscore the theoretical importance and methodological challenges of research on exogenous shocks to crime rates. Finally, I hope to convey to the next generation of criminologists the intellectual excitement that comes from the study of crime trends.
... Importantly, many prior studies of violence trends reveal the value of disaggregating trends by the demographic characteristics of the victim, such as age, sex, and race and ethnicity. For example, researchers noted the disparate increases in homicide during the late 1980s and early 1990s among young black males (e.g., Blumstein & Rosenfeld 1998), whereas others have shown that long-term declines in nonlethal violence have disproportionately benefitted males compared to females (Heimer & Lauritsen 2008) and that short-term fluctuations in the violent victimization of black, white, and Latino males vary as well (Lauritsen & Heimer 2010). These types of findings indicate that some sociodemographic characteristics, and perhaps other individual-level correlates of victimization, may change over time. ...
This paper assesses the state of the literature on victimization and its correlates by examining a diverse set of victimization trends and by summarizing the known correlates of victimization exhibited in research conducted at varying levels of analysis. A broad assessment of victimization research is valuable because it can shed light on both the similarities and differences in a wide range of trends and correlates of criminal victimization, thus prompting useful integration of the diverse set of literatures in this field. We also highlight how some individual-level correlates of victimization vary across spatial contexts as well as in their magnitude over time. Our review suggests that further attention to the commonalities in correlates across various types of victimization, and to multilevel and macrohistorical contexts, can help improve the utility of victimization research findings for both theory and practice.
... For example, in 2012 only about one third (34 percent) of the hate crime victimizations were reported to police, whereas 60 percent were not reported. Another key strength of the NCVS data is that they include detailed information on the victim, such as victim-offender relationship and racial-ethnic background, which permits for an exploration of subgroup rates of victimization (Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010). For example, looking at the impact of the victim's race on the reporting of hate crimes to the police, Zaykowski (2010) found that minority victimizations were less likely to be reported than the victimizations of whites. ...
The passage of the Hate Crime Statistics Act (HCSA) of 1990 mandated that the Attorney General prepare an annual report of hate crimes from federal and state law enforcement agencies in order to provide a better understanding on the characteristics and magnitude of hate crimes in the United States. This chapter examines this development of this national hate crime collection effort led by the FBI, in addition to the data collection efforts conducted by other national and local agencies, and provides an overview of the major strengths and limitations with each source of data. Given these challenges, we offer recommendations on strategies to improve our measurement of hate crime and gain a better understanding of the characteristics and prevalence of hate crime in the United States.
... The increase in proportions of clients committing burglary offences in Sefton between 12/13 and 13/14 is also further evidence of this. A number of researchers have DIP Merseyside Demographics Report 13/14 -Page 59 commented on the link between an economic recession and an increase in criminal activity (Lauritsen & Heimer 2010;Cook, 2010;Hooghe et al, 2011) and teams should be aware of the potential of more frequent presentations to DIP by clients funding their drug use through crime. ...
0151 231 4290 k.cuddy@ljmu.ac.uk twitter.com/CPH_IMS 978-1-910725-07-8 (web)
... Discrimination in the justice system is frequently discussed in the media and in academic outlets, and disparities in victimization, offending, and treatment by the criminal justice system are well-known. Research over the past few decades shows that blacks, and to a somewhat lesser extent Hispanics, are disproportionately likely to be victims of violent crime, with much higher homicide, shooting, and robbery victimization rates than whites (Harrell 2007;Lauritsen and Heimer 2010;Rennison 2001;Sampson and Lauritsen 1997;Truman and Langton 2014). There is also a greater risk among children under 18 and males (Truman and Langton 2014). ...
Inequality is a characteristic of societies worldwide, and many groups face disparities across a range of domains from economy to health to justice. While inequality is a complex problem in which many of these domains are interconnected, most research examines only one area, or at most the effect of one area on another. This paper details an innovative approach to studying inequality using an indicators methodology. The Equality Indicators are comprised of 96 measures of inequality and how it changes annually across six themes: Economy, Education, Health, Housing, Justice, and Services. It compares the experiences of those most likely to be adversely affected by inequalities to those of less disadvantaged groups. Here, we detail the development of the tool, its structure, data sources, and scoring system, followed by baseline findings from New York City, where we combined administrative and secondary public survey data with the data from a new public survey conducted for this study. We found substantial inequalities across all six themes, although they were most pronounced in Health and Justice. While we are not able to make direct comparisons of indicators in a given year, the intention of the tool is to track change over time; in future years we will be able to compare change or lack thereof across indicators and domains. The current findings across areas, however, suggest that New York City is characterized by vast inequalities, where disadvantaged groups are twice as likely as others to experience negative outcomes in fundamental areas of life.
... On a macro level, three interconnected explanations seem particularly persuasive. First, that structural social inequalities -such as limited access to quality education, employment opportunities, medical services, housing, family support services, and transportation -are experienced by some racial and ethnic groups far more than others, which can create strain, frustration, and aggression, and lead to their differential involvement in crime (Balkwell, 1990;Blau and Blau, 1982;Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010;Massey and Eggers, 1990;Peterson, 2012;Phillips, 2002;Ulmer et al., 2012;Wright and Younts, 2009). Second, that the residential and community segregation of certain racial and ethnic groups perpetuates structural disadvantages and limits social mobility, thus preventing many people from escaping the destructive cycles of violence that create both victims and future victimizers (Griffiths, 2013;Krivo et al., 2009;Lee and Ousey, 2007;Peterson and Krivo, 1993;Peterson, 2012). ...
In the popular discourse, it is commonly assumed that mass murderers and mass shooters are different from most criminals in the United States, because they are almost always white. The present study uses data on 308 mass murderers who attacked from 2006 to 2014 to evaluate this assumption, test for racial differences between mass murderers and all other murderers, and identify characteristics of mass murderers’ behavior by race and ethnic group. Findings suggest that, overall, the racial composition of mass murderers is similar to that of other murderers, and thus may be largely explained by similar social forces, such as structural disadvantages and social inequalities. However, there are significant differences across racial and ethnic groups in attack subtype, victims killed, and attack resolution. In particular, the structural advantages and aggrieved entitlement experienced by whites may help explain their involvement in public mass shootings. Further research in both the United States and other countries may shed additional light on the behavior of mass murderers and the broader social forces that shape them.
... FBI, Uniform Crime Report 1995, ''Crime in the United States'', p. 14. 13. Space considerations limit more refined analysis that would include socio-economic class, but there is evidence that poorer people also experience homicides at a much higher rate than the affluent (Lauritsen and Heimer, 2010;Nivette, 2011). 14. ...
This paper offers a reframing of the dynamics of crime and punishment in the United States by exploring lethal violence and situating both violence and punishment within the larger capacity of the US political system to shield citizens from a range of social risks. I argue that security from violence is an important state obligation and then illustrate the exceptionally high rates of lethal violence in the US, relative to other rich democracies, and their clustering with a range of other racialized social risks, including poverty and imprisonment. I then provide a framework for understanding the exceptional status of the US by exploring the fragmented, racialized and legalistic institutions of American politics and the role they play in producing a range of socio-economic insecurities. I argue that both violence and punishment in the US can be seen as limited forms of state failure, particularly with respect to African-Americans.
