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45 J. Crim. L. Criminology & Police Sci. 565 (1954-1955)
Urban Homicide in Theory and Fact

handle is hein.journals/jclc45 and id is 575 raw text is: URBAN HOMICIDE IN THEORY AND FACT HENRY ALLEN BULLOCK' The author is Professor of Sociology and Chairman of Graduate Research in Texas Southern University. He is a member of the Mayor's Commission on Crime and De- linquency for the City of Houston, Texas. Among his earlier publications are: Spatial Aspects of the Differential Birth Rate, AmER. oUI, OF SocIoL. 49, September, 1943, 149-155. Comparison of the Academic Achievements of White and Negro High School Graduates, JouR. Enuc. REs., November, 1950, 179-193. Racial Atliudes and the Employment of Negroes, AmER. Joun. or SocIoL., January 1951.-EDiTOR. This study is designed to supply the factual basis of a theory which, we hope, will explain the systematic connection between homicides and the places where they occur. An interest in developing a purely descriptive account of the incidence of criminal homicides in a large metropolis has motivated the accumulation of the facts in the first instance. However, we soon observed phenomena which are not adequately explained by existing criminological theories. It is for this reason that we have sought to develop a more satisfactory theory. INTRODUCTION It has been well established in criminological literature that crime lives best in the disorganized areas of cities. Some of the researches supporting this conclusion have been mainly concerned with the spatial patterns made by crime rates when cast upon city maps. Others have sought to suggest causal relations between crime and select socio-economic variables of census tracts or sub-communities of large cities0 Both types of researches, dealing mainly with delinquents, define the kind of area in which general forms of criminal behavior tend most to occur by developing a static picture of relationship between crime and characteristics of the areas. There- fore, neither presents a theoretical scheme that promises to explain the manner in which criminal areas are dynamically connected with criminal conduct. Cavan, after a rather complete summary of these works, makes note of the fact that areal studies merely show delinquency and social disintegration to exist in the same communities3 If we are to move from the static interpretation of co-existing phenomena to the more dynamic interpretation of a social process, it may be essential that we study the relationship between a specific type of crime and the places where it occurs rather ' With Lois I. Mitchell as research assistant. 2See: Cmr.omD R. SnAw, DELNQuENcy AREAS (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929); CLrroRD R. Sirw AND HENRY D. McKAY, JuvENLE DELinQuNC- AND URBAN AREAS (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942); E. LONG OR, E. ScHNEIDER, AND E. F. YouNG, Ecological Interrdationship of Juvenile Delinquency, Dependency, and Popdation Mobility: A Cartographic Analysis of Data from Long Beach, California, AmER. J. or SocIoL. XLI, (March, 1936) 598-610; ERNEsr MowRER, DISoRGANmzATioN, PERSONAL AND SociAL (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1942). 3RuTn SHoNLE CAVAN, CRMINOLOGY (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1950), pp. 54-74: 342.

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