NCJ Number
226535
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 37 Issue: 1 Dated: January/February 2009 Pages: 28-36
Date Published
January 2009
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This study examined each of the five dimensions of segregation independently to determine if each influenced African-American homicide rates and whether the effects of these dimensions overlapped to the extent that their independent influences on African-American homicide were confounded, and measures of hypersegregation were included in models to assess its predictive utility for explaining variation in African-American homicide rates.
Abstract
The findings suggest that hypersegregation, measured either the way that Massey and Denton defined it, or as the number of dimensions of severe segregation that exist in a metro area, was predictive of African-American urban homicide. Racial residential segregation continues to be a defining structural characteristic of urban centers in the United States. Prior research assessing the association between racial residential segregation and African-American urban homicides has not considered each of the five dimensions of segregation or the phenomenon of hypersegregation. Massey and Denton (1988) argued that there were five key dimensions of racial segregation (evenness, exposure, concentration, centralization, and clustering). In this study, indicators of each of the five dimensions of segregation, as well as measures of severe segregation and hypersegregation were considered, in order to assess African-American homicide rates across 201 metropolitan statistical areas. Tables, appendix, notes, and references