... Violence is particularly prevalent among young, economically disadvantaged, male ethnic minorities (Bell and Jenkins 1993;Crouch et al. 2000;Finkelhor et al. 2005 Rusonis, and Heald 1992;Guerra 1997;Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo 1978)-who are especially susceptible to violent victimization during periods of economic hardship. A recent study found that African-American and Hispanic males are at greater risks of violent victimization during periods of economic downturns (see Blumstein 2010;Lauritsen and Heimer 2010). However, further research is needed to understand the predictors of violent victimization and violence exposure among these minority youth groups across multiple contexts such as neighborhoods (Stewart, Schreck, and Simons 2006). ...
Little research utilizing lifestyles theory (Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo 1978) has examined the role that deviant lifestyles have on the likelihood of witnessing violence among ethnic-minority youth across various contexts. Therefore, we examined the effects of indicators of a deviant lifestyle (delinquent behavior and deviant peers) on exposure to both direct and indirect forms of violence across three contexts (home, school, and community) among 233 11th graders. Findings indicated that the effects of deviant lifestyle indicators on violence vary by context. Results suggest that lifestyles theory may be applicable for predicting the likelihood of witnessing violence among minority youth across contexts.
... Robbery and property crime rates generally rise during recessions and fall during recoveries (Bushway, Cook, & Phillips, 2013). Some evidence suggests homicide and assault rates do as well (Lauritsen & Heimer, 2010;Rosenfeld, 2009). But the Great Recession was different. ...
This paper reveals how exposure to noise pollution increases violent crime. To identify the causal effect of noise pollution, I use daily variation in aircraft landing approaches to instrument noise levels. Increasing background noise by 4.1 decibels causes a 6.6% increase in the violent crime rate. The additional crimes mostly consist of physical assaults on men. The results imply a substantial societal burden from noise pollution beyond health impacts.
This study addresses the dearth of research in the victim–offender (V-O) overlap literature regarding the context in which incident-level abuse occurs. With a national sample of 589 young adults (age 18–32), 9.2% reported 2,015 daily conflicts (73% involving abuse) through digital diaries over a 6-week period. Using individual conflicts as our unit of analysis, we estimated multilevel models to explore both the nature of the individual conflicts and the characteristics of the parties in the conflict. We explored what distinguishes routine nonabusive conflicts from conflicts that involve abuse. We also examined the predictors of abusive conflicts and the V-O overlap. The nature of the incidents and proximities of the parties to the conflict were associated with the presence of abuse in conflicts and the V-O overlap. How young adults manage conflicts played a role in whether the dispute escalated to include abusive behaviors, especially mutual abuse.
Objective:
This study aimed to characterize changes in firearm injuries at five level 1 trauma centers in Northern California in the twelve months following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the preceding four years, accounting for regional variations and seasonal trends.
Summary and background data:
Increased firearm injuries have been reported during the early peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic despite shelter-in-place restrictions. However, these data are overwhelmingly from single center studies, during the initial phase of the pandemic prior to lifting of shelter-in-place restrictions, or do not account for seasonal trends.
Methods:
An interrupted time-series analysis (ITSA) of all firearm injuries presenting to five adult level 1 trauma centers in Northern California was performed (January 2016-February 2021). ITSA modeled the association of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020) with monthly firearm injuries using the ordinary least squares method, included month indicators to adjust for seasonality, and specified lags of up to 12 months to account for autocorrelation.
Results:
Prior to the start of COVID-19, firearm injuries averaged (±SD) of 86 (±16) and were decreasing by 0.5/month (p<0.01). The start of COVID-19 (March 2020) was associated with an alarming increase of 39 firearm injuries/month (p<0.01) followed by an ongoing rise of 3.5/month (p < 0.01). This resulted in an average of 130 (±26) firearm injuries/month during the COVID-19 period and included 8 of the 10 highest monthly firearm injury rates in the past five years.
Conclusions:
These data highlight an alarming escalation in firearm injuries in the 12 months following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Northern California. Additional studies and resources are needed to better understand and address this parallel public health crisis.
The aim of this study was to analyze the risk factors for robbery or assault victimization in Israel. The analyses were based on the data collected by the European Social Survey for the years 2008-2017. The sample comprised of 12,411 respondents aged 15 and above, sampled from Israeli private households by methods of probabilistic strata and cluster sampling. The logistic regression model that has been constructed included sociodemographic variables, subjective variables, as well as variables directly related to the lifestyle, routine activities of the respondents. The findings revealed that a higher risk of victimization was related to young age, being a male, high level of education, living in a rural area, having a physical or mental disability, and experiencing social discrimination. Similarly, a high level of social activity, and a low level of personal safety were also associated with an increased risk of victimization. A major contribution of the study relates to the importance of subjective variables for the prediction of victimization, especially respondents' feelings of personal safety. Further research is needed to identify the variables that predict feelings of personal safety. The study has both theoretical and practical implications: Identifying and minimizing known risk factors may help to decrease and even prevent the risk of victimization.
This chapter focuses on the victimization of racial and ethnic minorities and the disparate treatment they face within the criminal justice system. Factors that contribute to these issues, such as hate crimes, intersectionality, implicit bias, and the school-to-prison pipeline, will be discussed. The ways in which the media and society at large respond to these matters will be identified. An exploration of how victimization of racial and ethnic minorities differs around the world concludes the chapter.
This study contributes to homicide research by parsing out the Hispanic Effect and applying an intersectional approach to examining U.S. homicide victimization trends by race, ethnicity, and gender, jointly. Drawing on mortality data, we document and describe total, firearm, and non-firearm homicide victimization rates from 1990 to 2016 for six subgroups: Black women, Black men, Hispanic women, Hispanic men, White women, and White men. The analysis of within- and between-group homicide trends reveals important subgroup-specific patterns that prior studies using aggregate or confounded data have masked. The findings have important research, theory, and policy implications and advocate for an intersectional approach to studying homicide.
Divided into four major sections, this paper examines violent criminal victimization in the United States, including its measurement, rates, and trends. The focus is on aggregate assessments of the pervasiveness of violent crime and the tracking of crime trends. Also discussed are various strategies for enhancing and expanding those assessments. Section I presents an overview of criminal victimization and crime trends. Section II describes the measurement of violent crime, focusing mostly on the two largest and longest-standing national repositories of data on reported and unreported crime and victimization: the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Section III presents victimization rates of violent crime using data from the UCR and the NCVS on the most serious violent crimes (i.e., homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and discusses studies of trends in violent victimization over the past four decades by gender and race. Section IV recommends improvements in the measurement of victimization trends and correlates, suggesting directions for future victimization research in order to capture more precisely the nature, extent, and consequences of violent victimization.
The study of inequalities undergirds much of criminology. At times, however, we may take the impact of inequalities for granted and miss opportunities to problematize the strong link between inequalities and crime. In this address, I maintain that it is important to step back and recognize that economic, race, ethnic, gender, and other inequalities are at the core of criminology. More explicit consensus about the centrality of the link between inequalities and crime will allow for our field to speak to the major social and political issues of our time and will strengthen the field. In this address, I highlight some fruitful avenues of research on inequalities and crime. I then argue that the concept of intersecting inequalities can provide additional connective tissue between research focused on economic, race, ethnic, and gender inequalities. By drawing on recent evaluations of the concept in other fields, I discuss key issues that must be addressed in employing an intersecting inequalities approach and then suggest solutions. I conclude that use of an intersecting inequalities approach has the potential to uncover important insights and span research areas, thereby pushing forward our understanding of the impact of economic, race, ethnic, gender, and other inequalities on crime and victimization.
