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Violent Victimization and Offending: Individual-Situational-, and Community-Level Risk Factors
Pages 1-114

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From page 1...
... Indeed, most of the more than 2,000 studies of violence published since 1945 {Bridges and Weis, 1989:14) have been descriptive end focused either on individual-leve} correlates of violent offending or, to a much lesser extent, on community-level correlates of violence rates.
From page 2...
... For example, we examine how the risks of violent victimization and offending are distributed across characteristics such as age, sex, race, marital status, lifestyle, and socioeconomic status. Our intention, though, is not only to provide a descriptive summary of statistical findings, but to suggest how, and in what ways, individual characteristics are causally related to the risk of violent victimization and offending.
From page 3...
... risk factors include residential mobility, population density, heterogeneity, and income inequality. These and other factors are assessed for both intraurban {e.g., [Local community, neighborhood)
From page 4...
... and {b) the connection between violent victimization and violent offending.
From page 5...
... correlates of violent offending. In the third section, an overview is presented of situational-level risk factors in violence, along with analyses that consider victim-offender relationships and the concept of a victim-offender overlap.
From page 6...
... Here, we address the following questions: What are the overall risks of violent victimization to individuals ? individual characteristics such as age, sex, race, marital status, and socioeconomic status?
From page 7...
... Patterns of association similar to those found in the United States have also been found in analyses using data from other countries such as England Though and Mayhew, 1983 1, the NetherIands (van Dijk and Steinmetz, 19831, and Australia {Braithwaite and Biles, 1984~. To describe these patterns of violent victimization, we present, as briefly as possible, bivariate and then multivariate findings of research examining individual-level risk factors associated with victimization by homicide, assault, robbery, and rape.
From page 8...
... . Differences in the risk of robbery victimization across age groups are not as great as those found for other violent crimes {Hin`delang et al., 1978; Cohen et al., 1981bl.
From page 9...
... First, for assault and robbery victimizations, men are more likely than women to report injury {U.S. Department of Justice, 19891.6 Second, according to victim reports, offenders attacking males are more likely to be armed: between 1973 and 1982, approximately 41 percent of male and 29 percent of female victims of violent crime were attacked by offenders with weapons ;U.S.
From page 10...
... Thus, for certain subgroups the relative risk of violent victimization is quite high. In particular, young, black males are approximately 22 times more likely than older, white females to become the victims of violent crime {U.S.
From page 11...
... Income is somewhat more strongly related to the risk of assault, with those at the lowest end of the income distribution reporting twice the risk of victimization as those at the highest end. Of all violent crimes, income is most strongly related to the risk of robbery- poorer persons report a robbery rate about three times higher than persons at the upper ends of the income distribution {U.S.
From page 12...
... This is due in part to the relative rarity of violent crime: because of its infrequency, it is difficult to test reliably for the independent effects of many of the abovementioned correlates. Nevertheless, some major studies have examined the interrelationships among demographic and socioeconomic {as well as other)
From page 13...
... findings agree: age, sex, and marital status are the predominant demographic risk factors predicting violent victimization. Miethe et al.
From page 14...
... The principal critique of much of the multivariate literature is thus that direct measures of lifestyle activities are not included in the models containing social and demographic characteristics ;Hindelang et al., 1978; Cohen et al., 1981a,b; Gottfredson, 1986; Miethe et al., 1987; Garofalo, 19871. Consequently, the effects of routine activities or specific behaviors have not been distinctly separated from the ascribed and achieved characteristics of victims.
From page 15...
... population, primarily because the major source of victimization data the NCS does not include measures of routine activities detailed enough for adequate assessment of lifestyle-routine activity hypotheses {but see Lynch, 1987, for an exception with regard to victimization at work)
From page 16...
... data. On the other hand, direct measures of routine activities derived from foreign data sets especially the number of nights per week out alone, type of activity typically engaged in at night, mode of transportation used, extent of drinking, and self-reported offending behaviors have been significantly linked to the risk of personal victimization.
From page 17...
