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STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY AND HOMICIDE: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE BLACK‐WHITE GAP IN KILLINGS *
Author(s) -
VÉLEZ MARÍA B.,
KRIVO LAUREN J.,
PETERSON RUTH D.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
criminology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.467
H-Index - 139
eISSN - 1745-9125
pISSN - 0011-1384
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-9125.2003.tb01000.x
Subject(s) - homicide , disadvantage , graduation (instrument) , inequality , white (mutation) , race (biology) , criminology , violent crime , demographic economics , racial differences , demography , psychology , sociology , suicide prevention , poison control , ethnic group , political science , medicine , economics , gender studies , environmental health , engineering , law , mathematics , anthropology , mathematical analysis , chemistry , biochemistry , mechanical engineering , gene
This paper examines the relationship between race and violent crime by directly modeling the racial gap in homicide offending for large central cities for 1990. We evaluate the role of black‐white differences in aspects of both disadvantage and resources in explaining which places have wider racial disparities in lethal violence. The results show that where residential segregation is higher, and where whites' levels of homeownership, median income, college graduation, and professional workers exceed those for blacks to a greater degree, African Americans have much higher levels of homicide offending than whites. Based on these results, we conclude that the racial homicide gap is better explained by the greater resources that exist among whites than by the higher levels of disadvantage among blacks.