RACE/ETHNICITY, SOCIAL STRUCTURE, AND VIOLENCE: MOVING BEYOND BLACK-WHITE COMPARISONS TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF HISPANIC VIOLENCE
Open Access
- Author:
- Feldmeyer, Ben
- Graduate Program:
- Sociology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 20, 2007
- Committee Members:
- Darrell J Steffensmeier, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Barrett Alan Lee, Committee Member
Eric Silver, Committee Member
Jeffery Todd Ulmer, Committee Member
James Eisenstein, Committee Member - Keywords:
- race/ethnicity
violence
social structure
racial invariance
segregation
immigration - Abstract:
- It is widely recognized that poverty, disadvantage, and other structural conditions shape racial/ethnic patterns of violence. However, ecological research on race/ethnicity and violence has been limited almost exclusively to black-white comparisons and has overlooked Hispanics and other race/ethnic groups. Additionally, studies on race/ethnicity, social structure, and violence have been limited in that they (1) continue to debate whether the structural sources of violence are “racially invariant” (similar), (2) have focused on the effects of disadvantage while often overlooking how segregation, immigration, and other structural factors influence violence across race/ethnic groups, and (3) have faced methodological limitations that may have biased prior findings about racial/ethnic differences in violence and the structural predictors of violence. In light of its recent population growth and the paucity of research in the area, the primary objective of this project is to expand ecological research on race/ethnicity and violence by examining the structural sources of Hispanic violence – both alone and compared to whites and blacks. Three key questions about the relationship between race/ethnicity, social structure, and violence are addressed. First, this project tests the racial invariance hypothesis, which argues that the structural sources of violence are similar across race/ethnicity. Specifically, I examine whether the structural predictors of violence and especially the effects of disadvantage on violence are the same for whites, blacks, and Hispanics, and also whether support for the racial invariance argument depends on how invariance is defined (Chapter 2). Second, moving beyond the effects of disadvantage, this project examines whether racial/ethnic isolation influences black and Hispanic violence and whether the effects of segregation on violence are similar/invariant across race/ethnicity (Chapter 3). Third, focusing specifically on Hispanics, I examine whether immigration influences Hispanic violence and whether immigration disorganizes or stabilizes Hispanic communities. To address these questions, I use arrest data on violent crime and measures of social structure for whites, blacks, and Hispanics for more than 200 census places across California and New York during the 1999 to 2001 period. Data on white, black, and Hispanic violent crime are drawn from the California Arrest Data (CAL) and the New York State Arrest Data (NYSAD). Race/ethnicity-specific measures of social structure are drawn from 2000 U.S. Census data for each race/ethnic group at the census place-level. Seemingly Unrelated Regression techniques are used to compare the structural sources of violence across race/ethnic groups, and structural equation models are used to identify the total, direct, and indirect effects of immigration on Hispanic violence rates. Findings from Chapter 2 provide mixed support for racial invariance arguments and indicate that disadvantage contributes to violence for whites, blacks, and Hispanics. However, the effects of particular structural predictors and the magnitudes of structural effects on violence vary widely across race/ethnicity. Thus, the racial invariance hypothesis is not supported when using narrowly-defined interpretations and receives modest support when using the broadest possible definitions of “invariance.” Chapter 3, which examines the effects of racial/ethnic segregation on black and Hispanic violence, also provides mixed evidence for the racial invariance hypothesis and reveals that being residentially isolated (from whites and from all other race/ethnic groups) contributes to Hispanic violence and black homicide but appears to reduce black Violent Index rates. Additionally, findings suggest that segregation effects on violence for both blacks and Hispanics are mediated by concentrated disadvantage. Chapter 4 relies on social disorganization theory and community resource arguments drawn from the social capital perspective to examine the effects of immigration on Hispanic violence. The findings from this chapter suggest that immigration has little direct effect on Hispanic violence. However, immigration appears to have multiple, offsetting indirect effects on Hispanic violence that work through social disorganization and community resource/social capital measures. The combination of these direct and indirect effects shows that immigration has little total effect on Hispanic violence. Chapter 5 concludes by discussing important implications of this project for research and theory on the ecology of crime and the relationship between race/ethnicity, social structure, and violence.