City-Level Violent Crime Trends and Racial-Ethnic Income Inequality

Abstract

Within the crime trends literature, there exist several notable studies that have examined the linkages between various economic measures and trends in violent and property crime. This research expands on that literature by examining whether and to what extent racial income gaps are related to changes in city-level crime. Pulling together data from the Uniform Crime Report, U.S. Census, and American Community Survey, this project focuses on homicide and violent crime trends of 73 cities from 2006 to 2020 and changes in city-level racial-ethnic income gaps. This study employs a series of multilevel longitudinal models to measure whether changes in this income gap, whether widening or constricting, are related to changes in rates of violent crime and homicide both within and between cities. Results find that changes in any of the racial-ethnic income gaps tested are not related to trends in violent crime and homicide within or between cities. However, the inclusion of the White-Hispanic income gap and total income gap explained sizable portions of the between-city and within-city rates of violence and homicide.