An abundance of scholarship has examined the racial invariance thesis positing that the causes of violence, especially markers of disadvantage, are similar across racial/ethnic groups. More recently, research has adopted “yardsticks” to provide more meaningful assessments of the thesis, including incorporating Latinos into analyses and using statistical tests to compare disadvantages’ effects across groups. Less attention, however, has been given to the measure of violence the thesis applies to. Although intended to explain offending, criminologists commonly substitute measures of race-/ethnic-specific arrest and victimization. Using 2010–2014 National Incident-Based Reporting System data for 453 census places, we examine whether the relationship between structural disadvantage and race-/ethnic-specific violence varies across measures of offending, arrest, and victimization. Consistent with “lenient interpretations” of the thesis, we find that disadvantage is generally associated with higher rates of violence among Whites, Blacks, and Latinos, regardless of the measure of violence. However, at odds with “strict interpretations” of the thesis, there are significant differences in the magnitude of disadvantages’ effects across groups and these differences are conditioned somewhat by the measure of violence examined. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are considered.
Purpose – This chapter uses preventive and responsive policing strategies in tandem to develop a multi-level theory that explains the relationship between the police and violence.
Design/methodology/approach – The chapter brings together classical scholarship and more recent sociological research to demonstrate that an effective response to violence is critical in upholding the state’s monopoly on violence and that police officers can reduce violence by preventing it and responding to it.
Findings – Theoretical and practical evidence support the balanced use of responsive and preventive policing strategies to reduce violence. Findings from the literature are used to argue that (1) when law enforcement officers do not effectively respond to violence and/or crime prevention strategies are nonexistent in a community, neighborhood crime is increased and (2) when citizens do not perceive law enforcement officers as legitimate and effective agents of authority, they become more likely to engage in violent offending (Tonry, 1995; Tyler, 2006).
Originality/value – Research has supported the effectiveness of “proactive” (Braga, Papachristos, & Hureau, 2014; Weisburd & Telep, 2014) and “reactive” (Nagin, 2013; Paternoster, 2010) policing strategies in reducing violence, but no research has combined strategies of prevention and response to explain the relationship between the police and violence. The theory proposed in this chapter demonstrates the utility of explaining the instrumental and legitimacy functions of the police across various levels and brings under-protection to the forefront of research on policing and violence.
Domestic violence may be less representative of a unique form of violent behavior and more indicative of an overall tendency toward violence. This article explores this issue with two years of police data from a Mid-South city. Findings revealed that domestic violence histories were more likely in any type of homicide case, and that there were both similarities and differences in predicting general and domestic violence homicide cases. Further implications of these findings within the context of law enforcement strategies and responses to domestic violence are discussed.
Objectives:
We used multilevel data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to identify factors that account for differences in risk of violent victimization among young Latino adults in new and traditional settlement areas.
Methods:
Area-identified NCVS data (2008-2012) were linked with census tract data from the decennial census and American Community Survey (ACS) to study individual and community contributions to the risk of violent victimization. We analyzed total violence and violence specific to offense types and victim-offender relationship. The analyses were performed adjusting for the complex survey design.
Results:
Young Latino adults in new settlement areas have higher victimization rates than their counterparts in traditional areas for total violence and for the majority of violence types studied. Holding constant individual and other contextual factors, Latino population density is a key neighborhood characteristic that explains the observed area differences in victimization, yielding evidence for the hypothesis that co-ethnic support in a community helps protect young Latino adults and contributes to differences in victimization across areas. Also there is evidence that the protective role of Latino population density is stronger for violence involving non-strangers than it is for violence involving strangers. Moreover, we find that the concentration of Latino immigrants, which indicates the neighborhood potential for immigrant revitalization, is another neighborhood factor that protects young Latino adults in both new and traditional settlement areas. However, there is some but limited evidence that the neighborhood-revitalizing role of immigration might be smaller in some contexts (such as some new areas outside central cities), possibly because those areas are heterogeneous in their ability to promote the integration of immigrants.
Conclusions:
Our analysis of the NCVS shows the importance of neighborhood factors for the risk of violence among young Latino adults. It provides evidence consistent with co-ethnic support and immigrant revitalization theories. The findings also suggest that the effects of those neighborhood factors may be contingent upon violence type and the context in which they occur. These findings help us understand the difference in the safety of young Latino adults in new and traditional areas.
This chapter describes nonfatal violent victimization, concentrating on rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. The two major sources of nonfatal violence in the United States – the National Crime Victimization Survey and the Uniform Crime Reports – are used to accomplish this by offering trends in nonfatal violence and the composition of this violence. The characteristics of victims of nonfatal violence are investigated, including gender, age, and race and Hispanic origin. The use of weapons use by offenders, injuries suffered by victims, and reporting to police are also discussed. Findings show the ways in which nonfatal violence changes over time (i.e., rates) and the ways it which it remains the same (i.e., qualitative characteristics).
There have been complaints against the Argentinian police for decades (CELS, 2013, 2015). The Argentinian police (either federal, national, prefectural or military) have been characterised as the ‘blue leviathan’ (Saín, 2008), being responsible for gross human rights violations and excessive violence committed against civilians. The present article focuses on youth, aiming to explore their perceptions regarding police violence and impunity based on past negative experiences in one of the most affected areas in the metropolitan region of Buenos Aires, the Mitre neighbourhood. The quantitative data gathered for this study furthers the discussion on institutional legitimacy and the mutual relationship between the development of confidence, obedience in law and procedural justice, in Argentina and beyond.
Bevölkerungsbefragungen zu Erlebnissen als Opfer von Straftaten und kriminalitätsbezogenen Einstellungen erlauben eine Aufhellung des kriminalstatistischen Dunkelfeldes der Kriminalität und ergänzen die Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik um wichtige Informationen zur Kriminalitätsfurcht, dem Anzeigeverhalten und den Strafeinstellungen. Im Rahmen des Verbundprojektes "Barometer Sicherheit in Deutschland" (BaSiD) haben das Bundeskriminalamt und das Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht in Freiburg (Breisgau) mit dem Deutschen Viktimisierungssurvey 2012 die bislang umfassendste bundesweite Befragung dieser Art durchgeführt. Der Deutsche Viktimisierungssurvey 2012 zeichnet sich u.a. durch eine methodisch aufwändige Stichprobenziehung und die detaillierte Berücksichtigung des Migrationsstatus und des kleinräumigen Wohnumfeldes aus und ermöglicht dadurch sowie durch ein theoriegeleitetes Fragenspektrum differenzierte Auswertungen.
Im vorliegenden Band sind Beiträge versammelt, die diese Besonderheiten des Deutschen Viktimisierungssurveys 2012 für tiefergehende Analysen der Opferrisiken, des Sicherheitsempfindens und der Strafeinstellungen der Bevölkerung nutzen. Ein besonderes Augenmerk gilt dabei dem Einfluss von Merkmalen des Wohnumfeldes. Die hier vorgelegten Analysen fördern etliche bemerkenswerte Erkenntnisse, darunter einige praktisch und kriminalpolitisch bedeutsame Befunde, zu Tage.
