Scope and Conceptual Issues in Testing the Race–crime Invariance Thesis: Black, White, and Hispanic Comparisons*

Abstract

Our goal in this article is to contribute conceptually and empirically to assessments of the racial invariance hypothesis, which posits that structural disadvantage predicts violent crime in the same way for all racial and ethnic groups. Conceptually, we elucidate the scope of the racial invariance hypothesis and clarify the criteria used for evaluating it. Empirically, we use 1999–2001 averaged arrest data from California and New York to extend analyses of the invariance hypothesis within the context of the scope and definitional issues raised in our conceptual framing – most notably, by including Hispanic comparisons with blacks and whites, by examining the invariance assumption for homicide as well as the violent crime index, by using discrete as well as composite disadvantage measures, and by using census place localities as the study unit. The mixed findings we report from our comparisons (across whites, blacks, and Hispanics; offense types; type of disadvantage) suggest caution and uncertainty about the notion that structural sources of violence affect racial/ethnic groups in uniform ways. We conclude that the hypothesis should be regarded as provisional and its scope remains to be established as to whether it applies only under narrow conditions or is a principle of general applicability.

A Shot of Morality? Hispanic Immigration, Religious Contextual Characteristics, and Violence

“…To account for county socioeconomic conditions, we created a concentrated disadvantage index using principal components analysis to combine four commonly used disadvantage indicators (see Land, McCall, and Cohen 1990;Steffensmeier et al 2010): poverty (percentage of population below the poverty line), unemployment (percentage of the 16-59 civilian labor force unemployed), female headship (percentage of families with children under 18 headed by a female), and low education (percentage of residents 25þ without a high school degree). In addition, because of their demonstrated relevance in previous studies, we include as controls: residential mobility (percentage of households that experience housing turnover during the 2005-2010 period); an entropy score of racial=ethnic heterogeneity as a measure of population diversity (Reardon and Firebaugh 2002); logged population density; and percent urban.…”

“…However, to account for places with low counts of homicides, we utilize negative binomial models that take into account the presence of zero counts (see description of analytic techniques). Diagnostic tests regarding the appropriateness of zero-inflated models revealed that standard negative binomial models were more appropriate.7 Unfortunately, Hispanic-specific violence measures are rare, where most databases, including the Uniform Crime Reports, count Hispanics within the more traditional white, black, Asian, and Native American racial categories(Steffensmeier et al 2010).HISPANIC IMMIGRATION, RELIGION, AND CRIME…”

Structural Disadvantage and Latino Violent Offending

“…have lower rates of violence than would be expected given the levels of disadvantage they experience (Feldmeyer, 2010;Martinez, 2002;Sampson, 2008; also see review in Shihadeh & Barranco, 2010). Building on such observations, scholars have posited that structural disadvantage is more weakly associated with Latino violence than for other groups because protective elements of Latino culture-greater emphasis on family, community, cultural identity, and heritage-promote social organization, group cohesion, and facilitate ties that may buffer the effects of disadvantage on violence (Feldmeyer & Steffensmeier, 2009;Light & Gold, 2000;Martinez, 2002;Massey, 2008;Tienda & Mitchell, 2005).…”

“…At the same time, we acknowledge another possible outcome predicted by the racial invariance thesis (see reviews in Parker, 2008;Steffensmeier, Ulmer, Feldmeyer, & Harris, 2010). Informing much of the race-specific criminological research to date, this position argues that racial/ethnic differences in violence are the product of differential exposure to criminogenic structural conditions (particularly disadvantage) across racial/ethnic groups and that these structural predictors are associated with crime in the same manner for all demographic subgroups (Ousey, 1999).…”

“…To date, most of the empirical scholarship substantiating the Latino paradox has focused on large, urban locales that have long histories of Latino reception, including Miami, El Paso, San Diego, San Antonio, and Chicago (Sampson, Morenoff, & Raudenbush, 2005;Velez, 2006) or within states like New York and California that have long been settlement locales for the Latino population (Feldmeyer, 2010). Such a focus on ''established'' destinations was warranted in past decades: In 1990, nearly 90% of the Latino population resided in only 10 states, with more than 50% of the Latino population living in California and Texas alone (Lichter & Johnson, 2009).…”