5 - The Race/Ethnicity and Poverty Nexus of Violent Crime: Reconciling Differences in Chicago's Community Area Homicide Rates

Summary

Introduction

Research on the relationship among race, poverty, and violent crime has a long tradition that is grounded in theoretical and empirical sociological literatures aimed largely at explaining the geographic and spatial distribution of violence (Wolfgang and Ferracuti, 1967; Beasley and Antunes, 1974; Loftin and Hill, 1974; Mlandenka and Hill, 1976; Anderson, 1999). One of the earliest theoretical perspectives suggested that the highest rates of violence are found in poor communities in which oppositional subcultures promote public displays of toughness and fatalism among residents (Wolfgang, 1967). These communities are typically described as neighborhoods with large ethnic or racial minority populations and places where residents are resentful and frustrated by their lack of economic opportunity and social isolation (Blau and Blau, 1982; Messner, 1983; Logan and Messner, 1987; Peterson and Krivo, 1993). Violence is considered a manifestation of feelings of diffused anger, resentment, and frustration, all of which are closely associated with economic disadvantage (Phillips, 1997). When the anger and frustration is not well managed, violence is just one of many outcomes (e.g., see Messner, 1983, for a similar discussion on hostility and aggression; Harer and Steffensmeier, 1992; Hsieh and Pugh, 1993). Proponents of this perspective posit that the association between racial/ethnic composition and criminal violence attenuates as stressors like resource deprivation and inequality are alleviated (Block, 1979; Messner, 1982; Williams, 1984; Sampson, 1985; 1986; Messner and Tardiff, 1986).