Empirical studies have established that Blacks and Hispanics are two of the most violently victimized racial/ethnic groups in the United States, but the mechanisms that underlie these disparities in victimization risk are not well understood. This study tests a mediation model developed from criminal opportunity theories that may explain the disparities. Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, the results show that Black and Hispanic adolescents were twice as likely as their White counterparts to be violently victimized, and these disparities remained after controlling for demographic characteristics and prior victimization. As to the hypothesized sources of these disparities, there was mixed evidence regarding the mediation model. Although risky lifestyles were significantly related to violent victimization and eliminated all disparities between Black and White youth, they failed to eliminate victimization disparities between Hispanics and White youth. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of theory and victimization prevention.
Objectives
The temporal variation in homicide is examined by studying trends in race/ethnic specific killings (e.g. Blacks, Latinos and Whites). Two substantively important issues are also addressed—a closer examination of the role community heterogeneity plays in homicide levels and the treatment of immigration as an endogenous social process.
Methods
Data are reported homicides in the city of San Diego, California over the period 1960–2010. The address of each killing is geocoded into 341 census tracts.
Results
We find that neighborhoods experiencing increases in the foreign-born population tend to be less violent. White and Latino homicide victimization was reduced significantly as a product of increases in the neighborhood concentration of foreign-born individuals. Supplementary analyses did not find empirical evidence that the influx of foreign-born individuals could (or should) be considered a disruptive social process. Over the past five decennial census periods, the exponential increase in immigration in this border city is not associated with an increase in homicide victimization.
Conclusions
When examined through a wider temporal lens than is typically employed, and accounting for the endogeneity of immigrant residential settlement, we find no support for the claims that immigration is a crime generating social process.
Social class differences have been invoked to explain perceived racial differences in criminal involvement in the United States since the middle of the nineteenth century. Scholars have joined with the public and the media to make such arguments with mixed success. Despite criticism of the theories and research methods used and contradictory evidence, social class arguments have persisted. Among the most enduring are subculture of violence and subculture of poverty theories, which purportedly explain instrumental crimes such as property crime, drug sales, and robbery, but also violence including homicide and assault. Proponents argue that African Americans are carriers of pro-crime norms and values. Criminologists and sociologists have recently advanced more parsimonious theories that posit that structured social and economic disadvantage account for racial and ethnic patterns of crime. Good data and analysis provide compelling supporting evidence. Ethnographic evidence has compellingly shown that observable cultural differences are consequences of disadvantage and not causes of the conditions in which the impoverished poor live.
This chapter describes the shortfalls in local police budgets following the economic woes experienced by police departments during the Great Recession. Providing a timeline of external events impacting police budgets, in particular, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and the Great Recession, this chapter places these events since 2000 in an economic context. In addition, multiple sources, that is, interviews with police administrators, survey data, and news media content, are used to analyze police budget cuts. Most police administrators have already cut their budgets and report their jurisdictions anticipate more effects from the economic crisis. Significant reductions in police budgets, personnel and training are discussed. Both a police administrator and academic perspective of policing in an economic crisis are included in this chapter to better understand how recent budgets cuts affect the quality of policing.Copyright © 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
Inflation belongs in the repertoire of economic indicators used in research on crime patterns. A resurgence of research on the relationship between economic conditions and crime has occurred in recent years, most of it showing crime increases during economic downturns and declines during recoveries. The so-called Great Recession of 2008-9 broke this pattern; crime rates fell or were flat. Historical scholarship on long-term crime increases during “price revolutions” and scattered empirical research on the relationship between short-run changes in crime and inflation suggest that low inflation rates help explain the absence of crime increases during the recent recession. Inflation, net of other economic conditions, had significant effects on homicide, robbery, and burglary rates in several European nations and the United States from the early 1980s to 2010. Inflation may be connected to crime through the dynamics of markets for stolen goods. As prices rise, the demand for cheap stolen goods grows, which strengthens incentives to increase the supply of stolen merchandises. Property crime rates increase. Violent crimes also increase as transactions multiply in “stateless” locations beyond the purview of formal authorities. The process operates in reverse as price increases diminish.
The purpose of the current study was to examine whether the relationship between childhood family income and risk of violent victimization has changed between 1988 and 2007 in Finland, as prior studies have suggested that socioeconomic differences in exposure to violence have increased during the recent decades. Existing studies have mostly relied on survey data, while such trends in hospital discharge data-a data source that covers the total population well and is not compromised by attrition or self-report bias-have not been thoroughly investigated before. The current study used register-based individual-level data from 1988-2007 (n = 283,505) to study changes in the relationship between childhood family income and victimization risk among 15- to 30-year-old Finnish men and women. We found a persisting difference in violent victimization between the top and bottom income quintiles for both men and women. While the estimates suggest that this difference has increased rather than decreased during the observation period particularly among women, this change was not statistically significant. These conclusions remain after controlling for the composition of income quintiles. Research could benefit from more extensive use of administrative hospital records in analyzing of the trends and causes of serious violence.
© The Author(s) 2015.
The epidemic of youth violence in the United States peaked in 1993 and has been followed by a rapid, sustained drop. We assess two types of explanation for this drop-those that focus on "cohort" effects (including the effects of abortion legalization) and those that focus on "period" effects (including the effects of the changing crack-cocaine trade). We are able to reject the cohort-type explanations yet also find contradictions with an account based on the dynamics of crack markets. The "way out" of this epidemic has not been the same as the "way in." The relative importance in homicide of youths, racial minorities, and guns, all of which increased greatly during the epidemic, has remained high during the drop. Arrest patterns tell a somewhat different story, in part because of changing police practice with respect to aggravated assault. Finally, we demonstrate that the rise and fall of youth violence has been narrowly confined with respect to race, sex, and age, but not geography. Given the volatility in the rates of juvenile violence, forecasting rates is a risky business indeed. Effectively narrowing the range of plausible explanations for the recent ups and downs may require a long time horizon, consideration of a broader array of problem behaviors, and comparisons with trends in other countries.
Essays examining racial and ethnic differences in rates of crime in the United States and other nations
The labor market prospects of young, unskilled men fell dramatically in the 1980s and improved in the 1990s. Crime rates show a reverse pattern: increasing during the 1980s and falling in the 1990s. Because young, unskilled men commit most crime, this paper seeks to establish a causal relationship between the two trends. Previous work on the relationship between labor markets and crime focused mainly on the relationship between the unemployment rate and crime, and found inconclusive results. In contrast, this paper examines the impact of both wages and unemployment on crime, and uses instrumental variables to establish causality. We conclude that both wages and unemployment are significantly related to crime, but that wages played a larger role in the crime trends over the last few decades. These results are robust to the inclusion of deterrence variables, controls for simultaneity, and controlling for individual and family characteristics.
This study demonstrate that the empirical literature on the structural convariates of homicide rates contains inconsistent findings across different time periods and different geographical units. This apparent variance of findings may be due to statistical or methodological artifacts of particular studies, such as different time periods covered, units of analysis, samples, model specification, and problems of statistical analysis and inference. A baseline regression model using 11 structural covariates is estimated for cities, metropolitan areas, and states in 1960, 1970, and 1980. The empirical estimates of this model exhibit instability because of high levels of collinearity among several regressors. Principal components analysis is applied to simplify the dimensionally of the structural covariate space. Reestimation of the regression model then indicates that the apparent inconsistencies across time and social space are greatly reduced. The theoretical significance of the findings for substantive theor...
