Neighborhoods and Homicide

Abstract

A number of prevailing themes in lethal violence research are explored in this study of homicide for the period 1985 to 1994 in Chicago, Houston, and Miami. Homicide and census tract data from the National Consortium on Violence Research Data Center are combined to analyze 14,443 homicides across 1,409 census tracts. Cluster analysis of indicators of social disorganization and social control from studies at larger aggregations (i.e., cities, standard metropolitan statistical areas, and states) results in the classification of three distinct neighborhood types. This results in a rich description of overall and sex-specific rates of adult homicide victimization and offending in expressive and instrumental incidents. Implications for future research are discussed.