... For example, we focus on questions such as: How are the individual-level factors of age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, and family structure related to the likelihood of committing violent crimes? Are these patterns consistent across sources of data?
From page 18...
... The relationship between age and violent crime is less peaked than that for age and property crime in that a larger proportion of violent crimes are committed by persons over age 20 ;Hindelang et al., 1981; Farrington, 1986; Jamieson and Flanagan, 1989:489; Steffensmeier et al., 19891. In other words, the age-specific rate of violent offending declines more gradually, and after a later peak, than the age-specific rate of property offending Isee U.S.
From page 19...
... By 1977 these sex ratios had changed to 6 to 1 for murder, 9 to 1 for manslaughter, 13 to 1 for robbery, and 4 to 1 for aggravated assault. Therefore, although sex-specific rates for all crimes increased over this period, the 1977 ratios suggest that the proportion of violent crimes committed by females increased more quickly over these two decades for the crimes of manslaughter, robbery, and aggravated assault.
From page 20...
... Although whites are arrested for the majority of all violent crimes Approximately 52%) , blacks are significantly overrepresented in arrest data: blacks comprise 47 percent of violent crime arresters yet constitute 12 percent of the U.S.
From page 21...
... We compared similar data for personal violent crimes using 1987 NCS and 1987 UCR data and found much the same pattern as reported earlier by Hindelang il9781. However, we found a somewhat larger discrepancy between the two estimates of racial involvement {U.S.
From page 22...
... The presence of statistical controls diminished the effect of race on violence but had no effect on the overall magnitude of the sex-violence relationship. Consequently, their results suggest that the relationship between sex and violent offending is strong and stable, whereas the association between race and violent crime is particularly sensitive to the level of analysis and the presence or absence of statistical controls.
From page 23...
... Bridges and Weis {19891, in their meta-analysis, also examined variation in the social class-violent crime association. They report, as did Hindelang et al.
From page 24...
... Additionally, the measurement of "social class" is a concern IThornberry and Farnworth, 1982; Brownfield, 19861. Although there appears to be differential involvement in serious violent offending by social class, these findings depend to some extent on the conceptuaTization and operationalization of the social class measure.
From page 25...
... Family Structure and Process There are at least three ways in which family factors have been examined in the literature on violent offending. The first pertains to the marital status of offenders.
From page 26...
... , these findings suggest that family functioning may be a more important factor than family structure and that more explicit attention should be paid to the effects of family functioning on juvenile aggression and its relationship to later violent offending as an adult See also Farrington, 19781. A third, related, way in which family factors have been stud
From page 27...
... The effects may be manifested in other ways, including depression, anxiety, or even suicide, and these links have not been adequately assessed ;Widom, l989al. ADD~T~oNAt F~ND~NGs A variety of other factors have been studied in conjunction with violent behavior among juveniles including analyses of school achievement and attachment {Andrew, 1979; Liska and Reed, 1985; Friedman and Rosenbaum, 19881, associations with delinquent peers {Friedman and Rosenbaum, 19881, and prior involvement in crime [~lumstein et al.' 1988; Farrington et al., 1988J.
From page 28...
... Overall, "the more impulsive, violent crimes of homicide, rape, and weapons violations were among the feast specialized" {Blumsteinet al., 1988:3421.~6 Consequently, although violent offenders often have prior records of extensive involvement in crime, the prediction of violence from these records is very difficult {Piper, 19851. SUMMARY Of all the individual-level correlates discussed above, ascribed demographic characteristics appear to have the strongest associations with violent offending.
From page 29...
... As noted throughout the above discussion, much of the extant literature in each of the areas relating social factors to violent offending suffers from methodological or causal interpretation limitations. These limitations include sampling {e.g., a focus on mates or juveniles only, unrepresentative samplesJ, the domain of the dependent variable Studies of specific violent crimes are surprisingly rare d, analytical techniques Imultivariate statistical controls are also rareJ, issues of causal direction Temporal ordering and reciprocal effects are typically ignored, the general failure to distinguish participation in violent offending from frequency of violent offending {Blumstein et al., 1986J, and the paucity of studies examining the intervening mechanisms and social processes that might explain the effects of demographic factors such as age, race, and sex.~7 An equally important limitation of prior individual-level analyses of both violent offending and victimization is that they generally have not considered the possible effects that situational- or community-leve!
