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7 Homicide Stud. 3 (2003)

handle is hein.journals/homcst7 and id is 1 raw text is: Identifying the Structural Correlates of African American Killings What Can We Learn From Data Disaggregation? CHARIS E. KUBRIN George Washington University TIM WADSWORTH University of New Mexico The present study extends the understanding of the structural determinants of African American killings by analyzing the impact of key socioeconomic and demographicfactors on disaggregated Black homicide rates in St. Louis neighborhoods. The findings reveal that (a) there is significant variation within Black homicides in terms of motive, victim and offender characteristics, victim-offender relationship, and type of death; (b) concen- trated disadvantage is significantly associated with some but not all types of Black kill- ings; and (c) residential instability is not significantly related to most Black killings but has a small negative effect on gang homicide. The findings reinforce the necessity of disaggregating homicide rates to understand the race-violence relationship. The theoreti- cal, methodological, and policy implications of the findings are discussed. Keywords: homicide; race; neighborhood disadvantage; social disorganization One of the most intriguing findings from a number of recent studies that examine the structural covariates of homicide rates is that many of the socioeconomic and demographic factors considered are found to have strong positive effects on White homicide rates but weak or nonexistent effects on Black rates. Most surprising to AUTHORS' NOTE: We thank Tim Bray, Thomas Petee, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft. The data used in this research come from the St. Louis Homicide Project and were collected as part of research funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, and the National Consor- tium on Violence Research. We thank Richard Rosenfeld, Scott Decker, Carol Kohfeld, and John Sprague for providing us with the data. Address correspondence to Charis E. Kubrin, Department of Sociology, George Washington University, Phillips Hall 409, 801 22nd St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20052. HOMICIDE STUDIES, Vol. 7 No. 1, February 2003 3-35 DOI: 10.1177/1088767902239241 @ 2003 Sage Publications 3

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