NCJ Number
203805
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 20 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2003 Pages: 675-695
Date Published
December 2003
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study examined the relationship between property crime and racial segregation, as well as the influence of police strength on the association between segregation and crime.
Abstract
The study focused on 340 American cities with populations of 25,000 or greater in 1990. The dependent variables were city crime rates for burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. These variables were computed from crimes known to the police as reported in the FBI's 1990 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Police strength was measured as the number of noncivilian law enforcement personnel per 100,000 population for each city; data were obtained from the 1990 UCR. The explanatory independent variable, racial residential segregation, was measured with the Index of Dissimilarity (D), which is widely used to measure segregation at the city level; it pertains to how people of different races are dispersed across the census tracts that compose each city. Consistent with many other studies of city-level differences in crime, a control for region of the country was included, because higher rates of crime are reported in certain regions. The study found that the extent of racial segregation in a city was significantly and positively associated with all three measures of serious property crime. Analyses that examined whether a positive association between segregation and crime may be mediated by the effect of police strength in segregated areas also found support. Police strength was found to render the associations of segregation with larceny and motor-vehicle theft insignificant; however, the segregation-burglary relationships remained significant following the inclusion of the police-presence variable. This finding may be due, at least in part, to the relative importance of economic deprivation for predictions of the various forms of property crime. Thus, at least part of the association between segregation and crime appears to be the result of a larger and perhaps more suspicious police presence in predominately minority neighborhoods. Because segregation concentrates minorities in isolated and disadvantaged enclaves, it may encourage the police to focus their efforts and resources in these communities. Although property crime may be reduced by this police presence, disproportionate police surveillance of Black neighborhoods often serves to link the crime problem with the minority population, particularly young Black men, leading to their disproportionate incarceration, the disruption of Black families, and greater difficulty for Black men to achieve success in conventional society. Lower rates of gainful employment in a neighborhood in turn create economic inequality, which perpetuates the concentration of Black families in poor neighborhoods, resulting in racial segregation, property crime, and a strong police presence. The cycle can only be broken by changes in the structural conditions in society that negatively affect the poor and minorities. 4 tables and 62 references