From page 30...
... VICTIM-OFFENDER OVERLAP Our review in the previous two sections clearly reveals that prior research on the risk of violent victimization and offending has concentrated on demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the individual. The common message running throughout this prior work is that victims and offenders share a similar demographic profile: both violent offenders and victims of violent crime tend to be young, male, and black and to live in urban areas See also Hindelang, 1976, 1981; Hindelang et al., 1978; Gottfredson, 1986~.
From page 31...
... Subculture of violence theories therefore suggest that offending behavior may affect the risk of victimization and that victimization experiences may affect the probability of offending. Although rarely studied, the logic of the lifestyle-routine activity theory ;Hindelang et al., 1978; Cohen and Felson, 1979; Cohen et al., 1981b; Garofalo, 1987)
From page 32...
... Despite its potential importance to theoretical explanations of violence, there is surprisingly little empirical research that bears directly on the offending-victimization link. As Jensen and Brownfield {1986:98J concluded, "A major individual level variable, offense activity, has been ignored in recent elaborations of a formal opportunity or routine activity theory of personal victimization." An important reason for this is that most criminological studies examine either offending or victimization few data sets are designed to examine victim-offender interrelationships.
From page 33...
... examined the independent effect of violent offending behavior and deviant lifestyles {e.g., drinking, drug used on the risk of personal victimization. Data used for these analyses were derived from the 1982 and 1984 British Crime Surveys.
From page 34...
... Moreover, increased involvement in offending "lifestyles" either through increases in time spent with delinquent peers or through one's own offending had large positive effects on robbery and assault victimization, controlling for race, age, sex, family structure, family income, neighborhood characteristics, and prior propensity toward victimization. Evidence was also found for reciprocal effects, whereby increases in victimization predicted changes in offense involvement.
From page 35...
... Caution is clearly required when interpreting the associations between victim-offender relationships and violence. The NCS data suggest that robbery is the violent crime most likely to involve strangers victims are approximately four times more likely to be robbed by strangers than by nonstrangers.20 However, for rape and assault, differences in incidence rates between stranger and nonstranger crimes are much smaller.
From page 36...
... One final point concerning intersexual differences in violent events should be made. When women are involved in intersexual violent crimes as victims, the consequences are likely to be much more serious than when women are victimized by women.
From page 37...
... argues, "Although the weight of the empirical evidence for a relatior~ship between drinking and interpersonal violence is impressive, it probably overstates the importance of drinking as a causal factor in the occurrence of interpersonal violence." The drug use literature is also complex and beyond the scope of our review See Tonry and Wilson, 19901. However, it is clear that drug use is related to violent offending {Goldstein, 19891.
From page 38...
... Victim Resistance In a related manner, situational analyses have studied the role that victim resistance plays in the outcome of violent events. As is true of situational-level analyses in general, there exist numerous unresolved problems, such as the type of victim behaviors that constitute "resistance." One of the broadest definitions of
From page 39...
... In other words, at one level of abstraction nearly all activities that persons initiate to decrease the likelihood of victimization Even such as installing alarms and purchasing or carrying firearms J are instances of resistance. Nevertheless, it has typically been the case that analyses of victim resistance within given violent events focus on whether the victim engaged in "forceful resistance" behaviors Isuch as fighting)
From page 40...
... analysis, third parties' behaviors were characterized as antagonistic in the majority of violent events. They found that when third parties did attempt to mediate disputes underlying assaults, their efforts typically had no effect on the likelihood that the event would result in a homicide.
From page 41...
... Although individual lifestyles may thus predict variations in victimization within a given environment, the base level of risk that they face is "heightened by sheer proximity to and hence exposure to potential offenders" {Garofalo, 1987:381. It follows that multilevel models including both demographic and lifestyle measures along with ecological and/or situational measures of the extent of crime can provide further insights into the risk factors for violent victimization.
From page 42...
