NCJ Number
200316
Journal
Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency Volume: 40 Issue: 2 Dated: May 2003 Pages: 139-170
Editor(s)
Clayton A. Hartjen
Date Published
May 2003
Length
32 pages
Annotation
This study examined the relationship between neighborhood structure and homicide, focusing on how neighborhood composition may be related to the nature or type of lethal violence that communities produce.
Abstract
Extending the findings of a 1990 study by Land, McCall, and Cohen on structural covariates of homicide rates, this study set out to determine whether neighborhood factors were associated with all types of homicide or whether homicides are sufficiently distinct in nature that their levels were not equally associated with structural correlates. By examining neighborhoods in St. Louis, the study assessed whether socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are correlated with different types of homicide. The results revealed that while different types of homicide, at the neighborhood level, disadvantage is associated with all types of homicide. The study advances the notion that homicides vary along a number of dimensions and that characteristics of neighborhoods are correlated in different ways, to this variability. In conclusion, while residential instability is associated only with felony killings, economic disadvantage is associated with all the homicide categories. References