Homicide Studies

This article contributes conceptually and empirically to research on American Indian violence. Conceptually, this study extends research on race differences in crime by outlining competing perspectives on the relationship between structural disadvantage and American Indian violence. Empirically, 1995-2005 California arrest data are used to extend macro-level analyses of American Indian violence, most notably by using offending instead of victimization data. Findings reveal that structural disadvantage is associated with increases in American Indian homicide and robbery offending. This suggests that macrosocial criminological theories are applicable to the study of American Indian violent offending as they are for other racial and ethnic groups.

The current study contrasts and compares the role of socioeconomic factors that explain variations in the homicide rate for 165 countries in 2010. Regression analyses demonstrate that economic development (GNI), inequality (Gini), and poverty (excess infant mortality) are significant predictors of the homicide rate for all countries. However, subsample analyses shows that income inequality, not economic development or poverty, predicts homicide for countries with a medium level of human development. Also, the variations in homicide for developing countries are inadequately explained by our model. To conclude, an analysis of the countries that exhibited significant discrepancies between their predicted and observed homicide rate is discussed.

This study aims to examine recidivism patterns and the influence of imprisonment length for all homicide offenders who have been convicted in the Netherlands between 1996 and 2004. In addition, we tested whether imprisonment effects differed between homicide offenders with different characteristics. Analyses on 621 homicide offenders indicate that longer imprisonment systematically increases recidivism frequency, not recidivism speed. We find some indications that imprisonment length increases recidivism to a greater extent for offenders with an intimate partner, with a Western ethnic background and for offenders with a relatively shorter detention history prior to the homicide.

This study contributes to the body of research examining why city-level violence rates peaked in 1993. Taking homicide data from that year, we introduce an indicator for active street gangs along with indicators derived from common structural explanations of homicide rates. We assess whether gang presence is empirically associated with homicide variation across 154 U.S. central cities. Consistent with conceptual claims, correlational evidence demonstrates that active gangs were a significant source of homicides across this sample of cities. As a secondary concern, we assess structural conditions that were likely to predict gang formation within cities during the crime peak.