... has shown that the risk of violent victimization by strangers is significantly and positively related to neighborhood levels of family disruption, percent of singleperson households, and residential mobility, when age, marital status, sex, and neighborhood socioeconomic status and unemployment rates are controlled. Thus, regardless of key individualleve!
From page 43...
... have correctly observed, social scientists often "attribute greater originality to contemporary studies and less value to the old than is actually warranted by the facts in the case." Although space limitations preclude detailed review, the facts suggest that consideration of community-level sources of violence should begin with recognition of the original contributions of nineteenth century researchers such as Guerry, Quetelet, Rawson, and Mayhew {for a review see Morris, 1958; Levin and Lindesmith, 19371. Their ecological, or community-level, perspective on crime united three major concerns that contrast with the individual-level emphasis prevalent ire modern criminology Morris, 195$:421: ill a primary interest in crime as a social or collective phenomenon, of which individual behavior is a component, rather than in motivation of crime in the individual, t2)
From page 44...
... In this classic work, Shaw and McKay argue that three structural factors low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity, and residential mobility led to the disruption of local community social organization, which in turn accounted for variations in rates of crime and delinquency {see also Shaw et al., 1929; Kornhauser, 1978; Sampson and Groves, 19891. The origins of this thesis can be traced to Clifford Shaw's early work in Chicago isee Shaw et al., 1929)
From page 45...
... and official delinquency rates. " Despite the major focus on nondifferentiated delinquency rates in ecological research, three studies in the mid-twentieth century did underscore the role of community-level socioeconomic status in delineating patterns of violence.
From page 46...
... Third, the list of variables considered has been expanded much beyond poverty, racial composition, and mobility to include such factors as inequality, density, housing structure, family disruption, region, and opportunities for crime. Fourth, there has been much more concern in recent years with the limitations of official data.
From page 47...
... More common has been the use of victimization surveys to provide an alternative window from which to view the ecological correlates of violent crimes such as assault and robbery. For example, the National Crime Survey has been utilized to estimate both city- and neighborhood-level correlates of violent victimization.
From page 48...
... Again, the general similarity to Shaw and McKay is apparent: violent crime rates were disproportionately concentrated in high-density poverty areas characterized by a large proportion of minorities. The 1980s produced several studies of homicide that applied multivariate techniques to assess the independent effects of local community structure.
From page 49...
... When percent black, percent Hispanic, and poverty were simultaneously entered into a multiple regression equation, poverty had significant positive effects on gang homicide rates for 1978-19Bl and 1982-1985. In particular, their data showed that the standardized coefficient reflecting the direct effect of poverty on 1978-1981 gang homicide rates was .42, with controlling for percent black and percent Hispanic.
From page 50...
... Smith and Jarjoura {1988) concluded that communities characterized by rapid population turnover and high levels of poverty have significantly higher violent crime rates than either mobile areas that are more affluent or poor areas that are stable.
From page 51...
... For example, Block's {1979:50) study of Chicago's community areas revealed consistent negative correlations between percent neighborhood stability and the violent crimes of homicide, robbery, and aggravated assault {-.47, -.50, and-.40, respectively; all p < .051.
From page 52...
... Their research investigated changes In community structure and the violent crimes of murder and aggravated assault for 277 Baltimore city neighborhoods in the period 19701980. The two dimensions of ecological change examined were economic status and family status.
From page 53...
... showed that homicide rates were significantly and substantially related to percent black jr = .691, as did BeasTey and Antunes jl974l, MIadenka and Hill jl976l, Messner and Tardiff {19861, Sampson ;1985al, Roncek il981l, and Smith and Jarjoura {19881. The dispute arises over the strength of the direct effect of racial composition on violence.
From page 54...
... Thus, although there is little question that percent black and heterogeneity are strong and pervasive correlates of violent crime rates, there is reason to doubt whether racial composition or heterogeneity has unique explanatory power. Additionally, the theoretical status of racial composition at the community level is questionable.
From page 55...
