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The Influence of Economic Inequality on Homicide Rates: A Study of the American South

Introduction

Theorists and researchers from various disciplines have long proposed a relationship

between economic inequality and crime. According to Becker (1968) crime rates depend on a

risks / costs analysis of being apprehended and the costs of engaging in criminal activity at the

expense of other economic activities. Others such as Kelly (2000) and Imrohoglu, Rupert and

Merlot (2000) have looked at how economic inequality influences crime. Most of the theorists

addressing the issue of criminal behavior and social inequality are from the humanities: of

sociology and economics, often with competing theories. For example, Stack (1984) in

discussing sociological theory and the model of “relative deprivation theory”, proposed that a

feeling of unfairness and disadvantage by the poor leads them to engage in criminal activity

against others. While both disciplines provide valuable contributions to the debate on economic

inequality as a factor contributing to crime, only in relatively recent times have economists

begun to segment crime into specific categories (property vs violent) to parse out the impact of

economic inequality on different crimes. These efforts have attempted to show a link between

economic inequality and crime, causal or correlational.

Most of the studies and research that address a connection between crime and inequality

have occurred in the United States (Witte 1980, Grogger 1998) because the United States has

gathered most of data on crime rates and economic inequality. In the 1990s as dataset became

available allowing cross-cultural comparisons, new avenues of inquiry commenced (Deninger

and Squire, 1996). Violent crime (robbery and homicide) have become a specific category of

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violent crimes where data collection has been more voluminous with the Uniform Crime

Reporting Statistics (FBI) serving as a national database. In the 2010 International Statistics on

Crime and Justice report (United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime -UNODC) datasets show

that globally, violent (murder, homicide, assault, rape, robbery) and property crimes (theft,

robbery, arson) have taken different directions. While property crimes generally decreased,

violent crimes have increased, just in slightly lower pace. Why this increase in violent crime has

occurred is unknown and still a matter of debate but continues to impose tremendous economic,

societal and personal costs.

Violence, specifically homicide, in the southern part of the United States has been

hypothesized as having a disproportionate effect on the population and economies (Forbes

2012). The money and economic resources committed to address violent crime, specifically

homicide, consumes valuable funds via law enforcement, court, and correctional systems and is a

drain on more productive and efficient use of tax dollars as elucidated by the Public Safety

Project (Pew Charitable Trust, 2012). To assess the magnitude of the relationship between

economic inequality and homicide, data needs to be gathered to inform the public discussion and

decision-making process. This data should be introduced into discussions on societal and

governmental interventions and where, if any, public funds would be best utilized to positively

impact economic/ financial inequality and thus reduce homicide rates. Any decisions or

interventions will involve a political process but should be data-driven and empirical in

foundation.

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Literature Review

Fajnzylber, Lederman and Loayza (2002) have reported that economic inequality as

measured by the Gini index is correlated with robbery and homicide, across cultures. As noted

above, the UNODC (2010) indicates homicide seems to have slowed but still increasing. For

the offense of murder, income inequality and crime level can be noted as trending in a reciprocal

manner (UNODC, 2012). Though the homicide rate in the United States mirrors that of western

Europe and most industrialized countries, much of this is due to the disproportionate allocation

of funds to law enforcement, court and correctional systems to maintain those convicted of

murder, far more than countries in Europe. To understand the factors influencing homicide rates,

the National Consortium on Violence Research (NCOVR) was created by the National Science

Foundation in 1998. The NCOVR delved deeper into the link between homicide rates and

economic inequality in the United States by compiling a database and training researchers and

fellows in violence research in the United States. Messner, Anselin, Hawkins, Deane, Tolnay

and Ballner (2001) compiled the database and codebook developed for the NCOVR to guide and

educate researchers on the existence and use of the datasets in evaluating different factors

influencing homicide rates in the United States. Data from the contiguous 48 states, Alaska and

Hawaii, were compiled and could be subdivided into regions of the United States, such as the

South, for further analysis. The factors compiled and analyzed include homicide rate, homicide

count, resource depletion, unemployment rates, mean family income, population structure (log

rhythmic), mean age and numerous other factors (69 to be exact), not included here. Though the

Gini index was included in the NCOVR, a more comprehensive index was created by Land,

McCall and Cohen (1990). This resource depletion coefficient is an index compiled of percent of

black families, log of median family income, Gini index of family income inequality, percent of

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families’ female headed and percent of families below poverty and was one of the risk factors

implemented in the NCOVR. Studies utilizing data from NCOVR began to appear in the late

1990’s. These studies identified economic factors associated with the increased the risk for

homicide, factors identified by the NCOVR and collected over 30 years, throughout the United

States.

