Richard Rosenfeld, Mark Edberg Xiangiming Fang and Curtis S. Florence (Eds.): Economics and Youth Violence: Crime, Disadvantage, and Community

Abstract

In Economics and Youth Violence: Crime, Disadvantage, and Community, a panel of experts with backgrounds in youth crime and violence from different social science and public health related conducted a literature review and original research compiled by editors Richard Rosenfeld, Mark Edberg, Xiangming Fang, and Curtis S. Florence. The panel was called upon by the CDC, in light of the 2008 recession, to develop plans for future research in the area of economic factors relating to youth violence and to create strategies for prevention and intervention. The review of past literature on the subject as well as the addition of new research findings on the various pathways and moderating factors at play between macroeconomic factors and youth violence brings readers up to speed in the most effortless way possible. The complexities inherent in attempting to study such a multi-faceted phenomenon necessitated a narrowing of focus. Thus, the panel’s efforts were centered on four subdomains that display the manifestations of the effect that economic conditions have on youth violence: families, schools, community resources, and street markets. The well-organized work detailed a variety of studies that asked many relevant questions and managed to hold these core subdomains at its center. In the introductory chapter, the editors described both how the volume came into being and its organization. The editors laid out their analytical framework, which they built upon the Brooks-Gunn model, and the domains they chose to focus on. Throughout the literature review, they found that the majority of research on the connection between economic factors and youth violence are cross-sectional, and that the results of the cross-sectional studies are often different from longitudinal studies. A suggested correction for this problem is for future research to divide its focus between cross-sectional and longitudinal methods. It was also found that most of the literature reviewed in the volume did not meet the goals of the analytical framework in examining the full pathways among economic factors, the mediating domains, and youth violence. Instead, the studies focused mainly on the relationship between youth violence and the mediating factors without examining the role played by macro-economic factors. It was also noted that the research does little to address risk factors and intervention strategies at the community level, despite noting that family and individual factors cannot be separated from their community context. The findings of the literature review influenced the research brought into the volume by the contributors. The remainder of the introductory chapter summarizes and reviews the three main parts of the volume and their chapters, with a section at the end on the outstanding issues and questions the research included presents. The first chapter in Part I, ‘‘The Net Effect of the Business Cycle on Crime and Violence’’ is written by Shawn Bushway, Philip J. Cook, and Matthew Phillips. They explain their goal of seeking to analyze the result of short-term fluctuations in economic factors as well as the overall effect of business cycles on aspects of crime through their study of family violence and the rates of suicide and arrest for specific age groups. Unlike previous studies on the subject, the authors did not seek to establish or single out any specific causal link due to the complexities and interwoven nature of the social processes being studied. The authors stated the questions that their research hoped to answer: ‘‘Do recessions cause an increase or reduction in the rate of some types of crime or violence? & Morgan Mary Buntin mmbuntin@indiana.edu