... Characteristics of the physical environment related to housing and population density thus appear to increase the level of violent crime regardless of compositional factors.23 Family Structure Although largely ignored in early ecological research, several recent studies have turned to examination of the community-level
From page 56...
... One reason is that high levels of family "disruption" ;e.g., divorce rates, female-headed families with children) may facilitate crime by decreasing community networks of informal social control.
From page 57...
... report that family structure, especially percent single-parent families, helps account for the association between race and violent crime at the community level; racial composition was not significantly related to violent crime in multivariate models once percent single-parent families had been included. Therefore, it seems that recent emphases on family structure are based on consistent empirical support.
From page 58...
... This approach is grounded in what can be termed the systemic model Sampson, 19881, in which the local community is viewed as a complex system of friendship and kinship networks, and formal and informal associational ties rooted in family life and ongoing socialization processes. Social organization and social disorganization are thus seen as different ends of the same continuum with respect to systemic networks of community social control.
From page 59...
... jl984) examined variations in violent crime Mugging, assault, murder, rape, shooting, and yoking)
From page 60...
... Mobility had significant inverse effects on friendship networks; family disruption was a significant predictor of unsupervised peer groups; and socioeconomic status had positive effects on organizational participation. When combined with the results of research on gang delinquency that point to the salience of informal and formal institutional community structures in controlling the formation of gangs {Short and Stro~tbeck, 1956; Thrasher, 1963; Hagedorn, 1988)
From page 61...
... Accordingly, a major component of Shaw and McKay's theory was that heterogeneous, Tow-income, urban communities spawned the formation of delinquent organizations E.g., gangs) with their own subcultures and norms perpetuated through cultural transmission.24 The ethnographic study of community cultures and value systems in relation to social disorganization has not received nearly the same attention as quantitative studies that examine variations in crime rates.
From page 62...
... Much like Rainwater jl970l, Suttles jl968l, and Horowitz {19871, Anderson's ethnographic research suggests that in certain community contexts the wider cultural values are simply not relevant they become "unviable." To be sure, there is great dispute whether subcultural values are in fact genuine or are in essence fake values that are used to rationalize behavior. Liebow's {1967)
From page 63...
... Indeed, the idea that dominant values become existentially irrelevant in certain community contexts is a powerful one, albeit an idea that has not had the research exploitation it deserves. We return later to a discussion of community ethnographies and how they might be more profitably linked to structurally oriented studies of variation in crime rates.
From page 64...
... The more consistent and sturdy structural correlates of violence seem to be residential mobility or change especially when linked to increasing poverty and social dislocation and the factors of family disruption and housing/population density. Additionally, there is evidence that intervening dimensions of community structural disorganization, such as unsupervised peer groups, attenuated local friendship networks, and low organizational participation, have positive effects on violence.
From page 65...
... jl990J that examine variations in homicide rates across macrolevel units of cities, SMSAs, and in a few cases, states.25 The following variables are represented in this body of research: population size, population density, percent of the population that is black, percent youth ;e.g, percent age 1529J, percent male divorce rate, percent of children not living with both parents, median famiTy income, percent families living in poverty, the Gini index of income inequaTity, the unemployment rate, and a dichotomous variable indicating those cities or metropolitan areas Tocated in the South. Despite the wide variety of measures, the majority of studies in Table 1 were clearly focused on economic deprivation and inequality.
From page 66...
... The only apparent exception to this pattern is percent divorced, which has rather consistent positive associations with homicide in the minority of studies in which it was measured {e.g., Blau and Blau, 1982; Williams, 19841. Percent black also shows a fairly consistent pattern of positive covariation with homicide IMessner, 1982, 1983b; Blau and Blau, 1982; Bailey, 1984; Simpson, 1985; Sampson, 1986bl.
From page 67...
... They first identified what they termed a "baseline regression model" that incorporated the major predictor variables used by the 21 studies in Table 1. The predictor variables, labeled "structural covariates," were population size, population per square mile, percent black population, percent of the population age 15 to 29, percent divorced males, percent of children not living with both parents, median family income, percent of families living below the official poverty level, the Gini index of income concentration, percent unemployed, and a dichotomous variable indicating southern location.
