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Retaliatory Homicide: Concentrated Disadvantage and Neighborhood Culture

NCJ Number
200636
Journal
Social Problems Volume: 50 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2003 Pages: 157-180
Author(s)
Charis E. Kubrin; Ronald Weitzer
Editor(s)
James A. Holstein
Date Published
May 2003
Length
24 pages
Annotation
In addressing both structural and cultural dimensions of race and crime and the intersection between the two dimensions, this study examined structural and cultural factors related to retaliatory homicides in neighborhoods in St. Louis, MO.
Abstract
This study took on the challenge of identifying mechanisms linking structural disadvantage to the perpetration of violence within the African-American community by providing a more systematic examination of the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and retaliatory homicides. This was accomplished by utilizing both quantitative data and narrative accounts of homicides in St. Louis, MO. The sample of homicides contained information on 2,161 homicides that occurred in St. Louis from 1985 to 1995. It was argued that retaliatory homicide is more common in disadvantaged neighborhoods than in other types of neighborhoods because of a combination of structural disadvantage and neighborhood-cultural responses to deprivation and problematic policing. The results underscore the importance of two dimensions of neighborhood context in understanding patterns of retaliatory homicide: structural disadvantage and subcultural support for violence. Cultural retaliatory homicide is unevenly distributed across St. Louis and concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Few retaliatory homicides occurred in more affluent neighborhoods. Due to the possibility that retaliatory homicides have similar social control effects in a community, it is deserving of further attention and research. Tables and references

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