Economic Deprivation And Homicide Rate

In this article by Eitle, D’Alessio, and Stolzenber (2006), the authors examined if
economic segregations and economic disadvantages are factors that can contribute to the
homicide rates. The authors in this study, did a cross selection from Census Data and Homicides
Reports to prove their hypothesis, that “economic deprivation is positively associated with homicide rates” (Eitle, D’Alessio, and Stolzenber 2006). The authors included three theories of why they believe that economic deprivations are related to homicides rate and the theories are, absolute deprivation, relative deprivation and concentrated deprivation/disadvantage. Absolute deprivation is associated with economic disadvantage, while relative deprivation is associated with

inequalities based off economics and concentrated deprivation/ disadvantage, which is associated with economic disadvantages because of isolation, such as poverty. For this study, the authors collected data from 100,000 people,
including 2,000 blacks from urban areas. The authors used data from the 2000 Census and the
supplemental homicide Reports from 1991 through 2001, to complete their study. After
collecting the data, the authors were able to form an analysis, but the analysis was found to be
inconsistent. Since the analysis was inconsistent, the authors examined the analysis at aggression
levels, which included the Jargowsky measurement; “Jargowsky’s measure of economic
segregation is constructed to capture the relative distribution of income across neighborhoods in
a city or urban area, like most measures of residential segregation” (Eitle, D’Alessio, and
Stolzenber 2006). The results from the article suggested that economic segregation and economic
disadvantages play a role in homicide rate among blacks, whites and overall. The authors also
concluded that economic segregation, such as poverty does not relate to black homicide rates.
The authors also included that futher research should be done on this study.