Race and Gender-Disaggregated Homicide Offending Rates

Abstract

Although gender and race are two of the best known correlates of violent crime, surprisingly little research has examined how gender and race intersect in the etiology of violent behavior. To redress this, the authors' study integrates a communities and crime perspective within a gender inequality framework to examine the city-level correlates of homicide offending rates disaggregated by race and gender. Two questions are addressed: a) Are the contextual underpinnings for high rates of urban homicide in the United States similar or distinct across race and gender categories? b) Does the ability of city characteristics as predictors of violence vary depending upon the context of violence (i.e., by victim-offender relationship)? Consistent with expectations, findings indicate that there are differences in the relative importance of predictors of homicide across race and gender categories. In addition, the relative importance of homicide predictors depends upon the nature of the victim-offender relationship.