Hypothesis

The link between economic inequality and homicide rate continues to be debated and

researched. If such a relationship between economic inequality and homicide rates exists, this

relationship should be observed when selected statistical techniques and methods are applied to

measures assessing the relationship between economic inequality and homicide

rates. Specifically, one should be able to assess the strength of the relationship between

homicide rate and economic inequality by evaluating the influence of indicators of economic

inequality on homicide rate. It is hypothesized that if a relationship exists between homicide rate

and economic inequality, data should reveal a moderate, really, a strong correlation between

homicide rates and indicators of economic inequality. Data should also provide means to

account, in part, for the variance of economic inequality on homicide rate. Finally, multiple

linear regression should allow one to determine if a combination of the economic factors

(variables) provide a model for predicting homicide.

Methods / Analysis

A subset of the dataset from the NCOVR identified as South, was selected for this

study. The data set utilized narrowed the parts of the United States identified as South (U.S.

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Census Bureau, 2000) as being, Washington D.C. and counties in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas,

Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, North

Carolina, Florida, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. This area of the U.S.

remained consistent in each 10-year administration of the U.S. Census from 1960 - 1990. Sixty-

nine variables were compiled and utilized by the NCOVR in determining homicide rate. Among

the factors identified and utilized in this study were homicide rate / 100,000 (HR), homicide

count (HC), resource deprivation/ affluence component (RD), population structure (PS), percent

of civilian labor force unemployed (UE), percent of families below poverty (FP), mean family

income (Mfil), the Gini coefficient (GI), mean age at death (MA) and 60 other variables. For

this study homicide rate per 100,000 was utilized vs homicide count. The specific economic

variables of resource deprivation / affluence component (RD), unemployment rate (UE), and

mean family income (Mfil) were utilized to assess their respective impact, individually, and as a

group, on homicide rates (HR) in 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990. Education was not one of the

factors compiled and adapted by the NCOVR.

Scattergrams were developed for HR vs RD, HR vs UE, HR vs Mfil to visualize any

trends and correlation coefficients were determined. Coefficients of determination to assess the

amount of variance wielded by economic factors. Linear regression was conducted at the p < .05

to determine if multiple variables may account best for homicide rate. All statistical techniques

were completed with the use of Excel 2016, Data Analysis.

Results

In Table 1 and Table 2, the correlation coefficient (r) and coefficient of determination (r2)

are presented, respectively, for initial review. A cursory glance will reveal that correlations for

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the economic variables utilized for this study and homicide rates for the respective years 1960,

1970, 1980, and 1990 are not very strong. Only the correlation of Homicide Rate to Resource

Depletion in the years 1980 and 1990, approach a moderate relationship.

Table 1 (r)

Resource Depletion Unemployment Rate Family Income

Homicide Rate 60’ .24 -.21 -.13

Homicide Rate 70’ .29 -.41 -.10

Homicide Rate 80’ .43 -.12 -.16

Homicide Rate 90’ .47 -.22 -.17

Table 2 (R2)

Resource Depletion Unemployment Rate Family Income

Homicide Rate 60’ .05 .04 .02

Homicide Rate 70’ .08 .17 .01

Homicide Rate 80’ .18 .01 .03

Homicide Rate 90’ .22 .05 .03

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Correlational tables of identified economic inequality factors with each other and homicide rate

in the years 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990 are presented below.

Table 3

Correlation (r) Table

HR 60 RD 60 UE 60

RD 60 .24

UE 60 -.02 .20

Mfil 60 -.13 -.90 .23

HR 70 RD 70 UE 70

RD 70 .29

UE 70 -.04 -.39

Mfil 70 -.10 -.83 .45

HR 80 RD 80 UE 80

RD 80 .43

UE 80 .12 .41

Mfil 80 -.16 -.76 .51

HR 90 RD 90 UE 90

RD 90 .47

UE 90 .21 .68

Mfil 90 -.17 -.78 .68

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A review of the correlational table reveals the indicators of economic inequality

(Resource Depletion, Unemployment Rate, and Mean family income) are better correlated with

each other than any are correlated with homicide rate. Due to the poor correlation and

subsequent values of r2 , a regression with the economic indicators vs homicide rate was

calculated. The resulting regression equations are presented in Table 4.

