Institutional Access,Residential Segregation,and Urban Black Homicide*

Sociologists have frequently cited the importance of the local institutional base for bolstering social organization and control, and ultimately reducing crime rates. Local noneconomic institutions may be particularly relevant to controlling urban Black crime rates, because in the face of limited access to the legitimate labor force, access to institutions such as churches and civic organizations helps to extend social networks, increase civic engagement, transmit mainstream norms, and provide a forum from which to address community problems. This analysis examines the links between measures of access to such noneconomic institutions and Black homicide rates for a sample of large urban areas circa 1990. The results indicate that after controlling for socioeconomic disadvantage, racial inequality and various other relevant measures, institutional access is negatively associated with Black homicide rates. However, this violence constraining impact appears to be most dramatic in urban areas where Blacks are most highly segregated from Whites. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Alcohol Use Among Black and White Adolescents Exploring the Influence of Interracial Friendship,the Racial Composition of Peer Groups,and Communities

Black adolescents use less alcohol, on average, than white adolescents. Prior research has struggled to explain the disparity in alcohol use between blacks and whites but not for a lack of potential mediating mechanisms. The current study draws on differential association theory and two waves of panel data (n = 1,016) to examine the influence of interracial friendship, the racial composition of peer groups, and communities on black–white differences in alcohol use. Findings indicate that (1) the racial composition of peer groups and communities influence changes in alcohol use, and (2) racial segregation contributes to racial disparities in alcohol use while interracial friendship reduces these disparities. Results suggest that the socially conservative values of the African‐American community are a strong deterrent to adolescent drinking, affecting even those adolescents who are themselves white but associate with black youth.     

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.     

Racial Habitus, Moral Conflict, and White Moral Hegemony Within Interracial Evangelical Organizations

Re-conceptualizing habitus as a complex of inculcated moral dispositions that—particularly within the racialized social system of the United States—are racially-constituted, this article proposes a framework through which racial conflict and structural/cultural domination within interracial religious organizations, and perhaps other volunteer organizations, may be analyzed. Drawing upon qualitative data from a study of fundraising experiences within interracial evangelical organizations, I demonstrate, first, that racial conflicts within these organizations are best framed as disputes over moral standards arising out of divergent, racially-constituted, moral dispositions, and second, that these conflicts are worked out via the institutionalization and instilment of white cultural norms, ultimately resulting in the hegemony of white moral standards within the organizations.     

The Case of Cubans: Racial Inequality in U.S. Homeownership and Home Values

Prior research finds that human capital may explain racial housing inequality, whereas others note the historical role that race played in creating unequal housing conditions. This study uses the case of Cubans in the United States to examine whether human capital explains Black–White housing inequalities, or if they are a result of nativity/cohort differences—a proxy for the federal policies that supported Cubans’ economic and social incorporation. Using pooled data from the American Community Survey, I examine how human capital characteristics and nativity/migration cohorts shape odds of homeownership and predicted home values among Cubans. Extended analyses using decomposition methods find that although human capital characteristics are important, they play a smaller role in explaining Black–White differences in homeownership and home values. Indicative of the changing structure of racial stratification in the United States, results reveal substantial inequality among the oldest of Cuban immigrants and U.S.‐born Cubans, despite a trend toward declining inequality among recent arrivals. Supported by the literature of systemic racism, the case of Cubans shows how human capital explanations do not sufficiently explain racial housing inequalities and how the future of racial stratification is one of inter‐ and intra‐ethnic group inequality.     

Changes in Racial Apathy Among White Young Adults: A Five-Year National Panel Study

This study investigates changes in racial apathy among white young adults using nationally representative panel survey data from the NSYR. Our regression models include social background, social values, and academic orientation variables specified as important correlates of racial apathy in prior cross-sectional studies. We also include interracial contact variables, which existing studies neglect. According to intergroup contact theory, interracial contact should predict decreases in racial apathy. We find variables specified as important correlates in prior cross-sectional studies do not explain changes in racial apathy across time. Surprisingly, interracial friendship associates negatively with increases and decreases in racial apathy. Further, interracial dating predicts increases in racial apathy across time. These findings suggest racial apathy may be dissimilar to other forms of white racial prejudice and interracial contact may be an ineffective method to reduce contemporary forms of white racial prejudice.     

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.     

Intra‐ and Interracial Best Friendships During Middle School: Links to Social and Emotional Well‐being

This study examined patterns of intra‐ and interracial best friendships during middle school and their associations with social and emotional well‐being. We hypothesized that intraracial friendships would be beneficial for racial or ethnic minority youth because such relationships provide protection and solidarity in a discriminatory society. Results revealed that most youth had only intraracial best friends during middle school, but 38% had at least one interracial best friend. Associations between interracial best friendships and well‐being varied by racial group; Black and Asian American youth with only interracial best friends reported lower emotional well‐being than those with only intraracial best friends. Additionally, intraracial best friendships were associated with higher conflict than interracial best friendships, especially for Black and Latino youth.     

