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The document referenced below is part of the NCJRS Library collection.
To conduct further searches of the collection, visit the NCJRS Abstracts Database.

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NCJ Number: NCJ 234096     Find in a Library
Title: Reassessing Trends in Black Violent Crime, 1980-2008: Sorting Out the "Hispanic Effect" in Uniform Crime Reports Arrests, National Crime Victimization Survey Offender Estimates, and U.S. Prisoner Counts
  Document URL: PDF 
Author(s): Darrell Steffensmeier ; Ben Feldmeyer ; Casey T. Harris ; Jeffery T. Ulmer
  Journal: Criminology  Volume:49  Issue:1  Dated:February 2011  Pages:197 to 252
Date Published: 02/2011
Page Count: 56
  Annotation: This study examined how racial disparity in violent crime and incarceration has changed from 1980 to 2008.
Abstract: Recent studies suggest a decline in the relative Black effect on violent crime in recent decades and interpret this decline as resulting from greater upward mobility among African-Americans during the past several decades. However, other assessments of racial stratification in American society suggest at least as much durability as change in Black social mobility since the 1980s. The author’s goal is to assess how patterns of racial disparity in violent crime and incarceration have changed from 1980 to 2008. The authors argue that prior studies showing a shrinking Black share of violent crime might be in error because of reliance on White and Black national crime statistics that are confounded with Hispanic offenders, whose numbers have been increasing rapidly and whose violence rates are higher than that of Whites but lower than that of Blacks. Using 1980-2008 California and New York arrest data to adjust for this “Hispanic effect” in national Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data, we assess whether the observed national decline in racial disparities in violent crime is an artifact of the growth in Hispanic populations and offenders. Results suggest that little overall change has occurred in the Black share of violent offending in both UCR and NCVS estimates during the last 30 years. In addition, racial imbalances in arrest versus incarceration levels across the index violent crimes are both small and comparably sized across the study period. The authors conclude by discussing the consistency of these findings with trends in economic and social integration of Blacks in American society during the past 50 years. (Published Abstract) Figures, table, references, and appendix
Main Term(s): Race-punishment relationship
Index Term(s): Black/African Americans ; Uniform crime reports ; Victimization surveys ; Class comparisons ; Economic analysis of crime ; Hispanic
Type: Report (Study/Research)
Country: United States of America
Language: English
   
  To cite this abstract, use the following link:
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=256035

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