Minorities' homicide victimization rates fall significantly compared to whites'

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/asa-mhv032816.php

Public Release: 31-Mar-2016
Minorities' homicide victimization rates fall significantly compared to whites'
American Sociological Association

A new study reveals that while homicide victimization rates declined for whites, blacks, and Hispanics in the United States from 1990-2010, the drop was much more precipitous for the two minority groups.

"Because criminologists have long viewed group disparities in criminal violence as important indicators of broader patterns of racial/ethnic inequality, these appear to be promising trends," said Michael T. Light, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Purdue University and the lead author of the study, which appears in the April issue of the American Sociological Review.

Light, and his co-author Jeffery T. Ulmer, a Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Pennsylvania State University, found that the white homicide victimization rate declined by 1.7 homicides per 100,000 whites, from 4.8 white victims per 100,000 whites in 1990 to 3.1 in 2010 (a 35 percent decrease). For blacks, they found that the homicide victimization rate declined by 13.4 homicides per 100,000 blacks, from 33.9 black victims per 100,000 blacks in 1990 to 20.5 in 2010 (a 40 percent decrease). The decline for Hispanics over this period was 5.8 fewer homicide victims per 100,000 Hispanics, from 12.4 homicide victims per 100,000 Hispanics in 1990 to 6.6 in 2010 (a 47 percent decrease). As a result of these changes, from 1990-2010, the black-white homicide victimization rate gap decreased by 40 percent, the Hispanic-white gap by 55 percent, and the black-Hispanic gap by 35 percent.

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So why have the homicide victimization rates for whites, blacks, and Hispanics converged? A major factor contributing to these trends are decreases in structural disadvantage--which includes elements such as poverty and unemployment--and segregation.

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