Violence among African Americans

Abstract

An overwhelming majority of studies examining the relationship between race and criminality uses racial composition as a proxy for cultural context or simply race effects without actually specifying what it may or may not be capturing. This ambiguous operationalization neglects the dynamic nature of race/class stratification and the more general patterning of opportunity and spatial concentration. Inroads toward a better understanding of race/racial concentration and its relation to violence and criminological outcomes more generally can be made with an alteration of the current conceptual landscape. This article facilitates the reconceptualization process by critically examining current research and presenting a conceptual framework illustrating that race effects on violence are linked to very tangible macrostructural, normative, and recursive dynamics that are sensitive to the local and historical context within which most African Americans reside.