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Race, Crime, and Public Housing in Atlanta: Testing a Conditional Effect Hypothesis

NCJ Number
186643
Journal
Social Forces Volume: 79 Issue: 2 Dated: December 2000 Pages: 707-729
Author(s)
Thomas L. McNulty; Steven R. Holloway
Date Published
December 2000
Length
23 pages
Annotation
This study tested a conditional-effect hypothesis that predicted that the strength and magnitude of the association between racial composition and crime rates would dissipate with increasing distance of neighborhoods from public housing projects.
Abstract
The research used geographically coded crime data for 1990-92 matched with 1990 block-group-census data for Atlanta. Results supported the hypothesis in models predicting murder, rape, assault, and public order offenses, but not robbery and property crime. Confirmation of the conditional-effect hypothesis for several major types of crime suggested the potential for bias in interpretations of estimated race effects in multivariate neighborhood-level models that do not control for public housing. Figures, tables, appended table, and 58 references (Author abstract modified)