Homicides and race riots

Abstract

Comparative analysis of American race riots and homicides during the 1960s shows that the presence of large percentages of non-Whites and people living in structural poverty increased the chances of cities' having both collective (race riots) and individual (homicides) violence. Cities in the South had a greater chance of having relatively serious homicide activity than did other U.S. cities but a lesser chance of having serious race riot activity. The relative risk of individual (homicide) versus less individualistic (race riot) response to structural poverty is interpreted from a multidimensional perspective that treats both riots and homicide as examples of violent coping mechanisms. These mechanisms form one axis of a three-dimensional representation of community coping mechanisms: violent/non-violent, symptom focused/cause focused, and collective/individual. Several authors (e.g., Ball-Rokeach & Short, 1986; Spilerman, 1976) have argued that the differential incidence of riots in the South and in the rest of the country during the sixties should be interpreted in terms of the relative repressiveness and unresponsiveness of city governments in the South. Our findings suggest that repressiveness and unresponsiveness may be conducive to the development of coping mechanisms in communities that define and resolve problems at the individual level. The ironic consequences of such cultural adaptation are discussed.