Racial Animosity and Interracial Crime*

Abstract

The primary objective of this study is to determine the effect of a victim's race on the likelihood of him or her being seriously injured during the commission of an interracial crime. We also assess the probability of a homicide occurring during an interracial crime. A multilevel city analysis shows that black offenders are no more apt than white offenders to injure their victims seriously during an interracial robbery or rape. A black offender also does not have a greater proclivity to kill his or her victim during the commission of an interracial crime. Some evidence suggests that white victims are more likely than black victims to suffer serious physical harm during an aggravated assault. Results also reveal that contextual factors related to racial animosity, such as residential segregation, white‐to‐black economic inequality, and black‐to‐white unemployment, fail to have any moderating effect on either the severity of victim injury or the likelihood of a homicide occurring during an interracial crime. Overall, the results generated in this study tend to cast doubt on the validity of racial animosity theory. Our findings also lead us to question the veracity of the oftenmade claim that black‐on‐white crimes are punished more severely because these types of offenses are somehow more heinous in circumstance. At least in regard to serious victim injury and victim death, black‐on‐white crime is no more violent than white‐on‐black crime.

The Road to Murder: The Enduring Criminogenic Effects of Juvenile Confinement Among a Sample of Adult Career Criminals

“…In Model 2 where juvenile confinement was measured categorically, juvenile noncompliance was negatively associated with homicide offending. Similarly, neither onset nor the demographic controls were significant which generally conflicts with research showing that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately involved in violent offending (D'Alessio & Stolzenberg, 2009;Elliott, 1994) including murder (D'Alessio & Stolzenberg, 2009;DeLisi et al, 2007;Walsh, 2005), compared to Whites. Turning to total criminal career measures, chronic offending as measured by career arrests and serious property offending was not associated with homicide offending.…”

Violence in Context: A Multilevel Analysis of Victim Injury in Robbery Incidents

“…There are many benefits associated with using NIBRS data to study crime incidents. We were able to control for numerous incident-level variables that prior research suggests influence the severity of violence during crime events (D'Alessio & Stolzenberg, 2009;Kleck & DeLone, 1993;Melde & Rennison, 2008;Messner et al, 2004;Schnebly, 2002). We were also able to nest robbery incidents within cities to examine the moderating influence of context on the relationship between situational factors and severity of violence.…”

“…Though our research questions focus on the influence of location and time on victim injury, we included several other incident-level variables in our analyses to control for differences across robbery events. Prior research has documented several correlates of victim injury, including various victim and offender characteristics (D'Alessio & Stolzenberg, 2009;Kleck & DeLone, 1993;Melde & Rennison, 2008;Messner, McHugh, & Felson, 2004;Schnebly, 2002). Number of victims measures the number of victims involved in the incident.…”

Do cities influence co-offending?

“…An additional 11 states have more than 50 percent of their population covered by NIBRS, while in five states the coverage by NIBRS represents less than half of their total population. NIBRS is a valuable tool in the study of crime and violence because it is capable of producing more detailed, accurate, and meaningful data than that generated by the UCR (see D'Alessio & Stolzenberg, 2009;Stolzenberg & D'Alessio, 2000).…”