From page 68...
... SAMPSON AND JANET a. LAURITSEN TABLE 2 Standardized Regression Coefficients of Structural Covariates of Homicide Rates for U.S.
From page 69...
... Factors leading to the increased segregation of poor blacks include opposition from organized community groups to public housing projects in stable neighborhoods and political decisions to neglect rehabilitation of single-family residential units Massey, 1990; Sampson, 1990J. Urban minorities have also been especially vulnerable to structural economic changes related to the deindustrialization of central cities E.g., shift from goodsproducing to service-producing industries, increasing polarization of the labor market into Tow-wage and high-wage sectors, "high 1 ~ · .
From page 70...
... found that percent black, percent femaTe-headed families, and low median income covaried together, whereas Harries {1976J discovered that percent black and percent female headed households loaded on a single factor. These "deprivation" indices were in turn significantly related to citylevel variations in violence.
From page 71...
... jl9901.27 In a study of variations in violent crime across 65 SMSAs in 1970, Crutchfield et al.
From page 72...
... Substantively, the model focused on the exogenous factors of black male joblessness and economic deprivation, and their effects on violent crime as mediated by black family disruption. The rationale stemmed largely from Wilson's (1987~ argument that the labor market marginality of black males and accompanying economic deprivation have had profound negative implications for the black community, especially black women with children.
From page 73...
... These establishments include commercial cinemas and drive-ins, entertainment producers, and profitmaking professional and semiprofessional sports establishments that "summarize the availability and the opportunities for a wide range of activities that take place outside of the household" {Messner and Blau, 1987:10391. Controlling for region, percent black, percent poor, and the age, race, and sex composition of SMSAs, Messner and Blau {1987:1043 found consistent significant effects of aggregate routine activity pa-sterns on violence.
From page 74...
... in a study of county-level variations in firearms ownership and violent crime in Illinois. Once county-level factors such as poverty and urbanization were controlled, Bordua found no consistent relationship between firearms ownership and rates of homicide or other violent crimes.
From page 75...
... However, rather than dwell on these methodological limitations of macrolevel research, many of which have been explicated above or in other sources {e.g., Land et al., 1990) , this section considers more fundamental and as yet unresolved problems relating to ill reciprocal effects of violence on community structure and routine activities, {2)
From page 76...
... notes, those most vulnerable to violent crimes such as rape ;e.g., women) may purchase weapons out of a perceived need for self-defense.
From page 77...
... Perhaps the most salient consequence of violent crime is sheer demographic collapse extreme population Toss and/or selective out-migration from the neighborhood. As Skogan {1986:223)
From page 78...
... What is particularly problematic from the present perspective is that many of the community-level characteristics thought to cause violence {e.g., mobility, population loss, increasing concentration of the underclass, gun ownership, routine activities, weak friendship networks, attenuation of local social control and community organizations) may themselves be affected by feedback processes from violent crimes such as robbery.
From page 79...
... In point of fact, with the exception of data from Baltimore Taylor et al., 1984) and Great Britain iSampson and Groves, 19891, there have been few if any direct tests of the effects of social disorganization and community social control on rates of violence.
From page 80...
... For example, an observed macroleve! result such as the correlation of median income or percent black with violence rates may simply represent the aggregate of relationships occurring at Tower levels of social structure and not a manifestation of processes taking place at the level of the community as a whole.
From page 81...
... For example, is the relationship between the concentration of poverty and crime rates caused by an aggregation of individual-level effects of social class, or by a genuine community-level effect; or is it simply a differential selection of individuals into communities based on prior E.g., antisocial] behavior?
From page 82...
... Consider that although approximately 70 percent of all poor whites lived in nonpoverty areas in the five largest U.S. central cities in 1980, only 15 percent of poor blacks did.
From page 83...
... Regardless of a black's individual-level family or economic situation, the average community of residence differs dramatically from that of a similarly situated white ;see also Sampson, 1987a; Stark, 19871. Therefore, the relationship between race and violence may be accounted for largely by community context {e.g., segregation, concentration of family disruption and joblessness, social isolation, sparse social networks)
From page 84...
