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Abstract
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Although there is an increase in attention being paid to race and sex variations in crime and delinquency, little has been done to disaggregate the "gender-ratio" problem in order to account for participation in particular offenses, specifically different types of violent crime. Virtually all of the research pertaining to the interaction of gender, race and -violent crime focuses on murder and dichotomizes race into white and black, or white and nonwhite. This paper uses New York City arrest data to examine the extent of violence within various race-sex-crime subgroups. Rates of violent offending (i.e., homicide, robbery, assault, and burglary) are presented for black, Hispanic and white males and females. Regardless of violent crime type, black and Hispanic females exhibited high rates of offending relative to white females. Furthermore, the violent offending rates of black females paralleled those of white males. These findings suggest that an examination of gender differences in violent offending, independent of race, will produce incomplete and potentially misleading interpretations. The paper also provides a social structural explanation of the disproportionate involvement of black females (and males) in violent crime.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The goal of this study by Sommers and Baskin was to examine the extent of violence within various race-sex-crime-subgroups. More specifically, these were black, white, and Hispanic rates of violent offending broken down by gender.
METHODOLOGY:
A quasi-experimental research design was employed for this study. Secondary data sources were used from New York City and included both arrest counts by crime type for the years 1987-1990 and arrest records of 266 women. The data on arrests for murder/manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, and burglary were aggregated from raw data gathered from the New York City Police Department. These came in the form of arrest counts by crime type, race and age subgroups, and year (1987-1990). In conjunction with population estimates from the Census (1987 and 1990), race-age and crime specific arrest rates were constructed for the years 1987- 1990. A four year average rate was computed for the analysis. Additional official arrest record data came from a pool of 2615 women. These women were arrested during a six-month time period (January-June 1990) for a violent felony in Manhattan. Arraignment calendars were used to obtain this sample of arrested women offenders and official records data were subsequently collected on the 266 women. Rate calculations and descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The male rates of arrest for homicide, robbery, and burglary were about 18, 12, and 14 times higher, respectively, than the female rates. Aggravated assault was 7 times higher for men than for women. When rates of offending were classified by race and gender, these patterns emerged: 1) rates of offending were much higher for black and Hispanic males; 2) rates for black women were more comparable with white male rates and substantially higher than rates for white and Hispanic women; 3) Hispanic females fell in-between those for black females and white males and white females, and 4) rates of offending for white females were far below the other five subgroups. When ratios were calculated, it was found that white males and black females had the lowest ratio differentials and black males/white females and Hispanic males/white females showed the greatest disparity. The ratio between black males and black females was not as great as that between white males and white females, and ratios between Hispanic males and Hispanic females were the most dissimilar. The ratio of black females to white females was slightly greater to that of black males to white males except for homicide and robbery. The criminality of black females exceeded that of Hispanic females by a greater margin than did black males over Hispanic males. Findings regarding race-age offending rates were as follows: 1) male arrest rates for murder, robbery, and assault (regardless of race) were highest from mid-teens to mid-twenties; 2) burglary found peak involvement of Hispanic and white males in the mid 20s with a decline in the 30s while black male peaked at late 20s and continued at a high rate in the 30s; 3) female violent offending peaked at a later age for robbery than it did for males (20-24 compared to 15-19); 4) female age distributions for assault and burglary were similar to the male distributions, and 5) female involvement in homicide continued at a relatively equal rate into the 30s whereas the male rate dropped off in the 30s.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors advocated an examination of age and gender differences with a consideration of race. Disaggregation by offense type was also suggested for an examination of the nature and extent of violence within different offender subgroups. Further study should also focus, the authors stated, on the processes of how controls develop, change over time, and exert their influence on collective or individual behaviors.
EVALUATION:
This article takes an important step in the investigation of violence: disaggregation and study of subgroups of offenders. It is very likely (and shown here) that different factors and patterns emerge depending on who is under investigation. Efforts of this sort only expand our base for understanding the nature of violence. This study does not, however, make analyses that can allow us to make secure inferences about the population. The statistics were purely descriptive and not subject to probability testing. Additionally, the data were taken from New York City which may or may not be typical of other areas of the country. This article raises some important questions, and further research should address these questions in replications and sophistication of this study. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
N1 - Call Number: J, AB-463
KW - New York
KW - Age Differences
KW - Age Factors
KW - Gender Differences
KW - Racial Differences
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Crime
KW - Adult Crime
KW - Adult Offender
KW - Adult Violence
KW - Late Adolescence
KW - Early Adolescence
KW - African American Crime
KW - African American Adult
KW - African American Juvenile
KW - African American Offender
KW - African American Violence
KW - African American Male
KW - African American Female
KW - Hispanic Adult
KW - Hispanic Crime
KW - Hispanic Female
KW - Hispanic Male
KW - Hispanic Offender
KW - Hispanic Violence
KW - Caucasian Offender
KW - Caucasian Female
KW - Caucasian Male
KW - Caucasian Crime
KW - Caucasian Violence
KW - Adult Female
KW - Adult Male
KW - Juvenile Female
KW - Juvenile Male
KW - 1980s
KW - 1990s
KW - Female Crime
KW - Female Offender
KW - Female Violence
KW - Male Crime
KW - Male Offender
KW - Male Violence
KW - Robbery Offender
KW - Robbery Rates
KW - Robbery Incidence and Prevalence
KW - Physical Assault Incidence and Prevalence
KW - Physical Assault Rates
KW - Physical Assault Offender
KW - Arrest Rates
KW - Arrest Statistics
KW - Black-Hispanic Comparison
KW - Black-White Comparison
KW - Caucasian-Hispanic Comparison
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