Economic Deprivation, Opportunity Structure, and Robbery Victimization: Intra- and Interracial Patterns

Abstract

Intraracial and interracial robbery victimization rates for a sample of 25 cities are used to test hypotheses derived from economic deprivation and macrostructural opportunity theories. Robbery victimization rates are computed separately for four race-of-victim-race-of-offender combinations: whites victimized by whites, whites victimized by blacks, blacks victimized by blacks, and blacks victimized by whites. The effects of variables important to economic deprivation theory (percent of the offending group in poverty and racial economic inequality) and macrostructural opportunity theory (relative group size and residential segregation) are evaluated through multiple regression analysis. The hypotheses derived from macrostructural theory clearly fare better than those derived from economic deprivation theory. Whereas both relative group size and residential segregation are related to victimization rates in a manner consistent with macrostructural theory, neither the poverty measure nor the measure of racial inequality exhibits the theoretically predicted associations with the dependent variables.