Interracial homicide: A macrostructural-opportunity perspective

Using data for 154 cities, we test a model of the determinants of interracial homicide that is informed by both Blau's macrostructural theory and elements of the general criminal opportunity perspective. Consistent with Blau's theory, in a multivariate analysis the relative frequency of interracial homicide is positively related to racial heterogeneity, population size, and population density, and inversely related to racial residential segregation and racial socioeconomic inequality. We also find that the level of employment is positively related to the rate of interracial homicide. This result is consistent with the hypothesis, derived from routine activities theory, that the dispersion of activities away from primary group locations and toward more racially heterogeneous settings increases the volume of intergroup contacts. Overall, our analyses reveal that a macrostructural-opportunity perspective offers considerable insight into the determinants of intercity variation in the racial patterning of homicide.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Reno, Nevada, November 8–12, 1989.     

A contextual exploration of siblicide

This article contextualizes the exploration of sibling homicide, or siblicide, a phenomenon that traditionally has received very little attention within the academic literature. Siblicide is examined in relation to other family homicides and other known homicides. Given the traditional frequency, duration, and intensity of youthful sibling relationships, juvenile homicides are disaggregated from adult homicides to reveal whether there are any differences. Although previous research has questioned the use of the Supplementary Homicide Reports for this type of analysis (Daly, Wilson, Salmon, Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, & Hasegawa 2001), the utility of the data set is demonstrated. The results of this exploration suggest that siblicide may be examined within the theoretical contexts of sociobiology and routine activities theory.     

Culture, Context, and Homicide of the Elderly

In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the criminal victimization of elderly persons. Given that homicides of the elderly are thought to occur primarily in the context of robbery/burglary situations, this study seeks to identify situational as well as structural and cultural factors that influence the murder of older persons. In particular, it has been noted that Southern culture promotes a notion that one should 'respect their elders.' Using conservative Protestant affiliation as a proxy for Southern culture, this study also examines the relationship between Southern culture and homicide of the elderly. Findings show that Southern culture as reflected in conservative Protestant affiliation does not insulate the elderly from victimization.     

NEIGHBORHOOD CORREALATES OF HOMICIDE TRENDS:

This research blends ideas and concepts from social disorganization theory with recent development in growth-curve methodology to examine the association between neighborhood structure and homicide levels over time. Using fifteen years of sequenctial data, we estimate growth-curve models that emphasize the effects of neighborhood socioeconomic and demographic characteristics on longitudinal trajectories of three types of homicide—general alteraction, felony, and domestic—in St. Louis from 1980–1994. The analyses reveal several important findings. First, initial levels of each homicide type are related in similar ways to the neighborhood characteristics. Second, trends for each subtype differ, with the shape of the trajectory depending on the type of homicide under consideration. Finally, the neighborhood factors associated with trends in general altercation, felony, and domestic killings vary for each type. The latter two points suggest the importance of disaggregating homicide rates and exploring the different factors that drive change in the patterns of these rates.     

Economic Dominance,the “American Dream,” and Homicide: A Cross‐National Test of Institutional Anomie Theory

This article presents a cross‐national test of Messner and Rosenfeld's (1994) institutional anomie theory. Drawing on multiple data sources, including the United Nations, World Bank, World Values Survey, and Heritage Foundation, we examine relationships between economic dominance, indicators of culture, and homicide among a sample of 50 nations. Additionally, we assess the thesis of “American exceptionalism,” a unique cultural complex implicated by Messner and Rosenfeld as a cause of high rates of serious crime in the United States. Results from OLS regression models provide mixed support for the theory. While none of the theoretical predictors exhibits a statistically significant direct effect on homicide, findings suggest that homicide occurs most often in countries where free‐market principles and practices drive the economy and where core cultural commitments are oriented toward achievement, individualism, fetishism of money, and universalism. However, contrary to expectations, the impact of a market‐driven economy is not more pronounced in countries with weakened non‐economic institutions, and results provide only limited evidence in support of the American exceptionalism thesis. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

SOCIOECONOMIC CHANGE AND HOMICIDE IN A TRANSITIONAL SOCIETY

Durkheim argued that rapid social change would produce anomic conditions which, in turn, would lead to increases in criminal and deviant behavior. Russia provides a unique opportunity to test this theory given the large-scale fundamental socioeconomic changes occurring in the nation. Russian homicide rates more than doubled in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and are now among the highest in the world. The pace and effects of the socioeconomic transition vary widely throughout Russia, however, as do rates of and changes in violent crime. In this study, we took advantage of the unique natural experiment of the collapse of the Soviet Union to examine the association between socioeconomic change and homicide. We measured the negative effects of socioeconomic change by creating an index of changes in population size, unemployment, privatization, and foreign investment. Using data from Russian regions (n = 78) and controlling for other structural covariates, regression results indicated that regions that more strongly experienced the negative effects of socioeconomic change were regions where homicide rates increased the most between 1991 and 2000. Further analysis of the individual components of this index revealed that regions with greater increases in (1) unemployment experienced greater increases in homicide rates and (2) privatization experienced smaller increases in homicide rates.     

