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DIFFERING EFFECTS OF ECONOMIC INEQUALITY ON BLACK AND WHITE RATES OF VIOLENCE

NCJ Number
143653
Journal
Social Forces Volume: 70 Issue: 4 Dated: (June 1992) Pages: 1035-1054
Author(s)
M D Harer; D Steffensmeier
Date Published
1992
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This study examined the relationship between economic inequality and rates of violent crime of blacks and whites.
Abstract
The analysis used Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area data for 1980 as compiled from raw arrest data on index violent crimes in the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and from the 1980 census. The analysis was disaggregated by race and used alternative measures of inequality (and poverty) to provide more theoretically appropriate indicators of income inequality, including measures of within-race inequality in addition to measures of overall inequality and between-race inequality. Controls were included for racial composition and other variables related to race and crime. The study found that the effects of economic inequality differed sharply for blacks and whites. Inequality strongly affected white violence rates; high inequality was associated with high white arrest rates for the violent crimes; however, inequality had a weak effect on black violence rates. This finding suggests that future research in this area should involve sociological inquiry that shifts attention away from inequality and poverty to other structural or community sources of variation in black rates of violence. 8 tables and 45 references