NCJ Number
201188
Journal
Criminology Volume: 41 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2003 Pages: 39-72
Date Published
February 2003
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This study examined whether neighborhood socioeconomic conditions affected the nature, or quality, of violence within different neighborhoods.
Abstract
While it has been well established that neighborhood socioeconomic conditions affect the quantity of violence, scant research is available that focuses on differences in the quality of violence. The authors tested the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic conditions and the quality of violence by analyzing data on assaults and robberies from the area-identified National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). The authors, drawing on Anderson’s (1999) ethnography about differences in violence by neighborhoods, hypothesized that victims in disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to resist an assault and thus more likely to be injured than victims of assault in more privileged neighborhoods. Conversely, the authors hypothesized that victims of robberies in disadvantaged neighborhoods were less likely to resist the robbery and thus less likely to be injured than victims of robberies in more privileged neighborhoods. Furthermore, the authors hypothesized that victims of robberies and assaults in disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to be attacked by an offender with a gun. Differences in urban areas, gender, age, and race were also examined. Results of statistical analyses revealed, consistent with the hypothesis, that assault offenders in disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to be armed with a gun. Further, victims in disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to resist an assault and less likely to resist a robbery than victims in more privileged neighborhoods. However, after controlling for demographic and situational factors, the authors found that assault victims in disadvantaged neighborhoods were not more likely to be injured than their more privileged counterparts. As such, the authors concluded that the results support Anderson’s (1999) ethnographic description of neighborhood affects in violent events, but the variation in violence caused by neighborhood conditions were not as great in the current study. An understanding of how the culture and structure of neighborhoods affects the nature of violence would be advanced by combining quantitative data on communities and incidents with survey data on attitudes and values of victims and offenders. References, appendices