A cohort analysis of employment status and homicide victimization in the United States

ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of employment status on homicide victimization among cohort members. Data were derived from the US National Longitudinal Mortality Study. Cox proportional hazards regression models were fitted to the data. Analysis showed that employment status was significantly associated with homicide. The unemployed were over 50% more likely to become homicide victims than the employed. Persons not in the labor force were 1.3 times more likely to be victimized than employed cohort members. Results also showed that race was significantly associated with homicide. Non-Hispanic Blacks were over 4.5 times as likely to die as whites. Hispanics were nearly 1.9 times as likely to be victims as Non-Hispanic whites. When the sample was stratified by race/ethnicity, unemployment was highly significant for both non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic African American men. Employment status is a significant risk factor for homicide victimization.     

Effects of Diverse Forms of Family Structure on Female and Male Homicide

Utilizing 2000 data on 1,618 counties and seemingly unrelated regression, I assess whether family structure effects on homicide vary across family structure measures and gender. There is evidence of robust, multidimensional family structure effects across constructs reflecting the presence of two‐parent families: mother/father absence, shortages of employed men, and nonmarital/teen childbearing. Findings indicate mainly gender similarity in family structural sources of homicide, but subtle gender differences include stronger effects on male homicide patterns and female‐specific mediating effects of the care burden on homicide. Further exploration of diverse family constructs is warranted, but, methodologically, father absence is adequate as a control for family structure. Public policies and social programs aimed at strengthening families could lessen violence among both women and men.     

Intimate partner homicide methods in heterosexual, gay, and lesbian relationships

Previous research indicates that the killing method used in homicides may reflect the motivation of the offender and qualities of the victim-offender relationship. The effect of gender and sexual orientation of intimate partner homicide offenders (N = 51,007) was examined with respect to the brutality of killing methods. Guided by previous research and theory, it was hypothesized that homicide brutality will vary with the offender's sexual orientation and gender, such that the percentage of killings coded as brutal will be higher for (a) gay and lesbian relative to heterosexual relations, (b) men relative to women, (c) gay relative to heterosexual men, and (d) lesbian relative to heterosexual women. The rates of intimate partner homicide were also hypothesized to vary with the gender of the partners, such that (a) homicide rates will be higher in gay relative to heterosexual and lesbian couples and (b) homicide rates will be lowest in lesbian couples. The results support all but one prediction derived from the two hypotheses. We predicted that men would kill their partners more brutally than would women, but the results indicate that the opposite is true.     

Testing three competing hypotheses for explaining lethal violence

This study tests three competing hypotheses for explaining lethal violence that is conceptualized as the combination of both suicide and homicide. These three hypotheses differ on how lethal violence can be expressed as either suicide or homicide. Suicide and homicide data, from 1989 to 1991, were obtained from the Multiple Cause of Death study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. A bivariate analysis shows that there is a positive correlation between suicide and homicide rates for 458 large counties in the US. A weighted least square regression analysis reveals that the attribution hypothesis is supported by the results. Counties with a higher degree of others-blame-worthiness are more likely to express violence as homicide. Neither the socialization nor the social disorder hypotheses is supported by the analysis. Results of this study suggest that it is fruitful to study both suicide and homicide under the same theoretical and empirical framework.     

JUST ANOTHER CRIME? Examining Disparity in Homicide Sentencing

Analyses of disparity in sentencing most frequently use general felony court samples. Because of this, little is known about the specific patterns of sentencing disparity among defendants convicted of criminal homicide. Using a sample of defendants adjudicated guilty of homicide in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, over the period 1995–2000, this research seeks to describe and explain patterns of sentencing with reference to legal and extralegal defendant and case characteristics. The findings indicate that it is primarily legally relevant variables that influence sentencing outcomes in homicide cases; however, some evidence is found for case processing effects as well as for the operation of criminal stereotypes in the generation of sentence disparities. Implications of these findings for research designs and theory development are discussed.     

Temporal Disappointment,Homicide and Suicide: An Analysis of Nonwhites and Whites

Abstract

And a theory that covers holiday, day of the week and seasonal effects simultaneously. According to “broken promises” theory the frustration created by a gap between raised expectations and stubborn reality brought about by such factors as weekends and holidays should increase suicide risk. The present study tests the broken promises theory on race-specific indicators of suicide (n = 188,047) and extends it to homicide (n = 167,790) as well. The results of a time series analysis indicate support for four out of six hypotheses for nonwhites and six out of six hypotheses for whites. Given a tendency of nonwhites towards the externalization of aggression, the disappointments associated with temporally related broken promises are more apt to trigger homicide than suicide.     

CONCENTRATED POVERTY, RACE, AND HOMICIDE

Research on the link between levels of poverty and homicide in urban areas has persistently reported the existence of a relationship for whites but not for blacks. This is despite the fact that most analysts expect that the higher levels of urban black homicide are due in part to the higher levels of urban black poverty. The present research introduces a more meaningful, spatially based measure of concentrated poverty and argues that the effect of concentrated poverty on homicide rates should be the same for both racial groups. The hypotheses are tested with race-disaggregated data for a sample of central cities circa 1990. The results suggest that, when poverty is measured as a linear spatially based phenomenon, in is a more important determinat of race-specific homicide rates than overall city levels of disadvantage and that the concentration of poverty increases both black and white homicide rather equally.     