Racial/Ethnic Composition and Violence: Size‐of‐Place Variations in Percent Black and Percent Latino Effects on Violence Rates

According to racial invariance positions and mainstream sociological perspectives on race and crime, race differences in structural conditions should account for most if not all of the racial composition (or percent black) effect on aggregate‐level violence rates. However, prior research (mostly conducted prior to 1990) generally provides mixed or contrary evidence for this position, showing instead that greater concentrations of blacks are linked to increased violence even after accounting for racial differences in socioeconomic conditions. The current study uses recent data and a novel unit of analysis to go beyond extant research in two ways. First, we include percent Latino in our examination of the extent to which both racial and ethnic composition effects on violent crime rates are mediated by racial/ethnic disparities in socioeconomic disadvantage. Second, we test whether racial/ethnic composition effects are conditioned by size of place, through the use of census places as a uniquely varying unit of analysis. We find that both black and Latino composition effects are partly explained by controlling for structural conditions (especially structural disadvantage), but this characterizes smaller places much more than the largest, most urbanized places.     

Racial Segregation,the Concentration of Disadvantage,and Black and White Homicide Victimization

Discriminatory housing market practices have created and reinforced patterns of racial residential segregation throughout the United States. Such segregation has racist consequences too. Residential segregation increases the concentration of disadvantage for blacks but not whites, creating African-American residential environments that heighten social problems including violence within the black population. At the same time, segregation protects white residential environments from these dire consequences. This hypothesized racially inequitable process is tested for one important type of violence—homicide. We examine race-specific models of lethal violence that distinguish residential segregation from the concentration of disadvantage within racial groups. Data are from the Censuses of Population and Federal Bureau of Investigation's homicide incidence files for U.S. large central cities for 1980 and 1990. Our perspective finds support in the empirical analyses. Segregation has an important effect on black but not white killings, with the impact of segregation on African-American homicides explained by concentrated disadvantage.     

Whose Best Friend? Dogs and Racial Boundary Maintenance in a Multiracial Neighborhood

In human–animal studies, dogs are often framed as promoters of interactions among strangers. Yet very few of these studies discuss how racial structure shapes human‐to‐human engagement. Similarly, race scholarship and urban studies have failed to incorporate human–animal studies fully to better understand racial dynamics and inequality in U.S. cities. I use in‐depth interview data from an 18‐month study of Creekridge Park, an urban, multiracial, and mixed‐income neighborhood in Durham, North Carolina, to explore the role of dogs for white residents. I focus on identifying if dogs helped bridge social differences between white residents and their Black and Latinx neighbors in a racially and economically diverse neighborhood. I find that while my white respondents shared many examples of dogs facilitating neighborly relationships and friendship, these relationships were largely between same‐race individuals. By reinforcing a white, urban, middle‐class habitus, white residents used dogs to maintain interracial boundaries and feelings of safety, as well as navigate racial‐ethnic differences between themselves and their Black and Latinx neighbors. These findings point to the necessity of more research that addresses racial structure and human–animal studies to better understand contemporary urban spaces.     

The political economy of urban homicide: assessing the relative impact of gender inequality on sex-specific victimization

This research examines the ways in which the changing political economy of urban areas has contributed differently to the homicide victimization rates of females and males across US cities. Recent research, while relatively limited, has presented disparate results regarding the effect of gender inequality on urban sex-specific victimization. Our work further explores this relationship by taking into account relative gender disparities in income, education, labor market opportunities, and politics in an examination of sex-specific homicide victimization in 1990. Key to this current investigation is the evaluation of feminist and lifestyle arguments that suggest that structural gender inequality has a unique effect on female victimization. Overall, our findings reveal gender inequality to be a significant predictor of both male and female urban homicide. While these findings suggest mixed support for theoretical arguments regarding gender inequality, further analyses reveal significant differences in specific types of gender inequality on victimization patterns across genders. These additional results highlight the need for greater attention toward both methodological and theoretical issues when examining the interconnections between gender, political economy, and violence in research.     

A Person‐Centered Approach to the Study of Black Adolescent Religiosity,Racial Identity,and Sexual Initiation

Decreasing the number of adolescents who have never had sexual intercourse is one way to address sexual health disparities. We used intersectionality to explore the joint effects of religiosity and racial identity on Black adolescent sexual initiation. Data originated from the National Survey of American Life‐Adolescent (n = 1,170), a nationally representative study of Black adolescents. Latent profile analysis and survival analysis were used to evaluate study hypotheses. Results showed four distinct profiles of religiosity and racial identity. These profiles explained 19% of the variability in sexual initiation. Additional analyses revealed sociodemographic differences in profile membership. Findings contribute to understanding ethnic heterogeneity among Black adolescents and racial identity and religiosity as sociocultural factors that influence sexual initiation; and support reconceptualizing Black adolescent religiosity.     

The End of the One-Drop Rule? Labeling of Multiracial Children in Black Intermarriages

The identity choices of multiracial individuals with Black heritage have traditionally been limited in America by the one-drop rule, which automatically designated them as Black. This paper evaluates the rules contemporary influence and argues that, with increasing interracial marriage, options in racial identification are now available to this group. Using the 5% 1990 and 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples, I consider how children from Black intermarriages are racially identified by their families and, using 2000 data, evaluate theoretical hypotheses to explain identification processes. The results show that most families with Black intermarriages reject the one-drop rule, but that Black–White families create unique interracial options, the implications of which are considered.     

