Research-Note: An Examination of the Effect of Black Isolation on White Homicide and Robbery Arrest Rates

Abstract

There are two common themes in research that examines the link between segregation and race-specific crime (whether measured by racially disaggregated arrest rates, offending, or victimization). First, the majority of this research focuses on the theoretical link between segregation and black crime. While the research may include race-specific arrest rates from the Uniform Crime Reports or offending/victimization data from the Supplementary Homicide Reports, there is usually no expectation for a relationship between the segregation of the black community and the measure of white crime. Second, the dissimilarity index is the most commonly used measure of segregation in this type of research, as opposed to other measures such as the isolation index. The present study adds to the current literature in two ways. First, it presents a hypothesis that the segregation of African-Americans may benefit the white community by reducing white homicide and robbery arrest rates. Second, it replaces the dissimilarity index with the rarely used isolation index for both methodological and theoretical reasons. Findings from ordinary least squares regression using a sample of 81 of the largest cities from 1990 and 2000 suggest that black isolation lowers both white homicide and white robbery arrest rates.