Crime control deserves priority in urban policymaking. High crime rates are a drag on community development and a great burden on households that cannot afford to relo cate. Successful control of theft, vandalism, public disorder (often associated with drug selling), and especially violence set the stage for increasing property values, investment, job growth, and a higher standard of living. The fact that most large cities are far safer today than they were two decades ago has contributed to the growth and prosperity of those cities. Nevertheless, crime rates can be remarkably volatile—more so than other social indicators—and require continuing attention. Recent history teaches us that large fluctuations in crime rates can occur without much change in underlying socioeconomic conditions. Although crime tends to be concentrated in low-resource neighborhoods year in and year out, crime rates are not uniquely deter mined by the socioeconomic conditions—far from it. The quantity and quality of polic ing matter. Police effectiveness requires cooperation by the public and could be enhanced by programs to elicit greater voluntary cooperation. The private sector also has a direct role in crime control—as many private security guards as sworn police officers are involved in crime prevention—but the interaction between public and private efforts is not well understood. Over the long run, social policy, including social services, housing, education, and mental health, are potentially important in the control and prevention of crime, and city agencies concerned with social policy should accept crime reduction as one of their purposes.
In this paper we present a "routine activity approach" for analyzing crime rate trends and cycles. Rather than emphasizing the characteristics of offenders, with this approach we concentrate upon the circumstances in which they carry out predatory criminal acts. Most criminal acts require convergence in space and time of likely offenders, suitable targets and the absence of capable guardians against crime. Human ecological theory facilitates an investigation into the way in which social structure produces this convergence, hence allowing illegal activities to feed upon the legal activities of everyday life. In particular, we hypothesize that the dispersion of activities away from households and families increases the opportunity for crime and thus generates higher crime rates. A variety of data is presented in support of the hypothesis, which helps explain crime rate trends in the United States 1947-1974 as a byproduct of changes in such variables as labor force participation and single-adult households.
During the Great Depression contemporaries worried that people hit by hard times would resort to crime. President Franklin Roosevelt argued that the massive government relief efforts “struck at the roots of crime” by providing subsistence income to needy families. After constructing a panel data set for 81 large American cities for the years 1930–40, we estimate the effect of relief spending by all levels of government on crime rates. The analysis suggests that a 10 percent increase in relief spending during the 1930s reduced property crime by roughly 1.5 percent. By limiting the amount of relief recipients’ free time, work relief may have been more effective than direct relief in reducing crime. More generally, our results indicate that social insurance, which tends to be understudied in economic analyses of crime, should be more explicitly and more carefully incorporated into the analysis of temporal and spatial variations in criminal activity.
A continuing debate in sociological criminology involves the association of crime with economic disadvantage at both aggregate and individual levels of analysis. At the aggregate level, data from law enforcement sources suggest that rates of intimate violence are higher in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Disadvantaged neighborhoods may experience higher rates of intimate violence for compositional or contextual reasons, or rates may only appear to be higher because of differential reporting. Similarly, at the individual level, intimate violence appears more common among couples that are economically distressed, but whether economic distress triggers intimate violence is not certain. Using data from waves 1 and 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households and from the 1990 U.S. Census, we investigate the effects of neighborhood economic disadvantage and individual economic distress on intimate violence against women. Controlling for violence at time 1 and other individual level characteristics, we find that neighborhood economic disadvantage, neighborhood residential instability, male employment instability, and subjective financial strain influence the likelihood of violence at time 2. The relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and intimate violence appears to reflect both compositional and contextual effects.
In this paper, we analyze the relationship between unemployment and crime. Using U.S. state data, we estimate the effect of unemployment on the rates of seven felony offenses. We control extensively for state-level demographic and economic factors and estimate specifications that include state-specific time trends, state effects, and year effects. In addition, we use prime defense contracts and a state-specific measure of exposure to oil shocks as instruments for unemployment rates. We find significantly positive effects of unemployment on property crime rates that are stable across model specifications. Our estimates suggest that a substantial portion of the decline in property crime rates during the 1990s is attributable to the decline in the unemployment rate. The evidence for violent crime is considerably weaker. However, a closer analysis of the violent crime of rape yields some evidence that the employment prospects of males are weakly related to state rape rates. Copyright 2001 by the University of Chicago.
The labor market prospects of young, unskilled men fell dramatically in the 1980s and improved in the 1990s. Crime rates show a reverse pattern: increasing during the 1980s and falling in the 1990s. Because young, unskilled men commit most crime, this paper seeks to establish a causal relationship between the two trends. Previous work on the relationship between labor markets and crime focused mainly on the relationship between the unemployment rate and crime, and found inconclusive results. In contrast, this paper examines the impact of both wages and unemployment on crime, and uses instrumental variables to establish causality. We conclude that both wages and unemployment are significantly related to crime, but that wages played a larger role in the crime trends over the last few decades. These results are robust to the inclusion of deterrence variables, controls for simultaneity, and controlling for individual and family characteristics. © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technolog
To what extent did the economic boom of the 1990s-early 2000s improve the well-being of persons in the bottom rungs of the income distribution? This paper uses a pooled cross-state time series regression design to estimate the effect of earnings, unemployment, and inequality on poverty in the boom. I find that the tight labor market reduced poverty substantively, gainsaying the gloom that developed in the 1980s about the effect of economic growth on the less advantaged; and that socially undesirable behaviour also fell in the period, potentially due in part to the boom.. While the rising tide of economic progress can lift many boats, however, around 6-8% of Americans cannot be so helped, and thus constitute a relatively long term poverty population. Moreover, the level of the tide needed to improve the conditions of the less advantaged is a 4-5% unemployment rate, not the 6-6.5% unemployment once viewed as the NAIRU.
Previous estimates of the effect of unemployment on crime commonly omit determinants of criminal behavior that vary with the business cycle, creating correlation between unemployment rates and the residuals in aggregate crime regressions. In this paper, we employ several strategies that attempt to minimize or break this correlation and eliminate the accompanying omitted variables bias to estimates of the effect of unemployment on crime. Using a state-level panel for the period from 1970 to 1993, we explore the sensitivity of crime-unemployment elasticity estimates to explicit controls for per-capita alcohol consumption, a factor that has been shown in the past to be pro-cyclical and a partial determinant of criminal behavior. In addition, we use prime defense contracts per-capita at the state level as an instrument for state unemployment rates. Both controlling for alcohol consumption and using instrumental variables to correct for omitted variables bias yields large effects of unemployment on the seven felony offenses recorded by the Department of Justice. Moreover, in contrast to previous research, we find significant and sizable positive effects of unemployment on the rates of specific violent, as well as property crimes.
Violent crime in America shot up sharply in the mid-1980s and continued to climb until 1991, after which something unprecedented occurred. The crime level declined to a level not seen since the 1960s. This revised edition of The Crime Drop in America focuses first on the dramatic drop in crime rates in America in the 1990s, and then, in a new epilogue, on the patterns since 2000. The separate chapters written by distinguished experts cover the many factors affecting crime rates: policing, incarceration, drug markets, gun control, economics, and demographics. Detailed analyses emphasize the mutual effects of changes in crack markets, a major focus of youth violence, and the drop in rates of violence following decline in demand for crack. The contrasts between the crime-drop period of the 1990s and the period since 2000 are explored in the new epilogue, which also reviews major new developments in thinking about the causes and control of crime.
