NCJ Number
227433
Journal
Homicide Studies Volume: 13 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2009 Pages: 124-143
Date Published
May 2009
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This article examines social support theory with a focus on the relationship between general relief payments to the poor and homicide.
Abstract
Results show the limitations of Aide to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC) as a measure of social support because it is a State-level policy variable in an analysis of counties from a single State. AFDC is not significant when it is treated as exogenous. Moreover, when AFDC was treated as endogenous, it did not achieve significance. In the case of California, welfare policy continues to be set at the State level and therefore cannot adequately reflect local preferences for spending priorities. General relief, however, does reflect local priorities, at least at the level of the county. This makes it a useful measure from a social support perspective. Without some degree of local-level manipulability, a measure fails to adequately capture the very concept of social support; general relief is an innovative measure that has remained untapped in the social support literature. General relief payments, although an improvement on previous measures, may not be the ideal measure of social support. Because it is a governmental, general relief may not be satisfactory to those who feel social support should not be governmental. But if social support can reduce serious crime, then the source of the payments should be irrelevant. More important still, it appears that increases in levels of social support are capable of producing a concomitant reduction in crime rates even in the absence of a social and economic revolution which is clearly consistent with social support theory. Tables, appendixes, notes, and references,