The Effect of Divorce on Homicide

Past research on homicide has often neglected the state of the family in explaining the genesis of violence. In addition, the work that does exist does not test for a threshold effect. The present study analyzes county data from the state with the lowest incidence of divorce. While very low, divorce still affects the rate of homicide. The model explains 41 % of the variance in homicide.     

Homicide–Suicides in the United States: A Review of the Literature

Homicide–suicides are phenomena where the perpetrator kills one or more victims and subsequently kills himself/herself. The typical classification includes intimate partner homicide–suicides, familial, and extrafamilial homicide–suicides. This review examines research beginning with a 1992 seminal article by Peter Marzuk, Kenneth Tardiff, and Charles Hirsch in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which they suggested that homicide–suicides constituted a distinct domain different from homicides to suicides. This review uses the JAMA article to frame the issues and discuss homicide–suicide research in the United States from the date of that publication. In addition to discussing characteristics of homicide–suicides, this review focuses on homicide–suicides involving intimate partners and compares both to homicides without subsequent suicides and suicides without prior homicides. Suggestions for further research are given as well as research problems available to Sociology.     

Deindustrialization, Female-Headed Families, and Black and White Juvenile Homicide Rates, 1970-1990

Recent research in urban sociology posits that the proliferation of female-headed families in American cities is a result of declining economic prospects due to profound changes in the structure of the urban economy. Meanwhile, macro-level theory and research in criminology suggest that an association exists between family structure and rates of lethal violence among juveniles. Given these two streams of sociological thought, there is good reason to expect that increases in juvenile homicide rates since 1970 may be due, in part, to changes in the structure of the economy and the family during the 1970 to 1990 period. However, the nexus between deindustrialization, female-headed families, and juvenile homicide has received little attention in extant research. The objective of the current study is to remedy this gap in the literature by bringing together ideas about deindustrialization and female headship in an attempt to explain city-level changes in Black and White juvenile homicide rates between 1970 and 1990. In particular, the research investigates the hypothesis that a decline in the manufacturing base of cities increased rates of female headship and thereby indirectly raised homicide rates. Race differences in the hypothesized structural relationships also are examined.     

Homicide Arrest Clearances: A Review of the Literature

This is a review of the research literature on homicide arrest clearances or homicides for which no offender is arrested. The article describes the decline in the percent of homicides resulting in arrests and charges from over 90 pecent in 1960 to 61 percent in 2006. Research is reviewed on the reasons for the lack of public attention and concern and the low homicide clearance rates in the USA in comparison with other countries. Research on the extent to which homicides are uncleared because they involve low-status persons and those economically disadvantaged is compared with research suggesting that it is the characteristics of the homicide event that make clearance difficult. It seems that such factors as age, gender, and race/ethnicity play a role in whether the homicide is cleared by arrest. Characteristics of homicides that increase clearances include occurrence in private residences, domestic homicides, and homicide with weapons other than firearms. Research on what police can do to increase clearances is examined. Suggestions on how to increase access to information on how homicide investigations are carried out are also discussed.     

The effects of racial/ethnic segregation on Latino and Black homicide

Racial/ethnic residential segregation has been shown to contribute to violence and have harmful consequences for minority groups. However, research examining the segregation–crime relationship has focused almost exclusively on blacks and whites while largely ignoring Latinos and other race/ethnic groups and has rarely considered potential mediators (e.g., concentrated disadvantage) in segregation–violence relationships. This study uses year 2000 arrest data for California and New York census places to extend segregation–crime research by comparing the effects of racial/ethnic residential segregation from whites on black and Latino homicide. Results indicate that (1) racial/ethnic segregation contributes to both Latino and black homicide, and (2) the effects for both groups are mediated by concentrated disadvantage. Implications for segregation–violence relationships, the racial-invariance position, and the Latino paradox are discussed.     

The social sources of homicide in different types of societies

A consistent finding to emerge from cross-national studies of crime is a positive relationship between the degree of social inequality and levels of homicide. This finding contrasts with the results of anthropological case studies that reveal high rates of homicide in some extremely egalitarian societies. Viewed together, these two sets of findings raise the question of whether the patterns observed in cross-national research on homicide are generalizable to the typically small, nonindustrial simple societies studied by anthropologists, but generally neglected by comparative sociologists. We address this issue in an analysis of homicide for a sample of small, nonindustrial societies. Our findings indicate that the degree of inequality in such societies is not significantly associated with the level of homicide. By contrast, levels of homicide do vary systematically with the complexity of the political and military organization of such societies. These results suggest that some of the most important findings of cross-national research in sociology are not readily generalizable across different types of societies.This is a revised version of a paper presented at the meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Chicago, 1988.