It is easy to underestimate how little was known about crimes and victims before the findings of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) became common wisdom. In the late 1960s, knowledge of crimes and their victims came largely from reports filed by local police agencies as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, as well as from studies of the files held by individual police departments. Criminologists understood that there existed a "dark figure" of crime consisting of events not reported to the police. However, over the course of the last decade, the effectiveness of the NCVS has been undermined by the demands of conducting an increasingly expensive survey in an effectively flat-line budgetary environment. Surveying Victims: Options for Conducting the National Crime Victimization Survey, reviews the programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS.) Specifically, it explores alternative options for conducting the NCVS, which is the largest BJS program. This book describes various design possibilities and their implications relative to three basic goals; flexibility, in terms of both content and analysis; utility for gathering information on crimes that are not well reported to police; and small-domain estimation, including providing information on states or localities. This book finds that, as currently configured and funded, the NCVS is not achieving and cannot achieve BJS's mandated goal to "collect and analyze data that will serve as a continuous indication of the incidence and attributes of crime." Accordingly, Surveying Victims recommends that BJS be afforded the budgetary resources necessary to generate accurate measure of victimization. © 2008 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
How and why does violent crime vary across racial and ethnic groups? Researchers of American social problems have grappled with this question for more than a century, with most attention being paid to differences between blacks and whites. Black-white comparisons have been the norm since W. E. B. Du Bois completed his pioneering study, The Philadelphia Negro, in 1899 (Du Bois, 1899: 235–86; see also Hawkins, 1999; Bobo and Johnson, 2000). Du Bois, like others in his era, observed the impact of crime, including violence, and criminality on conditions within Philadelphia's black community and noted the necessity to incorporate an analysis of crime into his “social study” (for a fuller treatment of the Du Boisian perspective, see Bobo, 2000). In fact, most early examinations of the relationship between race/ethnicity and crime during the early twentieth century described the effects of cultural absorption, acculturation, and social adjustment on both black migrants and European immigrants moving into urban areas such as Philadelphia (Lane, 1979; 1986; 1997). Varying levels of criminal involvement were linked to levels of acculturation and assimilation into American society, suggesting that more than a hundred years ago criminologists were fully aware of a possible race-ethnicity-crime linkage. This connection was largely conceptualized as the product of or associated with the geographical movement of large groups of people. Moreover, racial differences in crime and violence were seen primarily in terms of black versus white, while ethnic differences were described largely in terms of foreign-born versus native-born whites (Martinez and Lee, 2000a).
Poverty is a condition with multiple causes, but every analysis agrees on the importance of the earnings of less-skilled workers.1 Macroeconomic-that is, economywide-influences determine average earnings. This chapter looks at data from the U.S. economy through the lens of macroeconomics. Some of the key questions I consider are: How much have wages in general risen over the past fifty years in terms of the value of what workers produce and what workers consume? How has productivity growth and rising stocks of plant and equipment contributed to wage growth in general? How have wages of workers at the bottom of the skill distribution (those who did not finish high school), in the middle (high school graduates with no college), and at the top (college graduates) changed over time? What has happened to the demand for workers in these skill groups? What has happened to the fraction of Americans living in poverty as wages have risen? What happens to workers in the various skill groups when employment falls sharply in a recession?.
Violent crime in America shot up sharply in the mid-1980s and continued to climb until 1991, after which something unprecedented occurred. The crime level declined to a level not seen since the 1960s. This revised edition of The Crime Drop in America focuses first on the dramatic drop in crime rates in America in the 1990s, and then, in a new epilogue, on the patterns since 2000. The separate chapters written by distinguished experts cover the many factors affecting crime rates: policing, incarceration, drug markets, gun control, economics, and demographics. Detailed analyses emphasize the mutual effects of changes in crack markets, a major focus of youth violence, and the drop in rates of violence following decline in demand for crack. The contrasts between the crime-drop period of the 1990s and the period since 2000 are explored in the new epilogue, which also reviews major new developments in thinking about the causes and control of crime. © Cambridge University Press 2000, 2006 and Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Trends in aggravated assaults recorded by the police and those reported in victim surveys diverge over time in the United States. Police-recorded assaults trend upward during the 1980s and flatten in the 1990s, whereas survey-estimated assaults are flat during the 1980s and decline during the 1990s. Previous research has attributed the divergence between the police and survey trends to changes in police recording practices, independent of the underlying rate of victimization (Blumstein, 1998; O'Brien, 1996). This study adds to that research by comparing police and survey trends in firearm and nonfirearm aggravated assaults, on the assumption that police recording practices are more likely to affect the latter than the former. Consistent with this assumption, the results show much less divergence in gun than nongun assault time trends. Together with previous research, this study offers strong, albeit circumstantial, evidence that changes in police recording of assaults explain much of the divergence in aggravated assault trends derived from police records and victim surveys. It also appears that the NCVS redesign has helped to reduce the divergence between UCR and NCVS aggravated assault trends in recent years. Background And Significance Although the United States' two major crime indicators, the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), are based on distinct methods of obtaining information about the number and nature of criminal events, they should tell essentially the same story about changes in crime rates over time.
The macro-level approach reemerged as a salient criminological paradigm in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Prompted by new theories and reformulations of existing ones, over 200 empirical studies explored ecological correlates of crime. Few efforts have been made, however, to "make sense" of this literature. A "meta-analysis" was undertaken to determine the relative effects of macro-level predictors of crime. Indicators of "concentrated disadvantage" (e.g., racial heterogeneity, poverty, and family disruption) are among the strongest and most stable predictors. Except for incarceration, variables indicating increased use of the criminal justice system (e.g., policing and gettough policy effects) are among the weakest. Across all studies, social disorganization and resource/economic deprivation theories receive strong empirical support; anomie/strain, social support/social altruism, and routine activity theories receive moderate support; and deterrence/rational choice and subcultural theories receive weak support.
The major lesson from the 1990s is that relatively superficial changes in the character of urban life can be associated with up to 75% drops in the crime rate. Crime can drop even if there is no major change in the population, the economy or the schools. Offering the most reliable data available, this book documents the decline in the 1990s in American crime as the longest and largest since World War II. It ranges across both violent and non-violent offenses, all regions, and every demographic. All Americans, whether they live in cities or suburbs, whether rich or poor, are safer today. Casting a critical and unerring eye on current explanations, the book demonstrates that both long-standing theories of crime prevention and recently generated theories fall far short of explaining the drop in the 1990s. A careful study of Canadian crime trends reveals that imprisonment and economic factors may not have played the role in the U.S. crime drop that many have suggested. A combination of factors rather than a single cause produced the decline. It is clear that declines in the crime rate do not require fundamental social or structural change, but that smaller shifts in policy can make large differences. The significant reductions in crime rates, especially in New York, where crime dropped twice the national average, suggests that there is room for other cities to repeat this astounding success.
Research on homicide proliferated during the 1980s. Despite this growth of knowledge, sociologists lack an understanding of both the patterns and causes of Latino homicide. The present study addresses this short-coming by examining socioeconomic and sociodemographic predictors of Latino murders in 111 U.S. cities during 1980. Regression analysis supports an economic inequality interpretation of violence. Latinos' socioeconomic conditions were consistently linked to homicide, but sociodemographics also influenced murder. The conclusions stress the need for addressing the link between socioeconomic conditions and urban Latino homicide, paying special attention to educational attainment and economic inequality within the Latino population.
