NCJ Number
129595
Journal
Social Forces Volume: 69 Issue: 1 Dated: (September 1990) Pages: 53-70
Date Published
1990
Length
18 pages
Annotation
After an overview of the psychological and social-psychological factors mediating racial inequality and its impact on homicide rates, a new measure of racial inequality is introduced and tested empirically.
Abstract
Principles of microtheory upon which the measurement is based include the stress-anger-displacement principle, ethnic inequality within a multicultural society, and per capita diffuse anger. The measurement proposed here is consistent with the processes assumed to mediate ethnic inequality and the homicide rate and take into account the various ethnic and economically disadvantaged groups within a given community and the proportion of a specific group suffering that disadvantage. This measurement correlates with other important predictors of the homicide rate including poverty, general economic inequality, regional culture, race, and anomie and is also significantly correlated with the homicide rate itself. 3 tables, 1 figure, 9 notes, and 51 references (Author abstract modified)