The Structural Context of Homicide: Accounting for Racial Differences in Process

Previous research demonstrates differences in the processes that generate black and white rates of criminal violence. Analyses of race-specific urban homicide offending rates for 1990 test the hypothesis that racially different effects occur because the crime-generating process itself is conditioned by the social situations of blacks and whites. Results show that when African Americans and whites have similar low levels of concentrated disadvantage, the effects of disadvantage and homeownership are relatively comparable.