Multi-level research has shown that individual and community factors are important predictors of the risk for violent victimization. However, previous analyses have drawn different conclusions about the role of any given factor. These differences likely are related to variations in how violence is measured and to the fact that the data are drawn from different locales. The research presented here uses the 1995 National Crime Victimization Survey and tract-level census data to examine (1) how the risk of violence is distributed across persons and places in the United States and (2) whether empirical findings are sensitive to the operationalization of violence. Results show that some individual-level predictors (e.g., gender and race) are sensitive to the operationalization of violence, whereas others (e.g., age and marital status) are not. In addition, the impact of community characteristics on violence depends on central-city residence. In central cities, persons most at risk are in disadvantaged tracts, with lower proportions of immigrants. Outside central cities, the proportion of immigrants in an area increases risk, while community disadvantage has no independent influence. The importance of an empirical foundation for the development of theories of risk is discussed.
In 1996 the U.S. federal government enacted a welfare reform bill aimed at reducing public assistance to the poor. This legislation may have implications for future levels of property crime. In this study we examine whether differences in levels of AFDC assistance and rates of welfare participation among 406 large metropolitan counties affected variation in burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Regression analyses controlled for the potential effects of family structure, divorce, unemployment, and a number of other variables. The results confirmed links between welfare and property crime suggested by strain, social support, and a version of social disorganization theory. Both monetary assistance levels and participation rates were associated negatively with all property crimes.
Government officials have resolved to carry out major changes in the U.S. welfare system, changes that may affect the incidence of homicide. This study examined the issue of whether welfare aid to the poor has served a criminal justice policy function of limiting the frequency of lethal violence. Multiple regression procedures were employed to test for possible relationships between welfare assistance and homicide rates among all U.S. large metropolitan counties (N = 437). Controlling for indices of resource deprivation, population structure, and several other economic and social variables, higher levels of welfare assistance were found to be associated with lower homicide rates. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.
This study analyzes homicide rates for 141 cities for which data on homicide, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), cost of living, household status, and other social and economic variables were available. Cost-of-living-adjusted AFDC payment per recipient person was found to have an independent, direct negative impact on homicide rates and a separate indirect negative relationship to homicide rates through its association with household status. The results provided support for both strain theory and Sampson and Wilson's social disorganization-strain perspective.
This study examines the conditioning effect of welfare benefits on the relationship between resource deprivation and metropolitan crime rates. We analyzed aggregate data for a sample of large metropolitan counties in 1990 (N = 406). Our welfare measure combined the cast-of-living-adjusted public assistance payment per poor person and the public assistance participation rate among the poor. Our measure of resource deprivation included three highly correlated factors: family poverty rate, percent black, and percent of female-headed families. Regression analyses indicated that the prevalence of resource deprivation had significantly less effect on crime rates in areas with higher levels of welfare assistance. The results suggest that the amelioration of economic distress remains a viable strategy for reducing serious crime.
This study analyzed burglary rates for 141 cities for which data on burglary, AFDC, cost of living, unemployment, household status, and other social and economic variables were available. Cost-of-living-adjusted AFDC payment per recipient person was found to have a direct negative impact on burglary and a separate indirect negative relationship to burglary through its association with household status. The results provided support for strain and control theories and Sampson and Wilson's (1995) social disorganization-strain perspective.
This study examines the influence of business cycle fluctuations on street crime in the conceptual framework of Cantor and Land's(1985) seminal work distinguishing between opportunity and motivation effects. The analysis contributes to the literature three ways. First, we use cross-section/time series data, which has several important advantages over simple time-series or cross-section data of previous studies. Second, it introduces a new and broader measure of business cycle conditions, one that more faithfully captures the logic of Cantor and Land's framework than previous measures do. Third, it focuses on the large decline in street crime of the 1990s, a central issue facing criminologists. Statistical models indicate that the strong economy of the 1990s reduced all four index property crimes and robbery by reducing criminal motivation. Business cycle growth produced no significant opportunity effect for any of the crimes studied.
In this authoritative volume, race and ethnicity are themselves considered as central organizing principles in why, how, where and by whom crimes are committed and enforced. The contributors argue that dimensions of race and ethnicity condition the very laws that make certain behaviors criminal, the perception of crime and those who are criminalized, the determination of who becomes a victim of crime under which circumstances, the responses to laws and crime that make some more likely to be defined as criminal, and the ways that individuals and communities are positioned and empowered to respond to crime.
Research Summary: This research shows that non-Latino black, non-Latino white, and Latino males and females in the U.S. experience significantly different levels of stranger and non-stranger violence, and that these forms of non-lethal violence are especially pronounced in areas with high levels of socioeconomic disadvantage. Many of the differences between these groups are eliminated once community and other individual characteristics are taken into account.
Policy Implications: The results suggest that victimization resources should be geographically targeted at places with high levels of poverty and single-parent families, and that the most stable institutions within these communities be drawn upon to deliver information about victimization prevention and services.
Using time-series techniques with national data for 1967–98, we model the effects on changes in age-race-specific arrest rates of changes in indicators of economic deprivation. A measure of child poverty is positively related to juvenile arrest rates for both races, whereas changing unemployment (lagged) yields a surprising negative effect on youth offending. Measures of intraracial income inequality are also associated with changes in juvenile arrest rates, but the effects differ by race. Between-race inequality is unrelated to changes in arrest rates for both races. Our general conclusion is that fluctuations in juvenile homicide offending over recent decades can be understood, at least in part, with reference to the macro-economic environment confronting young people and their families.
Despite robust growth in real per capita GDP over the last three decades, the U.S. poverty rate has changed very little. In an effort to better understand this disconnect, we document and quantify the relationship between poverty and four different factors that may affect poverty and its evolution over time: labor market opportunities, family structure, anti-poverty programs, and immigration. We find that the relationship between the macro-economy and poverty has weakened over time. Nevertheless, changes in labor market opportunities predict changes in the poverty rate rather well. We also find that changes in female labor supply should have reduced poverty, but was counteracted by an increase in the rate of female headship. Changes in the number and composition of immigrants and changes in the generosity of anti-poverty programs seem to have had little effect.
Despite its long history in criminology, research on the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and rates of common crime remains limited. That is in part because many analysts doubt that any systematic relationship exists and in part because of disagreement with regard to the validity of the indicators typically used to measure economic conditions. We argue in this article that good theoretical reasons exist to expect macroeconomic effects on crime rates, but many theories imply that collective perceptions of economic hardship should have effects on crime that are independent of those of more “objective” economic indicators. To evaluate this argument, we examine the relationships between the Index of Consumer Sentiment and regional robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft rates in the United States between 1970 and 2003, which was a period of large swings in both consumer sentiment and instrumental crime. Controlling for several factors thought to influence temporal variation in crime rates, we find that consumer sentiment had significant effects on robbery and property crime rates over the period that were largely independent of the effects of unemployment and economic growth. We also find that consumer sentiment accounted for a sizable fraction of the crime decline during the 1990s and yields reasonably accurate predictions of changes in the four offenses in 2004 and in two of the four offenses in 2005. We conclude that the effects of collective economic perceptions should become an important focus of future research on crime trends.
