NCJ Number
231284
Journal
Homicide Studies Volume: 14 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2010 Pages: 296-335
Date Published
August 2010
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This review was conducted to ascertain whether the invariant findings from Land, McCall, and Cohen of three main structural covariates (resource deprivation, population structure, and divorce) generalize to cross-national studies of social structure and homicide.
Abstract
The Land, McCall, and Cohen study is one of the most highly cited articles in the social structure and homicide literature. In it, the authors found that three structural covariatesresource deprivation, population size and density, and divorcewere consistently associated with United States homicide rates over several decades, even when employing different units of analysis. In this article, the authors review 65 studies to determine whether Land, McCall, and Cohen's invariant findings for these 3 structural covariates generalize to the cross-national empirical literature on social structure and homicide. We conclude that the findings for population structure and divorce are inconsistent in this literature but that there is relatively consistent evidence for an association between homicide and some form of resource deprivation cross-nationally. Based on our review, we also discuss two current directions of this literature and critically assessmuch like Land, McCall, and Cohen did for the United States literature at the timethe current state of the scientific record on the topic of social structure and homicide at the cross-national level. Table, notes, and references (Published Abstract)