Table 4

1960 y = 4.70 (RD) + (-.14) UE + 9.26 (Mfil) -70.19 R2 = .10

1970 y = 5.64 (RD) + (-.46) (UE) + 13.49 (Mfil) - 109.47 R2 = .16

1980 y = 4.56(RD) + (.06) (UE) + 12.72 (Mfil) - 115.31 R2 = .25

1990 y =5.80 (RD) + (-.15) (UE) + 13.38 (Mfil) -128.42 R2 = .31

Discussion

Researchers and academicians have consistently utilized research to support claims that

homicide rates are impacted by economic inequalities. Most of the research has been conducted

in the United States where most of the data and data sets have been collected. Data presented in

research journals around the world tend to support the connection and correlation of homicide

rates with economic inequality. In an area defined historically by the U.S. Census Bureau as

South, that relationship was not observed.

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The correlation of homicide rate with resource depletion, unemployment and mean

family income over 30 years, at 4 different points (1960, 1970, 1980, 1990) were weak as seen in

Table 1. Squaring the correlation coefficients (Table 2) revealed very little of the relationship

between the homicide rate from 1960 -1990, could be accounted for by economic inequality as

determined in this study.

To assess whether multiple variables (resource depletion, unemployment and mean

family income) may together serve as better predictors of homicide rate in any 10-year period

interval, regressions (p <.05) were conducted for the variables identified. R square for the

regression equations for Table 3 were (.10) in 1960, (.16) in 1970, (.25) in 1980 and (.31) in

1990 indicating the relationship between the independent variables of (resource depletion,

unemployment, and mean family income) could account for very little of the homicide rate.

The hypothesis proposed in phase 1 of this project was that at least a moderate

relationship (r > .6) existed between homicide rate and economic inequality. The results indicate

this hypothesis was not supported and in fact, a weak relationship exists for the impact of

resource depletion, unemployment rate and mean family income on homicide rates, at least in the

area defined as the American South. The correlation (r) between resource depletion and

homicide rate did improve in 10-year increments. The reason for this increase is unknown but

may be a function of the different time periods of data collection, methodological artifact,

changing definitions from 1960 to 1990, and the samples chosen. These factors together with

yet-unidentified factors, may have led to calculation adjustments in the resource depletion

coefficient thus reflecting a change over time, in the correlation. Land et al (1990) when

developing the resource depletion coefficient stated, “The empirical literature on the structural

covariates of homicide rates contains inconsistent findings across different time periods and

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different geographical units. This apparent variance of findings may be due to statistical or

methodological artifacts of particular studies, such as different time periods covered, units of

analysis, samples, model specifications, and problems of statistical analysis and inference.“ This

statement indicates that this area of study was difficult in 1990, remains difficult today and is in

need ofadditional study to determine how economic inequality factors and homicide rate interact

and if so, how, and in what manner. Overall this study suggests the determinants for homicide

rate are far more complex than economic alone and may be accounted for by a combination of

level of education, school expulsions, history of impulsive behavior, involvement with juvenile

authorities and law enforcement, substance abuse, mental illness and other factors not compiled

by the NCOVR.

Drucker (2011) found that affiliation with gang, accessibility to firearms, involvement

with the drug trade, drug and alcohol abuse, unemployment, age (20-24) and sex (76% male),

were better predictors of homicide rate, than economics. Only one factor, unemployment, from

the NCOVR overlapped with the research of Drucker. The research of Fajnzylber et al (2002)

indicated a strong relationship between economic inequality and homicide rates, across

countries. Kelly (2002) nearly two years earlier had shown that violent crime, at least in the

United States was not trending or related in the manner proposed by Fajnzylber et al.

The studies originating from the NCOVR did not compare urban vs rural or by state as

occurred for datasets compiled later. The data set from NCOVR compiled information only by

specific counties and states, cities or urban areas were not delineated prohibiting further analysis

without identifying the counties in each state and whether the counties selected were part of or

abutting an urban area. Studies conducted by National Institute of Justice (1997), the Federal

Bureau of Investigation (2009) and Fox and Zawitz (2010) are examples of studies comparing

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homicide rates in urban versus rural, all funded by the U.S. Department of Justice. While there

appears to be some form of interaction between specific aspects of economic inequality

(unemployment) and homicide rates, the relationship is unclear.

Areas of future research should consider evaluating and adapting select economic factors

from the NCOVR (unemployment, mean family income) and the proximal risk factors identified

by Drucker to better predict homicide rates. Attempting to extricate and assign factors of

economic inequality as strongly correlated with homicide rate seems to be unproductive, at this

time. Due to the inability to display a strong relationship between economic inequalities and

homicide rate the commitment of public funds and subsequent interventions to combat and

diminish homicide rates in the American South is not recommended.

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