Recently, Zimring and Hawkins (1997) have suggested that drug markets are a “contingent cause” of the increase in homicide rates. That is, where structural conditions known to produce violence are already in place, the drug distribution-homicide link may be exacerbated. This analysis uses hierarchical linear modeling to investigate two key research questions: (1) Is within-city variation in illicit drug market activity positively associated with within-city variation in homicide rates during the 1984–1997 period? (2) Is the illicit drug market-homicide association contingent on preexisting violence conducive socioeconomic conditions? Using three measures of drug market activity, analyses provide affirmative evidence on both questions. Theoretical and research implications of these findings are discussed.
Why do some cities have higher or lower crime rates than others? In this study we attempt to answer this fundamental question by identifying the theoretically motivated structural covariates which differentiate U.S. cities with extreme high and low crime rates. We apply discriminant function analysis across comprehensive samples of all U.S. cities with populations of greater than 25 000 in the periods 1960, 1970, and 1980 and then posit four question: are empirical findings from regression-based studies of city crime rates replicated in discriminant studies with extreme rates? Are the covariates that predict high or low crime rates unique to specific time periods? Which covariates are better able to discriminate high or low rates for specific crimes? And are specific covariates distinguishable in crime rate changes across time periods? Among our general findings, it appears that those cities with extreme high (low) crime rates tend to be the largest (smallest), most (least) economically deprived, and most (least) socially disintegrated. Associations with these latter two characteristics appear to have grown stronger over the past three census periods. The theoretical importance of these and other findings uncovered here are discussed and interpreted through Wilson's (1987) notion of concentration effects and social isolation which may have transformed inner-city areas in recent years.
A question that emerges from recent research on the relationship between economic conditions and street crimes committed for
monetary gain concerns the effect of changing economic conditions on violent crime. I propose that the economy stimulates
violent crime indirectly through its effect on acquisitive crime. This hypothesis is evaluated in fixed-effects panel models
of change in acquisitive crime and homicide rates between 1970 and 2006. The analysis indicates that collective perceptions
of economic conditions have a significant effect on an index of acquisitive crime and an indirect effect, through acquisitive
crime, on homicide. Consistent with this result, the effect of collective economic perceptions is stronger for felony than
argument-related homicides. A promising focus for future research is the role of underground markets in the production of
both property and violent crime.
Incl. index, bibliographical notes and references
Drawing on structural racism and urban disadvantage approaches, this article posits a broad influence of citywide racial residential segregation on levels of violent crime across all urban neighborhoods regardless of their racial/ethnic composition. Multilevel models based on data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study for 7,622 neighborhoods in 79 cities throughout the United States reveal that segregation is positively associated with violent crime for white and various types of nonwhite neighborhoods. Nonetheless, there is a lack of parity in violence across these types of communities reflecting the larger racialized social system in which whites are able to use their privileged position to reside in the most advantaged neighborhoods, while African-Americans and Latinos live in the most disadvantaged urban communities and therefore bear the brunt of urban criminal violence.
In this paper, the effect of business cycles on the employment, earnings, and income of persons in different demographic groups are examined. Individuals are classified by sex, education and race. The analysis uses data from the Current Population Survey's Outgoing Rotation Group file, covering the period 1979-1992, and March Annual Demographic files (ADF) covering the period 1975-1997. Many different individual and family outcome measures are considered including: employment to population ratios, weekly earnings, hourly earnings, annual hours, annual earnings, family earnings, family transfer income, and total family income. The regression model is specified such that the key parameters measure how the labor market outcomes of less skilled vary with the business cycle relative to the variability for high skill groups. The analysis uses variation across MSAs in the timing and severity of shocks. The results consistently show that individuals will lower education levels, nonwhites, and low skill women experience greater cyclical fluctuation than high skill men. These results are the most striking when examining comprehensive measures of labor force activity such as the likelihood of full-time year around work. Government transfers and the earnings of other family members decrease the differences between groups, as business cycles have more skill-group neutral effects on family income than individual earnings. The paper examines the stability of these results by comparing evidence across the 1982 and 1992 recessions. The evidence suggests that the 1992 recession led to more uniform effects across skill groups than earlier cycles.
Up to now, victimology has only dealt with partial aspects of the situation of the elderly as victims of violent crime. Nevertheless, the Police Crime Statistics enable us to make the following three basic statements: In general, old people are less likely to become victims of violent crime (than young people). The acts of violence committed against the elderly are mainly ones in which there was a relationship between offender and victim before the offense. Elderly women are disproportionately more often victims of purse snatching. The increasing social isolation of old people constitutes not only a specific form of victimization, it probably also increases their susceptibility to become victims. The theory that old people have "a particularly pronounced fear of crime" cannot be generally proven. This question must be considered from differing points of view and depends largely on the individual vulnerability of the old people. In Germany, there has hardly been any empirical study of violence towards the elderly in institutions and in family households (so-called domestic violence). It is believed that more violence takes place in both than in generally assumed.
It is hypothesized that collective efficacy, defined as social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to
intervene on behalf of the common good, is linked to reduced violence. This hypothesis was tested on a 1995 survey of 8782
residents of 343 neighborhoods in Chicago, Illinois. Multilevel analyses showed that a measure of collective efficacy yields
a high between-neighborhood reliability and is negatively associated with variations in violence, when individual-level characteristics,
measurement error, and prior violence are controlled. Associations of concentrated disadvantage and residential instability
with violence are largely mediated by collective efficacy.
A simple economic model of criminal behavior shows that welfare payments will reduce the time allocated to illegal activities under risk aversion and other reasonable assumptions. This theoretical prediction is confirmed by the empirical findings: using a set of cross-sectional U.S. state data for 1987, it is found that cash or in-kind welfare programs have a negative and often significant effect on property crime. More general programs, such as public housing, seem to have a larger effect than those aimed primarily at women (AFDC). Medicaid and school lunch programs apparently have little effect on property crime. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.
Despite robust growth in real GDP per capita in the last three decades, U.S. poverty rates have changed very little. We summarize some basic facts about poverty in the United States, relying on a combination of previously published data from the Census Bureau and our own tabulations based on Current Population Survey data. We then discuss and evaluate four determinants of changes in the poverty rate that have been advanced in the literature: the impact of labor market opportunities; the role of changes in family structure; the role played by government antipoverty programs; and the role of immigration.
Crime dropped sharply and unexpectedly in the United States in the 1990s. I conclude that four factors collectively explain the entire drop in crime: increases in the number of police, increases in the size of the prison population, the waning of the crack epidemic, and the legalization of abortion in the 1970s. Other common explanations for declining crime appear far less important. The factors identified are much less successful in explaining fluctuations in crime in the preceding two decades. The real puzzle is not why crime fell in the 1990s, but rather, why crime did not begin falling earlier.
This study develops a microanalytic simulation model to examine the effects of macroeconomic fluctuations on the distribution on the distribution of income. A representational sample of the population of the United States is linked with equations determining the variability of various types of factor income. Each family's income experience is simulated under alternative aggregate conditions, and the income distributions arising under these conditions are compared. The main results are similar for alternative specifications of the model. The incidence of a downturn in economic activity, whether accompanied by changes in the rate of inflation or not, and measured in terms of the loss of factor income, leaves the upper middle class relatively better off than before and leaves most others relatively worse off. The very rich bear the heaviest burden.