... Also, both the individual and the macrolevels have tended to ignore the microsituational context Short, 1985) of violent events.
From page 85...
... interact with community context? Does effective family social control and transmission of nonviolent values depend on levels of community social disorganization?
From page 86...
... The reason is that many of the hypothesized community-level sources of violence noted throughout this paper {e.g., residential instability, concentration of poverty and family disruption, high-density public housing projects, attenuation of social networks are determined, both directly and indirectly, by the policy decisions of public officials.
From page 87...
... Bursik jl989J has shown that the planned construction of new public housing projects in Chicago in the 1970s was associated with increased rates of population turnover, which in turn were related to increases in crime independent of racial composition. More generally, Skogan il986:206)
From page 88...
... . When linked to the probable effects of concentrated urban poverty and family disruption on community social organization, as reviewed above, governmental housing policies clearly become relevant to crime contro!
From page 89...
... Based on the theoretical conceptualization and empirical literature reviewed earlier, we thus conclude that community-leve! factors such as {but not limited tol30 the ecoJogicait concentration of the urban underclass, residential mobility and population turnover, family disruption' housing and population density, criminal opportunity structures E.g., levels of nonhousehold leisure activities, gun density)
From page 90...
... in all likelihood interact with these community characteristics {see also Gottfredson and Taylor, 1986) to explain both victimization by violence and criminal careers in violent offending.
From page 91...
... 9 Victims of violent crime were defined as those persons who reported an assault, robbery, or personal larceny with contact. 10 Gender was not considered in this analysis because of a limited number of reported robberies against females.
From page 92...
... An empirical example of the problem can be seen in Denno's {1986) analysis of victim, offender, and situational characteristics of violent crime.
From page 93...
... 23 Although not typically thought of as a property of local communities, urbanization is strongly related to violent crime, independent of compositional factors ;Laub, 1983; Sampson and Groves, 1989~. See Fischer {1975)
From page 94...
... . Specifically, the factor most related to violent crime in the suburbs was comprised mainly of percent poor and percent black {Stahura and Sloan, 1988:1111)
From page 95...
... Blau, I., and P.M. Blau 1982 The cost of inequality: Metropolitan structure and violent crime.
From page 96...
... 1986 Firearms ownership and violent crime.
From page 97...
... Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications. 1982 The role of firearms in violent crimes.
From page 98...
... Denno, D 1986 Victim, offender, and situational characteristics of violent crime.
From page 99...
... and D Rosenbaum 1988 Social control theory: The salience of components by age, gender, and type of crime.
From page 100...
... 1989 Drugs and violent crime.
From page 101...
... American Sociological Review 42:3- 16. Hawkins, D
From page 102...
... Moore 1986 Southern exposure: Deciphering the South's influence on homicide rates. Social Forces 64:906-24.
From page 103...
... Langan, P., and C Innes 1990 The risk of violent crime.
From page 104...
... Reed 1985 Ties to conventional institutions and delinquency: Estimating reciprocal effects. American Sociological Review 50:547-560.
From page 105...
... J Sampson , , , 1991 The sex ratio, family disruption, and rates of violent crime: The paradox of demographic structure.
From page 106...
... 1987 The interracial nature of violent crimes: A re-examination. American Journal of Sociology 92:817-835.
From page 107...
... Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 56:488-497.
From page 108...
... 1986c Effects of socioeconomic context on official reaction to juvenile delinquency. American Sociological Review 51 :876-885.
From page 109...
... 1960 Urban crime areas, part I American Sociological Review 25:527542.
From page 110...
... Wolfgang, eds., Violent Crimes Violent Criminals. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
From page 111...
... Stahura, I., and T Sloan, III 1988 Urban stratification of places, routine activities and suburban crime rates.
From page 112...
... U.S. Department of Justice 1985 The Risk of Violent Crime.
From page 113...
... Wolfgang, eds., Violent Crime, Violent Criminals. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications.
From page 114...
... 1981 Kids, groups, and crime: Some implications of a well known secret. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 72:867-885


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