Racial Reconciliation or Spiritual Smokescreens?: Blackwashing the Crisis Pregnancy Center Movement

Beginning in the early 2000s, evangelical crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) sought to establish themselves in areas where they perceive Black women, who have disproportionately higher rates of abortion relative to other racial-ethnic groups, will be drawn to their services. These efforts are tied to larger racial reconciliation efforts by white evangelicals. To this end, in this article we explore how the evangelical CPC movement understands Black women’s higher abortion rates, the solutions they seek to offer Black women to persuade them not to abort, the expansion of the movement into minority areas and how the CPC movement justified this encroachment, and the role of Black leaders and symbolic inclusion through “blackwashing” in this expansion. Drawing upon an ethnographic content analysis, we argue that CPC activism in urban areas is not substantially different from its approaches in white and/or suburban areas and inclusion of Black perspectives and activists is limited to a surface-level veneer we refer to as blackwashing. Throughout the paper, we also provide a counter-narrative examining CPC activists’ claims about Black women and abortion and find many of them to be lacking in veracity.     

Stability and Change in Female and Male Violence across Rural and Urban Counties, 1981–2006

Two durable criminological patterns have been higher violence rates in urban compared to rural areas and by males compared to females. To derive and evaluate hypotheses related to correspondence across place and sex groups in changes in violence trends, we draw on a spatial‐inequality perspective that attends to the geographic distribution of inequalities at the subnational scale, as well as to recent extensions of social‐disorganization theory to variation in rural and female violence rates. Our study's focus is on systematically delineating the extent and timing of change in female and male violence trends, the rural‐urban violence gap, and the gender gap. We apply epidemiological joinpoint techniques to Uniform Crime Reports arrest data from completely rural to highly urbanized settings for several violent offenses (homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, and misdemeanor assault) between 1981 and 2006. Female and male violence rates in rural to urban settings generally followed the same course over 25 years. Analyses generally indicated parallel violence trends of rural and urban females and males and only subtle changes in the rural‐urban and gender gaps in serious violence. Serious violence became somewhat less concentrated in urban centers owing to more sizable urban rate declines after the mid‐1990s. In all contexts, the gender gap in assault arrests narrowed, but the female share of serious violence (homicide, robbery) remained much the same; this result suggests change in the social control of minor violence by females across rural and urban settings.     

The influence of southern culture on race‐specific homicide rates

The influence of cultural and structural variables on race‐specific homicide rates in the political subunits of Louisiana is analyzed with the purpose of further explication of the independent role these factors play as determinants of lethal violence. It is argued that the southern culture of violence hypothesis is more appropriately tested through separate examination of white, black, and total rates of homicide. The results of this study indicate clear differences in the effects of cultural and structural factors on these different rates. One of the more interesting findings is the inverse relationship between black homicide rate and percent nonwhite, which casts some doubt on sociological interpretations of the relatively higher rates of black violence as resulting from racial oppression alone. Implications are discussed.     

Brief Report: Thin Slices of Racial Bias

The present work examined the detection of racial bias through thin slices of nonverbal behavior. Thirty Black and 30 White American judges rated the nonverbal behavior displayed by White individuals from 20-seconds of silent videotape of an interaction with either a Black or a White confederate. Correlations between judges nonverbal ratings and targets scores on a response latency measure of racial bias (i.e., Implicit Association Test, IAT) as well as on a self-report racial bias measure (i.e., Affective Prejudice Scale) were obtained. Results revealed that relative to White judges, Black judges nonverbal behavioral ratings were better predictors of both White individuals IAT and explicit racial bias scores, but only if those targets were engaged in an interracial dyad. The results are consistent with recent research finding that subtle forms of racial bias leak through nonverbal behavior, as well as with work noting the predictive accuracy of judgments made from thin-slices of nonverbal behavior.Jennifer A. Richeson and J. Nicole Shelton. Jennifer A. Richeson, Dartmouth College; J. Nicole Shelton, Princeton University. This research was supported by a Rockefeller Center Faculty Fellowship from Dartmouth College awarded to JR, as well as a research grant from Princeton University awarded to JNS. We thank Sue Paik, Lisa Pugh, Kurt Peters, and Leigh Poretzky for help with data collection and stimulus preparation.     

Stability of Men’s Interracial First Unions: A Test of Educational Differentials and Cohabitation History

Using the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, this study examines how cohabitation and education affect marital dissolution for White, Black and Latino heterosexual males (N = 1,395) in their first same-race or interracial union. This research suggests that a history of cohabitation, plans of marriage and education may help explain the divergent divorce patterns of interracial and same-race unions. Life table analyses and hazard modeling reveal that cohabitation and education have independent effects on marital dissolution, but neither explains the difference between interracial and same-race unions. Measures traditionally associated with divorce attenuate this difference. Subsequent analyses by racial union pairing suggest that Black men with White women and Latino men with Black women have significantly high risks of divorce.